Microsoft Windows 10 Build 10158: Almost ready for prime time
Microsoft Windows 10 Build 10158: Almost ready for prime time
Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10158 on June 29, 2015 – exactly one month before the scheduled release of the final version on July 29. We took the newest version for a spin on an updated a Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet that was previously running the rather-buggy build 10130. The update process took a lot longer than expected because the initial download process froze several times. Restarts weren’t helpful, but power cycling the tablet re-enabled the process.
Microsoft warns you that several system restarts will take place during the update process. The update separated the files download, installation, configuration, and something referred to as app updates. Here’s a few initial impressions after going through the update process.
If you are a “Windows Insider” (beta tester) and want to continue to get update information about previews, you should reinstall the Insider Hub app like Microsoft recommends because this preview build removes it in preparation of the final Windows 10 release:
Go to Settings, System, Apps & features.
Click Manage optional features then Add a feature.
Select the Insider Hub entry (the list is in alphabetical order) and click Install.
I was happy to find that Dell’s Bluetooth drivers and settings survived the update process. This was not the case in a number of previews build updates. Third party apps like Google Chrome and Evernote for the desktop also made it to the other side of the update process.
Microsoft’s Mail app, which was completely broken for me after build 10122 now seems to work. It is synced with two different IMAP4/SMTP server pairs that were not working previously. Microsoft made two changes that popped out at me. First, the long touch to start the process of selecting multiple mail messages is gone. It was replaced by an unlabeled list icon above the message list. This is probably easier to discover than the long-touch. The ability to label mail as junk, however, has vanished.
After nearly two hours of use, it looks like the Wi-Fi connection has been stable. There hasn’t been a need to reconnect to the access point yet. This has been a big problem for the last couple of builds. And, most importantly, I have yet to see a “Critical Error” message urging me to sign-out and then additionally needing to restart Windows. This is something that happened ever hour or two for the past couple of months now.
I found a couple of issues and problems in build 10158. However, the problems are relatively minor. I haven’t found any showstoppers yet.
First, the battery icon which has been in the right lower corner of the status bar was moved to the pop-up status box for hidden icons. I’m using Windows 10 on a tablet and it is very useful to see its battery status when working with it. Hiding this by default makes little sense.
Second, tapping “All settings” in the Action Center while in tablet mode launches the Settings Window in a background Virtual Desktop. I had to either tap the Task View icon in the status bar or switch to Desktop mode to see the Settings Window.
Finally, Microsoft Cortana does not like the Dell Venue 8 Pro’s built-in microphone. It warned me that “The Microphone (Intel SST Audio Device (WDM)) mic used with this PC was not designed for Cortana, so she might be able to hear you clearly.” However, after going through the setup process and despite the warning, Cortana seems to work consistently using speech input. Again, it’s not clear if this is a problem many users will have with older systems, or what the tolerances are for proper Cortana function in older PCs.
Build 10158 appears to be a lot more stable and functional than the previous builds I tested (10130 and 10122). However, it will take a couple of days of using this build to determine its stability and, perhaps, find new issues. Microsoft is clearly patching issues at a frantic pace ahead of next month’s release.
malikmuddser