Windows 10 October 2018 Update now available

Lenovo · December 8, 2018

The new feature update of Windows 10 , known with various nomenclatures, is nearing its completion. In the early stages of beta it was indicated as v. 1809 and Redstone 5, and recently Microsoft has formalized what will be the name for the audience: Windows 10 October 2018 Update. Over time, the American multinational has added various features and improvements in order to improve the user experience and make it more modern and in line with users' expectations.

But what are the news of the update ? On the page we report all the changes known at the feature level as well as officialized by Microsoft (in English) in the various release notes that accompanied the individual Insider versions. From here to the official debut of the update there are no further news, with the list that we indicate below should be particularly indicative of all the additional features that we will find in the October update of Windows 10.

News on Windows Shell

File Explorer now features a dark theme when Dark Mode is enabled in Settings.

You can now name live folders in Start.

A new "safe removal" feature has been added to open applications that could be using an external GPU connected via Thunderbolt 3.

Notifications in the Action Center now feature a fade-in effect when the Action Center is opened.

A redesigned snipping experience is presented and can be accessed via WIN + SHIFT + S.

Snips will now present a notification that will open up into Screen Sketch, which is now a dedicated app.

You can now configure pen peripherals to take a snip when pressing a button.

Screen Print can now be configured to open.

A new "Screen snip" action has been added to quick actions in the Action Center.

Copied content can be seen in a new clipboard experience, accessed with WIN + V, that can also sync to the cloud and across devices.

There are three different modes you can select when wirelessly projecting your screen, and these modes are game, productivity, and video modes.

Users upgrading to this release for the first time will be welcomed with a post-OOBE UI

Game Bar has been redesigned with an overview of system performance and more.

Search will now provide download links for programs searched online.

You can now use Windows Mixed Reality without a monitor.

Storage Sense can now switch files to "online-only" if they have not been accessed after a certain number of days.

Pen users can now ink directly into text boxes by default.

Users can now view the real world when using Windows Mixed Reality using a built-in room headsets.

Emoji 11 is now available.

Game bar is now accessible via the Apps List in Start.

Windows 10 settings

Bluetooth peripherals will now display their battery percentage within Settings.

Data Usage has been updated with roaming usage information.

You can now choose to keep your mouse on the screen when using the Magnifier tool.

Magnifier tool can now be incremented by 5 or 10 percent.

Focus Assist will now enable regardless of what game you're playing.

Sound device properties have now been integrated into the Settings app.

Settings will now suggest common questions asked by users and present answers in the sidebar.

Settings now feature tips and suggestions on the home page.

You can now override the regional default settings such as Calendar, First day of the week, Dates, Times, and Currency.

SwiftKey now powers the on-screen and touch keyboards.

Typing insights are now available in the Settings app.

You can now make text size bigger from the overall display scaling options in Settings.

A new Windows HD version is now available under Display Settings that allow you to configure HDR settings.

Windows now supports leap seconds.

Windows Update will help you learn when to install and not install updates.

News on Cortana

Cortana has been updated with a wider landing page.

News on Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge now features a subtle drop shadow behind tabs.

The settings drop-down menu in Edge has been redesigned with icons for each option.

The Edge has been redesigned to look like the Hub area.

Edge can now control whether video is allowed to play on a webpage automatically.

Reading View now features more themes in Edge.

Reading View now features line focus that helps to improve focus while reading an article.

You will now be able to save your card when you fill out billing-related forms.

A new icon for PDFs is present.

The PDF reader has an updated toolbar with additional options including "add notes."

You can now pin / unpin the toolbar at the top of the PDF document.

Your top sites in Edge are now listed in the Edge's jumplist menu.

Microsoft Edge now features Web Authentication APIs for logging into websites with Windows Hello.

"Show in folder."

You can now configure media auto-play controls for site.

You can now look up definitions of words in Reading View, Books, and PDFs.

Edge now features new policies for IT administrators to configure.

The XSS filter has been retired.

Updated Microsoft Edge's Hub

You can now refresh the bread books in Microsoft Edge using a pull gesture.

When you start from Microsoft Edge, you will now see a live thread that cycles between the book and your current completion progress.

When printing PDFs from Microsoft Edge, you'll find a new option to choose the scale of your print out (Actual size, or Fit to page).

When you press F1 on Microsoft Edge, it will now be the Microsoft Edge support page, rather than Microsoft Edge tips.

When a tab in Microsoft Edge is playing audio, the volume icon will be light when you hover your mouse over it.

When you open local files (like PDFs) in Microsoft Edge, those files will now appear in the History section.

Updated Microsoft Edge so if you can not play audio, you will be able to pre-emptively mute it from the context menu right-clicking the tab.

System app

"Your Phone" app is now synonymous with your Android and iPhone to share photos, notifications, SMS conversations, and more.

You can now search in the Calendar app.

Windows Calculator now correctly calculates square roots for perfect squares.

Windows Defender Security Center has been renamed to "Windows Security" and now features Fluent Design.

Notepad now features Unix / Linus line endings (LF) and Macintosh line endings (CR.)

Wrap-around find / replace now available in Notepad.

You can now zoom in to text in Notepad.

Line numbers now work with word-wrap.

You can now right-click and "Search with Bing" text highlighted in Notepad.

Narrator's scan mode now supports selecting content in Microsoft Edge, Word, Outlook, Mail, and most text surfaces.

Skype has been redesigned and updated with new features.

Task manager now features "power usage" and "power usage trend" tabs.

