Biz & IT —

As Windows 10 Creators Update nears completion, new build focuses on fixes

Lots is fixed, but some strange glitches persist.

Cortana's latest animation.
Cortana's latest animation.
Two new Windows 10 builds went out today to fast ring members of the Insider Program: 15042 for desktop PCs and 15043 for phones. They bring a barrage of bug fixes, but little in the way of new features. The Windows SDK has been feature complete for a couple of weeks now; combine that with the focus on fixing known issues, and we can assume that the software is being prepared for its final release.

This doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't still making modifications in response to user feedback. Flash in Edge is going to be click-to-run, and the latest Windows build will make it more obvious that Flash content has been blocked and can be manually re-enabled. The company is also refining the way Edge handles EPUB books so the browser can serve double duty as a reading application to support books sold through the Windows Store.

Microsoft is also continuing to work on the out-of-box experience (OOBE). In the Creators Update, driving the initial system setup through voice commands will be possible using Cortana—and there's a new animation to support that. Presumably, this is preparatory work for a time when headless Cortana systems become available.

A cursory use of the new build suggests it's less weird and glitchy than the last build that Microsoft published, so things feel like they're heading in the right direction. Even at this relatively late stage in development, though, weird bugs and problems are still cropping up. Although it should be available to everyone now, the PC build was initially released only for 64-bit machines, while 32-bit systems had a blocking issue.

People installing the latest build may experience odd failures due to a broken registry entry. This build, like several before it, may still have strange broken audio and high disk I/O due to misbehavior from a process named spectrum.exe. Redmond says that the "primary bug" has been fixed, but problems endure.

Channel Ars Technica