Today is a big day if you"re a Windows Insider. Microsoft released the first build from the Redstone 5 development branch to those that chose to "Skip Ahead" last July. The ring is a fork of the Fast ring, and it was originally made for those that wanted to skip ahead to Redstone 4. There was limited availability, and it was closed down a couple of weeks later.
Unfortunately, the firm will not be reopening the ring just yet. It"s still at capacity, and Microsoft says that it will let us know if anything changes. It does seem like the rest of us will just have to wait until Redstone 4 hits production, before Redstone 5 hits the standard Fast ring.
Build 17604 contains the same new features as the new RS4 build, but it also contains its own list of fixes, improvements, and known issues. Here"s what got fixed and improved:
We fixed an issue from the last flight were some PCs failed to resume from hibernate (requiring a hard reboot to recover).
We fixed an issue after upgrading to the last flight where Start didn’t work for Insiders who’d had HomeGroup added as a folder to appear on Start.
We’ve updated the touch keyboard so that if you try to shapewrite in an unsupported text field or when the typing resources aren’t installed, you won’t see the shapewriting trail as you swipe your finger over the keys.
Fixed an issue which may have caused a Microsoft Edge tab to crash after playing video when some extensions are enabled
We fixed an issue resulting in newly installed Microsoft Edge extensions not appearing in the Extensions pane in the last two flights.
We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard showed an English layout with no IME on/off key when an East Asian keyboard is the only input method on your system.
We fixed an issue that could result in the mouse cursor suddenly jump to screen corner while mouse was moving in a List Control.
We fixed an issue resulting in certain fingerprint readers not working in recent flights.
We fixed an issue where Windows Hello failed to work on Surface Laptops with the last build.
We’re updating the “Advanced graphics settings” link on the Display Settings page to now just say “Graphics Settings”.
When your volume is muted, the volume icons in the Sound Settings page will also now appear muted.
If you click the Reset button on the App volume and device preferences page, it will now also reset any app specific volumes you’ve set back to default (100%).
We fixed an issue resulting in app updates failing in the Microsoft Store with error 0x80070057 in recent builds.
Here are the known issues:
3 and 4 finger gestures on the touchpad are unresponsive.
The Japanese IME sometimes can’t turn on in UWP apps. If you encounter this issue switch to a Win32 application (e.g. Notepad), turn the IME on there, then switch back to the UWP app.
Plugging in an external optical drive (DVD) will cause an Explorer.exe crash.
Bringing up Game bar using the Xbox button on an Xbox One controller doesn’t work in some games.
In the text box for Mixer stream title, using non-character keys (e.g. Tab, Delete, Backspace, etc.) may cause the game to hang for a few seconds.
Selecting a notification after taking a screenshot or game clip opens the Xbox app’s home screen instead of opening the screenshot or game clip.
In some games—such as Destiny 2 and Fortnite—mouse and keyboard input will still go to the game while Game bar is open.
Buttons on Game bar are not centered correctly.
Keyboard and mouse input may not work correctly in Game bar when playing a first person game (e.g. Minecraft). Alt + Tab out of and into the game should fix this.
Settings will crash if you open the Themes Settings page.
If you opted to Skip Ahead when it was available, you can grab today"s build by heading to Settings -> Update & security -> Windows Update -> Check for updates. If not, keep an eye out for the ring to open up again, and keep your fingers crossed.