What’s new in Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10130

Andy Weir Senior News Editor Neowin @gcaweir · May 29, 2015 18:03 EDT · Hot! with 86 comments

Just nine days after releasing its last Windows 10 preview, build 10122, Microsoft today released Insider Preview build 10130 — but if you were expecting any big new feature additions in this build, you may be disappointed.

The company said today that «from here onward you are going to see a lot of tuning, tweaking, stabilizing, and polishing which means fewer big feature changes from build to build» — but this release still brings a range of notable improvements to the OS, as it gets closer to the final build that will be released to manufacturers.

Microsoft’s release notes for build 10130 reveal what’s new in the latest preview:

Start: You can now customize your Start experience by opening the Settings app > Personalization > Start.

Here, you will be able to turn on full screen Start when in the desktop if you want. You can also customize the locations that are shown on bottom left of Start where you see Power and All apps listed. In 10122, it showed File Explorer and Settings but you can now customize this list here. (Note – in this build there is a known bug where after upgrading from Build 10122 to this build removes the File Explorer and Settings icons from the location area of Start. You can add them back in the Settings app as I mentioned previously and you’ll need to sign out and back in to see changes you make to the list.

Icon design: We’ve updated our icon design to reflect our Microsoft design language, creating a more consistent and cohesive look and feel across all our product experiences. These icons are more modern and lightweight, while creating a better visual relationship between typography and iconography. On top of that, app icons are now more consistent between desktop and mobile so apps like Word and Excel look similar no matter what device you’re using.

Feedback played a huge role in the current icon design refresh. In earlier preview builds, we heard our design was too flat and lacked richness. We’ve since iterated to deliver a balance between mono line style icons on mobile, and the three dimensional depth of desktop icons. The new icon set is familiar, yet fresh and usable.

Between the legacy aero-style icons and new app icons, several thousand icons were designed and redesigned. We explored Swiss graphic design, Dutch product design, and modern architecture (among other design fields and styles) to inform and inspire the design process. The icon evolution will continue as we push more consistency and better functionality.

Jump Lists on the Taskbar: We’ve refined the UI for Jump Lists so that it matches the rest of the new UI for Start and the Taskbar in Windows 10. Right-click on File Explorer if you have it pinned to your Taskbar and check out the updated Jump List.

Continuum improvements: When in Tablet mode, you can now swipe the top edge to open up the app commands if the app has them just like you could on Windows 8.1. We heard a lot of feedback from Windows Insiders on this and we’ve brought it back based on your input.

Improvements to Microsoft Edge: You’ll see improvements with Microsoft Edge in this build (still codenamed “Project Spartan” while we prep our branding changes) including the ability to pin/unpin the Cortana pane, Favorites pane, Reading list pane, or any other pane in the browser.

We’ve introduced more advanced print options. We’ve improved Address Bar badges. We’ve also made improvements to Reading view to support different content, window sizes, and device layouts such as the Surface Pro 3 in portrait. And playing full screen video on websites like YouTube or Hulu now work as you would expect.

Taskbar settings for Virtual Desktops: A month ago we introduced two Taskbar configurations for Virtual Desktop users and asked Windows Insiders to vote for their favorite. On one hand there is the global Taskbar that shows windows across all desktops and on the other hand there is the filtered Taskbar that only shows windows on the current desktop. Thousands and thousands of you have taken the opportunity to rate your experience living with these configurations. On average the satisfaction score for global Taskbar was 3.8 versus 4.2 for filtered Taskbar. We also observed users are 34% more likely to be strongly satisfied with the filtered Taskbar and three times less likely to be strongly dissatisfied compared to the global taskbar. The Insiders have spoken! The Taskbar will be filtered by default starting with this flight. Don’t worry global Taskbar fans, you can have it your way with just a settings change: Settings app > System > Multitasking > Virtual Desktops.

Cortana keyboard shortcut: For all you keyboard shortcut lovers out there – try out Win key + C. This will now launch Cortana’s speech recognition to ask questions, set reminders etc.

Microsoft Print to PDF: The feature in Windows 10 for printing to PDF now called “Microsoft Print to PDF”. To try it out, simply select “Print” from app and choose “Microsoft Print to PDF” as printer. If you were using “Print as a PDF” previously, you can remove it from Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers > right-click on “Print as a PDF” and select “Remove device”.

Microsoft Print to PDF: The feature in Windows 10 for printing to PDF now called “Microsoft Print to PDF”. To try it out, simply select “Print” from app and choose “Microsoft Print to PDF” as printer. If you were using “Print as a PDF” previously, you can remove it from Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers > right-click on “Print as a PDF” and select “Remove device”.

Playback improvements with the Movies & TV app: You can now play videos in the Movies & TV app in full screen mode with this build.

While this is an overview of the major changes that Microsoft has made in build 10130, there are likely to be many more smaller — but still useful — improvements and enhancements in the new build that haven’t been detailed above.

Be sure to send us a tip if you spot anything exciting in build 10130 — and let us know how you get on with installing and using it!

Windows 10 build 10130: Everything you need to know

While we were not expecting a new build of Windows 10 this week, Microsoft decided to surprise Insiders with a new preview. This time, Microsoft has rolled out Windows 10 build 10130 with a few improvements and some polish.

The software giant says that moving forward, we are going to see more tuning, tweaking, and simply more stable and polish version of Windows 10. The company is now trying to get the operating system ready for launch, which is likely to happen as soon as July. With only two months left, Microsoft is more focused on fixing what’s already included, instead of introducing more features.

