Yesterday, Microsoft released the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, completely skipping over the Release Preview ring of the Windows Insider Program. That means that build 17763 was confirmed as RTM, and the window was closing for users to remove their machines from the Insider Program without doing a factory reset.
Microsoft closed that window in record time, as you had exactly 20 hours to do so with the firm releasing Windows 10 build 18252 to the Fast ring today. If you don"t take your PC off of the Insider Program now, you"ll have to do a clean installation to roll back to build 17763.
Today"s build is a preview of the next feature update to Windows 10, codenamed 19H1. While it"s been in testing for Skip Ahead Insiders for some time, this is the first time it"s arrived in the Fast ring.
Fast ring Insiders really haven"t missed any major new features, and there aren"t any arriving today. There are some minor new features though:
Network improvements
Enhanced settings for Ethernet: We’ve heard your feedback, and you can now use the Settings app to configure advanced Ethernet IP settings. We have added support for configuring a static IP address as well as setting a preferred DNS server. These settings were previously accessed within Control Panel, but you will now find them on the connection properties page under IP settings.
New icon for disconnected internet: First seen on Always Connected PCs, as some keen eye’d Insiders noticed, we have brought the disconnected internet icon to all devices running Windows 10. This single icon appears when there is no internet connection detected, and replaces the individual disconnected icons for Cellular, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet. This new icon should help you quickly identify network problems so that you can take action to resolve them.
Ebrima font addition with ADLaM support
The Windows team is pleased to announce you can now read your ADLaM documents and webpages with the Windows Ebrima font!
ADLaMis a writing system for Pular/Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani people, predominantly residing in west Africa. In the early 1990s, two young teenager brothers, Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry, created this writing system. Their work became “Bindi Pulaar” and eventually “ADLaM,” ADLaM is enabling literacy and growing in use for commerce, education, and publishing across western Africa. It was added to Unicode in Unicode 9.0.
The Ebrima font also supports other African writings systems N’ko, Tifinagh, Vai and Osmanya – here’s a sample of what the font looks like:
Microsoft did say that if you don"t want the 19H1 builds that are bound to be buggy at first, you might want to switch your PC to the Slow ring. If Redstone 5 was any indication, you"ll have months before 19H1 shows up in the Slow ring, and Release Preview wouldn"t get it until launch day.
If you do choose to go the Fast ring route, Microsoft is rewarding you with a badge in the Feedback Hub, and you can use the hashtag "builds4badges" on social media.