It"s a new week, and that means that it"s time for a new Windows 10 for PCs Insider Preview build in the Fast ring. Build 17110 contains a few new features for enterprises, and that"s about it.
It"s a bit unusual for the team to release a new build on a Tuesday, especially since build 17107 was flighted just four days ago. Typically, Microsoft is testing new builds internally on the first couple of days of the week. The early release might be attributed to the fact that Redstone 4 - the next version of Windows 10 - is going to be finalized soon, so Insider flights are going to be more frequent.
Here"s what"s new today:
Improvements for Enterprise Customers in RS4
Enterprises can now run custom actions during feature update: In RS4, we are adding a new feature that will enable your enterprise to run your own custom actions/scripts synchronously with setup. Setup will execute custom actions during two update phases controlled by using preinstall.cmd or precommit.cmd:
- Pre-install: This would be just before all the system and device compatibility scans run.
- Pre-commit: This would be just before the system reboots into the offline phase.
Setup also migrates the scripts for future updates. In the event of an update failure or rollback, a failure.cmd script can be used to perform custom operations or undo actions of previous custom scripts.
Run (Migrate):
C:\Windows\System32\update\run\>GUID>\preinstall.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\run\<GUID>\precommit.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\run\>GUID>\failure.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\run\<GUID>\reflectdrivers\foo.inf
C:\Windows\System32\update\run\<GUID>\reflectdrivers\foo.sys
Run Once (Do not migrate):
C:\Windows\System32\update\runonce\>GUID>\preinstall.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\runonce\<GUID>\precommit.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\runonce\<GUID>\failure.cmd
C:\Windows\System32\update\runonce\<GUID>\reflectdrivers\bar.inf
C:\Windows\System32\update\runonce\<GUID>\reflectdrivers\bar.sys
Enterprises can run post rollback scripts in system context: Current /postrollback scripts run if the first user logs in after the rollback has admin privileges. We received feedback from several enterprises that most of their employees don’t have admin privileges. With RS4, we are enabling /postrollback scripts to run in admin context or system context.
We are not changing the behavior of the existing /postrollback switch. We have added a new switch /postrollbackcontext “xxx” to be used along with /postrollback switch to specify in which context should the scripts be executed:
To run /postrollback scripts in system context
– setup.exe /postrollback c:\Fabrikam\setuprollback.cmd /postrollbackcontext system
To run /postrollback scripts with first user to login have admin privileges (admin context)
– setup.exe /postrollback c:\Fabrikam\setuprollback.cmd /postrollbackcontext admin
Windows containers
Docker for Windows users, we are flighting the matching Windows container images of Server Coreand Nano Server to the Docker Hub for continued testing and feedback. Thank you for all the great feedback and please keep it coming!
More specifically, Redstone 4 is slated to be finalized in March, given the version number of 1803. Microsoft still hasn"t provided any specifics about availability, or even what it will be called. A Feedback Hub Quest once referred to it as the Spring Creators Update, and that was quickly changed.
But with the update slated to be ready to go soon, and likely generally available in April, Microsoft will surely be offering some information in the coming weeks.