Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview with input, accessibility, and search improvements

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview with input, accessibility, and search improvements. This build is from the 19H1 branch, which will arrive in the first half of next year.
Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released six major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, April 2018 Update, and October 2018 Update.

If you write in Vietnamese, you’ll be happy to learn this build adds support for Vietnamese Telex and Number-key based (VNI) keyboards. You can try them out with either a hardware keyboard or the touch keyboard (Start => Settings => Time & Language => Language => Add a preferred language => Vietnamese => Options => enable the Vietnamese Telex keyboard or Vietnamese Number key-based keyboard).

Speaking of the touch keyboard, it now has more symbols. After changing to the number and symbols view (&123), tap the new Ω key to see multiple tabs with lists of symbols.
As for accessibility improvements, the Narrator now works better with Chrome (up and down arrows in scan mode, navigate with tab key, continuous reading commands, and navigating by headings and links). The UI Automation framework now supports translating IAccessible2 information from Chrome, which supports IAccessible2 rather than UI Automation. Speaking of Narrator, Braille users will be happy to know of a few updates: BRLTTY version 5.6 adds USB support for Inceptor and Orbit 20 displays, BrailleNote Touch is recognized when using USB, Baum displays can now use B9 and B10 interchangeably, and Liblouis binaries and tables have been updated to version 3.7.0.

This build also introduces a new indexing feature that lets Windows search all your folders and drives, instead of just your documents, pictures, videos, and desktop, by default. You’ll have to turn it on (Windows search settings => Find My Files => Enhanced, which will start a one-time indexing process — make sure your device is plugged in). After indexing, which will take about 15 minutes (longer if you have many files), you’ll be able to find all your files “almost instantly” with Windows Search, Microsoft promises.

Bug fixes and known issues

This 19H1 build includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:

• Fixed an issue resulting in Settings crashing when invoking actions on certain places, including under Windows Security.
• Fixed an issue resulting in some Insider experiencing green screens with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in the previous flight.
• Fixed an issue where the Action Center might suddenly appear on the opposite side of the screen before appearing on the correct side.
• Fixed an issue resulting in the Action Center icon sometimes showing a number of unread notifications, however when you opened Action Center it would be blank.
• Fixed an issue resulting in Settings crashes on launch for a small number of users.
• Fixed an issue resulting in recently opened items sometimes showing in jump lists even though “Show recently opened items in jump lists” was disabled in Settings.
• Fixed an issue where the Built-in Phrases Setting page for the Pinyin IME would hang for a time if you clicked any phase in the list.
• Fixed an issue where Uninstall would still be shown as an option when right-clicking apps in Start if the group policy “Prevent users from uninstalling applications from Start” was enabled.
• Fixed an issue where if you had an inbox app with a version number longer than 20 characters it wouldn’t be returned as a result if you searched for it.
• Fixed an issue resulting in switching audio endpoints from the volume flyout in the taskbar not working in the last few flights.
• Fixed an issue resulting in some users having issues launching inbox apps after updating to the last few flights.
• Fixed an issue where if word wrap was enabled when using Notepad with a screen reader some words might unexpectedly be read out as two half words rather than one.

This build has five known issues:

• Task View fails to show the + button under New Desktop after creating 2 Virtual Desktops.
• Some users will notice the update status cycling between Getting Things Ready, Downloading, and Installing. This is often accompanied with error 0x8024200d caused by a failed express package download.
• If you change Task Manager settings, the next time Task Manager is opened it will revert to default.
• If you have a have a large number of OTF fonts, or OTF fonts that support the extended East Asian character set, you may experience some unexpectedly missing text across the system. We’re working on a fix. If you encounter this issue, navigating to the Fonts folder (c:\windows\fonts) may resolve it.
• 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.

As always, don’t install this on your production machine.
Source: VentureBeat
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