Here's whats fixed, improved, and still broken in Windows 10 build 18298

A week after a dry spell of no new fast ring builds, Microsoft today released build 18298 to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. Fast ring builds usually are released on Wednesdays, and today’s Monday build is indeed a surprise. As for features, today’s release includes a bunch of small yet interesting new features such as the consolidated sign-in options, improvements to removing pinned start menu items, typing experience on the touch keyboard, notepad, console updates, setup experience and a fair bit of accessibility improvements.

However, with every build, there are a bunch of known issues and a laundry list of fixes. Here is the long list of fixes and improvements in today’s build:

• We fixed a merge conflict resulting in the Dynamic Lock settings being missing from Sign-in Settings.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Insiders seeing green screens with error System Service Exception in win32kbase.sys when interacting with certain games and apps in the last two flights.
• The update block for a small number of PCs using Nuvoton (NTC) TPM chips with a specific firmware version (1.3.0.1), due to a bug causing issues with Windows Hello face/biometric/pin login not working, has been removed as this build contains a fix for that issue.
• If you’ve turned off transparency effects, that preference will now also be reflected on the sign-in screen.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Settings crashing for some Insiders when clicking “Check for Updates”.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Settings crashing for some Insiders when going to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery.
• We fixed an issue resulting in night light settings not working and getting stuck in the last few flights.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected amount of space between the categories and subcategories in Settings in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where the folder size wasn’t calculated correctly in File Explorer’s Properties dialog when there was a path that was longer than MAX_PATH involved.
• We fixed an issue resulting in menu flyouts appearing blank when using the Arabic display language.
• We fixed an issue where when inking on a PDF in Microsoft Edge, if you erased some ink quickly after starting the inking session, then added more ink, upon saving the PDF not all ink may be saved.
• We fixed an issue where the handwriting panel might crash when using your pen to input into win32 apps in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to type into certain tables using the Vietnamese Telex keyboard.
• We’ve made some adjustments when text scaling is enabled to emphasize the icon in the Action Center quick actions so that the text doesn’t overlap.
• We’ve made some improvements so that if theme truncation is detected, we will now handle this more gracefully and not result in unexpectedly thick borders around your windows.
• We’ve made some improvements to reduce the number of times where you might see the error “Windows can’t find one of the files in this theme. Do you still want to save the theme?” appear.
• We’re updating the timeout period when dictating (WIN+H) to be from 5 seconds to 10 seconds, to give you a bit more time to think about what you want to say. If you’d like to stop the dictation before then, just say “Stop dictating” or press WIN+H (same as in previous builds).
• We fixed an issue on the touch keyboard resulting in some letters unexpectedly being black instead of white in dark theme.
• We fixed an issue where the “…” menu in clipboard history (WIN+V) was clipped in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue where when displaying the name of a known file type (one registered under HKCR\<.file extension>) File Explorer would display an empty string for the file name in some cases. Now, if a file name is not available, File Explorer will always show the extension name, even if Show File Name Extensions is turned off.
• We’ve updated the microphone and camera privacy settings pages to provide information on which apps are currently using the microphone and camera, and the date/time apps last accessed your microphone and camera.
• We fixed an issue where Magnifier would not start automatically even when “start after sign-in setting” for Magnifier was enabled if Narrator was not set to auto start after sign-in.
• We fixed an issue where Magnifier did not work with Touch when Centered mouse mode was enabled.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator sometimes would not start after completing Out of Box Experience (OOBE).
• We fixed the issue causing Narrator to start unexpectedly. We also made it easier to turn off Narrator when it was launched unintentionally.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator scan mode did not turn off automatically when you focused the address bar in Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator heading navigation was skipping some headings in Chrome.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator read page loaded notification multiple times in Chrome.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator did not read Edit box placeholder text in Chrome.
• We fixed an issue that caused the settings page will crash after changing the account password or PIN, we recommend using the CTRL + ALT + DEL method to change the password

Here is the list of known issues that you might want to be aware of:

• The hyperlink colors need to be refined in Dark Mode in Sticky Notes if the Insights are enabled.
• Settings crashes when clicking on the “View storage usage on other drives” option under System > Storage.
• 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.
• Delete previous version of Windows in Configure Storage Sense is not selectable.
• Settings will crash when opening Speech Settings.
• 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.

As development for 19H1 catches pace, we will begin to see more features show up in the builds every week. 19H1 is the codename for the next major update to Windows 10 that is expected to be released sometime in the first half of 2019. It is also interesting to note that this codename will be the last of its kind, as Microsoft is reportedly adopting a new scheme of codenames for its future Windows 10 updates.