Recently, Windows 10 build 10125 emerged onto the web, unveiling a number of updates, some of which are now present in Windows 10 build 10130. However, today we are going to see everything Microsoft has included since the last official release (build 10122), which will help everyone to have a better picture of what’s to come.

Below, you will find all the new changes in Windows 10 build 10130:

Start menu

The software giant includes various tweaks that make the Start experience a little better. In Windows 10 build 10130, you can open the Settings app > Personalized > Start to customize whether you like the Start menu to show apps and content suggestions, display recently opened apps, or show the recently added apps group.

Also, you can now click on Customize list to customize the list of places that appear on the bottom left of the Start menu, by the Power options.

Note: Microsoft is also warning that there is a bug upgrading from Windows 10 build 10122 that removes the default File Explorer and Settings. If you experience the issue, you can go to the Start settings to add the places back.

When going to «All apps», users can now click the listing labels (0-9, A, B, C. ) to access a new grid with letters contains apps. This new addition will help users to get through the list faster to find an app.

Users will see that a «New» label will appear next to the «All apps» indicating that there are new apps installed in the system. On the other hand, when you are in Tablet mode, the new hamburger button on the top-left, will have a «big dot» indicating a new app has been installed.

Also, this new build gets rid of the 3D flipping animations for Live Tiles in favor of a similar animation that Windows 8.1 users see in the Start screen.

Jump Lists

In this new version, Jump Lists menus have been updated to match the language design Microsoft is following with Windows 10. And Jump Lists not only appear when you right-click an app or File Explorer in the taskbar, but also in the Start menu.

Continuum

Continuum, also known as Tablet mode, has been slightly updated. Now users can swipe in from the top edge to open the app commands, just like Windows 8.1 users expect.

Officially in Windows 10 build 10130, the taskbar gets a universal back button that works in the same way as on a Windows Phone. Accessing and drilling inside an app, you can now click the back button to jump a step back, and if you are in the homepage of the app, clicking the back button will move out of the app to the previous app or Start menu.

Desktop

The desktop environment in Windows 10 gets various tweaks and improvements. The most noticeable change is the new updated set of icons. Users will now see updated icons for File Explorer, Quick access, This PC, Network, drives, and pretty much all around the operating system.

The new icon design matches the Windows 10 design language. They are more consistent and cohesive across the OS. They are a very similar to what users are used to seeing in Windows 7 and Windows 8. Microsoft also notes that the new icons are more consistent between desktop and mobile, which means that apps like Word and Excel will look similar on any device.

Other subtle changes include a new taskbar animations for actions, such as moving files and downloads. For example, now downloads fill vertically as you can see in the image below.

In Windows 10 build 10130, there is no more ugly borders in the Action Center. It looks more integrated into the operating system.

The Volume controls, battery, and network pane are now also transparent.

There is a print feature in Windows 10 and Microsoft is now renaming it to «Microsoft Print to PDF». If previously, you were using «Print as a PDF», you can delete this option by going to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers, then right-click Print as a PDF and finally select Removed device.

On the taskbar, Microsoft is finally changing the behavior for Virtual Desktops. Now the taskbar will only show windows on the current desktop by default. If you want to change this behavior, you can go to Settings apps > System > Multitasking > Virtual Desktops.

And on Movies & TV, users can now play videos in full-screen mode.

Cortana

Microsoft is tweaking Cortana a bit more in build 10130. Users will notice that the initial setup process has changed with new animations and graphics to make the experience a little smoother.

The software maker also includes a new keyboard shortcut: Windows Key + C to launch the speech recognition UI.

Windows Hello

Windows Hello, which is a new security feature that allows users to sign-in to Windows 10 without a password and only using facial recognition, makes an appearance in this new preview. However, it appears that you cannot configure it at this time (or at least without the correct hardware).

Microsoft Edge

In Windows 10 build 10130, Microsoft continues to call its new web browser «Project Spartan», but the company says that soon they will change it the name to «Microsoft Edge».

In this new build, the web browser jumps to version 15.10130. You can pin Cortana, Favorites, Reading list, and other panes to the software while browsing the web.

Other changes include improved advanced print options. The address bar badges have also been updated. Reading view also has support for more type of content, window sizes, and device layouts.

In this new build, users can finally go to sites like YouTube or Hulu and play videos in true full-screen mode.

Finally, the Settings pane is now divided into two sections. The main settings section features options to configure new tab pages, change default search engine (which you can’t change at this moment), reading view, and more. Then there is the Advanced settings where you can enable or disable Adobe Flash Player, change privacy settings, enable or disable Cortana for Microsoft Edge, and more (refer to previous image).

Wrapping things up

Overall, Windows 10 build 10130 looks more polished and stable. Just navigating around and using apps feels more solid than before, but of course I’m only speaking for myself. I’m pretty sure that with different hardware, the operating system will still behave differently, and many Windows Insiders may have a total different experience.

There are no big changes in this build, and we won’t be seeing major changes either as Microsoft engineers have already locked all the features. They are now just trying to finish the operating system by summer time.

Even though there are still some bugs that need to be worked out, Microsoft says that build 10130 is expected to release to the Slow ring of updates. The ISO files for this build are likely to be available soon.

Windows 10 has come a long way, how do you feel about the results? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

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