More news and improvements

Monitored to your PC when using Windows Mixed Reality.

Apps running in Windows Mixed Capture UI API to capture images of the mixed reality world using the system capture experience.

Updated the touch keyboard.

Updated the "Graphics settings."

When your volume is muted.

If you click the Reset button on the volume and device preferences page, you will now reset any app-specific volumes you've set back to default (100%).

Updated Start new version of the Ease of Access setting to enable or disable hiding scrollbars.

Updated the new notification to fix the blurry apps so that it will now come in the Action Center to be accessed later once the toast has timed out and dismissed.

In Display Panel Power Options and the "Display brightness" section under Power Options Advanced Settings.

When you clean up or do PC refresh, you'll find that the Out of Box experience for your PC now includes a page for enabling activity history sync, which will help you continue what you were doing, even when you switch devices .

Emoji Panel - You will now see a series of skin tones in the Emoji Panel.

When you hover over the Windows icon in the taskbar, the tooltip will now appear for Start.

Updated the design of the handwriting panel so that the button is now at the top-level button. Menu is now under the "..." button.

If you go to Pen & Windows Ink Settings, you'll find a new option that allows you to be a mouse instead of scrolling or panning the screen.

We've updated the design of this PC.

Audio recording recording using the game bar (WIN + G).

When you are hover over the leaf icon in the Task Manager's Status column, you will now see a tooltip describing what it means (this app is suspending processes to help improve system performance).

If you've enabled WSL, you'll now see an option to "Open Linux Shell here" when you Shift + Right-click on the whitespace of a File Explorer folder.

Introduced preview support for same-site cookies in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11.

RSAT is now a feature on demand.

To improve discoverability, we've moved Delivery Optimization Settings to update.

Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge and Gigantic files are now defined as 0 - 10KB, 16KB - 1MB, 1 MB to 128 MB, 128 MB - 1 GB, 1 GB - 4 GB, and> 4 GB, respectively in File Explorer.

"Rename" will now be "view your PC name".

To improve clarity, we've separated Settings> Privacy> Speech, Inking & Typing into two settings: Settings> Privacy> Speech and Settings> Privacy> Inking & typing personalization.

Added DTS: X to the list of spatial audio technologies you can use.

Address to the audio troubleshooter if querying the volume or mute state failed.

When using the touch keyboard, you'll find that the clipboard is now always visible in the candidate bread. Tapping it will bring up your clipboard history for you to browse and paste from.

Is now available when using English (Australia.)

Updated Ease of Access flyout on the login screen so that Narrator now has an on / off toggle.

Azure Active Directory and Active Directory users using Windows Hello for Business can use biometrics to authenticate to a remote desktop session.

Your Phone app is pinned to the desktop by default.

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Microsoft has released a new cumulative update for Windows 10 October 2018 Update about six days from the release date scheduled for the next Patch Tuesday (which is notoriously falling on the second Tuesday of each month). The 1908 version, one of the most problematic ever released by the Redmond colossus, is being updated for the first time since the November Patch Tuesday, while the other previous versions received an update last November 27th.

The new package is identified on Windows Update as KB4469342, and brings the October update to Build 17763.168. You can download it at this address or simply by manually starting the search for new updates on the Windows Update page of the Settings. Here is the complete changelog in its entirety in English:

Addresses an issue in Microsoft Edge with the drag-and-drop feature to upload folders from the Windows to the file hosting service website, such as Microsoft OneDrive. In some scenarios, files contained in the folders fail to upload, with possibly no error reported on the web page to the user.
Internet Explorer performance when you use roaming profiles or you do not use the Microsoft Compatibility List.
Addresses updated time zone information for Fiji.
Addresses time zone changes for Moroccan daylight standard time.
Addresses time zone changes for Russian daylight standard time.
Addresses an issue that cause a display of multiple settings.
Display a black screen on some servers when waking to display from sleep.
Camera app in certain lighting conditions.
Addresses an issue that prevents TV live Hulu content from playing in Microsoft Edge; instead, a black screen appears.
Addresses an issue that stops Bluetooth® headsets from receiving audio input after several minutes of listening.
Addresses an issue that causes the Brightness slider to be reset to 50% when the device restarts.
Addresses an issue with the OEM manufacturing processes when running sysprep / generalize.
Addresses an issue with Microsoft Intune: a firewall incorrectly returns to 'Poor' status. As a result, the affected devices will not receive a conditional access.
Addresses to performance issue with vSwitches on network interface cards (NICs) that do not support Large Send Offloads (LSO) and Checksum Offloads (CSOs).
Updates the Wi-Fi policy for service set identifier (SSID) filtering to avoid filtering out Wi-Fi Direct devices.
Addresses an issue that causes rasman.exe to stop responding.
Addresses an issue in which regedit.exe fails to add double null terminator to REG_MULTI_SZvalues in the Windows registry. REG_MULTI_SZ values that regedit.exe adds after installing the operating system.
Addresses an issue with Remote Access
Win32 program defaults for certain applications and files type using the Open with ... command or Settings> Apps> Default apps.
Addresses an issue that may lead to Windows device.
There are two known problems: the first with the navigation bar inside the multimedia content on Windows Media Player, the second on Microsoft Edge that, in the presence of an NVIDIA video card with a specific driver release, crashes during the video playback. For this second problem NVIDIA has already released a version of the driver updated with the fix (so just install the latest drivers to get around), while the first will be resolved in mid-December.