Here's what's fixed, improved, and still broken in build 18305

In typical Microsoft fashion, the weekly Windows 10 build for Insiders in the Fast Ring is out on a Wednesday, and build 18305 actually included a handful of new additions. These include the new Windows Sandbox experience announced earlier today, improvements to Windows Security, and much more.

However, as usual, there's more to this release than new features. Build 18305 comes with a long list of fixes and general improvements, including a Settings app crash when opening Speech Settings. Here's the full list:

• We fixed an issue resulting in bug checks with error “KERNEL SECURITY CHECK FAILURE” while creating/launching VMs or installing/performing scans with certain AV Apps.
• We fixed an issue where the Open Folder icon in File Explorer had a white background when using dark theme.
• We fixed an issue in the previous build where Settings was crashing when opening Speech Settings.
• We fixed an issue where the Action Center didn’t have an opening animation in the last few flights.
• We fixed an issue where the activities listed so you could easily pick up where you left off when opening search all had an unexpectedly old timestamp.
• We fixed an issue where the search box in the taskbar had a truncated dark border in light theme.
• We fixed a few scenarios that could result in the taskbar unexpectedly becoming transparent.
• We fixed an issue that could result in taskhostw.exe unexpectedly using a large amount of CPU for a long time.
• We fixed an issue where Settings would crash when clicking on the “View storage usage on other drives” option under System > Storage in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue where “Delete previous version of Windows” in Configure Storage Sense was not selectable.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Backup unexpectedly failing for some with a message saying the media is write protected (error code 0x80070013).
• When the Search section is visible in Settings it will now come before Update & Security.
• We fixed an issue where some pages in Settings had more space at the top than others.
• We fixed an issue resulting in ☆ and some other characters not appearing correctly in certain text fields.
• We fixed an issue where the Windows Ink Workspace was using the old Microsoft Store icon.
• We fixed an issue where the emoji picker might draw partially offscreen if invoked near the bottom of the screen.
• We fixed an issue where the second line of the input indicator in the taskbar, when shown, wasn’t legible in light theme.
• We’ve updated our message in the Snipping Tool to include a tip about using WIN+Shift+S to help improve discoverability – thanks folks that suggested this!
• We fixed an issue where in the Details tab of Task Manager you couldn’t sort by the “Shared GPU memory” column.
• We fixed an issue resulting in ShellExperienceHost.exe preventing the device from going to sleep with message “A Miracast Session is currently connected.” despite said session having already been disconnected.
• We fixed an issue from the previous flight where on some systems the High Definition Audio Controller failed to start with Code 10, resulting in no audio from the onboard speakers and microphone.

Of course, even with all those improvements, there are a few issues to be found in this release. Specifically, devices in S Mode may fail to install the update after restarting. Here's what you need to be aware of:

• The hyperlink colors need to be refined in Dark Mode in Sticky Notes if the Insights are enabled.
• The Windows Security app may show an unknown status for the Virus & threat protection area, or not refresh properly. This may occur after upgrade, restart, or settings changes.
• The cmimanageworker.exe process may hang, causing system slowness or higher than normal CPU usage. This can be bypassed by rebooting the machine if it occurs.
• Launching games that use BattlEye anti-cheat will trigger a bug check (green screen) – we’re investigating.
• USB printers may appear twice in the Devices and Printers under Control Panel. Reinstalling the printer will resolve the issue.
• We’re investigating an issue where clicking your account in Cortana Permissions isn’t bringing up the UI to sign out from Cortana (if you were already signed in) for some users in this build.
• If you’re using Hyper-V and have added an external vSwitch in addition to the default, many UWP apps won’t be able to connect to the internet. Removing the additional vSwitch will resolve this.
• The Task Scheduler UI may appear blank even though there are scheduled tasks. For now, you’ll need to use the command line if you want to see them.
• Creative X-Fi sound cards are not functioning properly. We are partnering with Creative to resolve this issue.
• When attempting to update to build 18305 some S Mode devices will download and restart, but fail the update.

Developers also have one specific issue to be aware of:

If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring – optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings.

Build 18305 is the last one to be released in 2018, as the holiday season draws closer. In January, Microsoft will be kicking off the only Bug Bash planned for this release. Today, the company also announced that the dates for the bug-squashing event have been moved to January 23 through February 3.