Microsoft releases Windows 10 build 20241 to the Dev channel with theme-aware splash screens

[Karlston]

Microsoft releases Windows 10 build 20241 to the Dev channel with theme-aware splash screens

 

It's Wednesday at 10am PT, and that can only mean one thing. There's a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build in the Dev channel. This week's build is 20241, and as usual, not much has changed, although there are a few things.

 

The Dev channel gets weekly builds from the rs_prerelease branch, so it's in a perpetual state of prerelease and it's not tied to a feature update. At some point, features get promoted to the Beta channel, which is actually a preview for the next feature update. Unfortunately, no one actually knows what the next feature update is, and Microsoft isn't talking about it. The most recent update, 20H2, was released this week, and 21H1 might be canceled entirely in favor of a Windows 10X release.

 

As for what's new in this build, we're now seeing theme-aware splash screens, so you'll see light and dark splash screens instead of accent-colored ones. Here's the full changelog:

Introducing theme-aware splash screens for apps

Building on theme-aware tiles in Start, we’re introducing theme-aware splash screens for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. Now, when an eligible UWP app is launched, the splash screen color will match your default app mode. For example, if you have light theme turned on, you’ll see a light theme splash screen, and if you have dark theme turned on (for the “default app mode”) then you’ll see a dark theme splash screen.

 

Settings app splash screen before and after in light theme:

Settings app splash screen before and after in dark theme:

The following apps support theme-aware splash screens today:

• Settings
• Store
• Windows Security
• Alarms & Clock
• Calculator
• Maps
• Voice Recorder
• Groove
• Movies & TV
• Snip & Sketch
• Microsoft ToDo
• Office
• Feedback Hub
• Microsoft Solitaire Collection

Over time, more apps will be updated via the Store to support having a theme-aware splash screen.

 

This feature is rolling out to a subset of Insiders in the Dev Channel at first to help us quickly identify issues that may impact performance and reliability. Rest assured they will be gradually rolling out to everyone in the Dev Channel.

Enhancing your defrag experience

We’re making a few changes to the Optimize Drives page (Settings > System > Storage > Optimize Drives), including:

• Adding a new “Advanced View” checkbox to list all volumes including hidden volumes. Please note we’re still getting this one up and running, so you’ll see the checkbox in this build, but may not notice any differences when you click it.
• Listing more details in the “Current status” column when volumes are not available for defrag (for example, “Partition type not supported” and “File system type not supported”).
• Adding support for pressing F5 to refresh.

It's unclear why only that small subset of apps supports the theme-aware splash screen, rather than anything with a transparent splash screen.

 

As always, you can grab today's build via Windows Update. If you're not on the Dev channel yet, you can enroll through the Windows Insider Program tab in Settings.

 

 

Microsoft releases Windows 10 build 20241 to the Dev channel with theme-aware splash screens

 

[Karlston]

Here's what's fixed, improved, and still broken in Windows 10 build 20241

As per Microsoft's Wednesday tradition, a new build of Windows 10 is rolling out Insiders in the Dev channel today, this time being build number 20241. As usual, the list of new features is small, but there are some visual changes and improvements to the Settings app.

 

However, the build also comes with the usual lists of improvements, fixes, and known issues, which might be useful to know before you rush to install it. Starting with the improvements, there are some for Narrator and the Japanese IME:

• To help ensure Narrator users are aware of notifications on the screen, if a high priority notification appears while the computer is locked and stays on the screen, we will now also read it out when unlocking your PC and not just at arrival time.
• We’re removing the Japanese Address and Rinna candidate suggestion services from the Japanese IME – thank you Windows Insiders who’ve shared feedback on them.

As for the fixes in this release, there's a pretty long list to take a look at:

• We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing APC_INDEX_MISMATCH bugchecks in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue where scrolling and pinch to zoom were not working correctly on devices with touch such as the Surface Pro X, Surface Pro 7 and others.
• We fixed an issue where selecting an IME candidate or hardware keyboard text prediction candidate was sometimes inserting the candidate adjacent to the one selected.
• We fixed an issue where new applications will fail to install with a Windows Installer service error on x86 systems.
• We fixed an issue where when attempting to perform a Reset this PC using the Keep My Files option will fail with the error, “There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made”.
• We fixed an issue where robocopy wouldn’t preserve the directory dates when using the move command.
• We fixed a high hitting dwm.exe crash from the last few flights.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the System Information window (msinfo32) crashing on launch.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the System Information window (msinfo32) unexpectedly having a blank icon in the taskbar.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Bitlocker encryption failing with error 0x803100b2.
• We fixed an issue resulting in flickering in certain apps when the media controls pop-up was visible on screen and you moved your mouse.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the screen flickering on certain devices when accessing the power options on the login screen.
• We fixed a recent issue where closing a tab in Microsoft Edge while Task Manager was up and running could result in Task Manager crashing.
• We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders seeing a “Sorry, something went wrong” message when running through the workflow to improve recognition for Windows Hello Face.
• We fixed an issue from recent builds where if Settings was open when the PC went into hibernation, connected pens may fail to reconnect until Bluetooth was toggled off and back on.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Windows Sandbox showing a 0x80070003 error.
• We fixed an issue where a non-functional link to Rename your PC was displaying for non-admin users on the Projecting to this PC page in Settings.
• We fixed an issue where the Activation page in Settings would crash if you navigated to it recently while not connected to the internet.
• We fixed an issue in Printers & Scanners Settings, where clicking the Get App button available for some printers was resulting in Settings crashing recently.
• We fixed an issue where clicking the Copy button under “View hardware and connection properties” in Network Settings would result in extraneous lines saying “Proxy Auto Detect” appearing on the settings page.
• We fixed an issue impacting certain VPN connections, where clicking the entry in the Network flyout wasn’t doing anything.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Windows updates failing with error 0xc0000005.
• We fixed an issue that could result in windows.old being expectedly large for some Insiders.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the new gesture to control the text cursor position using the spacebar on the touch keyboard wasn’t working for some Insiders.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Internet Explorer crashing when typing certain combinations into websites with the Dayi IME.
• We fixed an issue where incorrect characters were being inserted into passwords fields when typing using the Japanese IME in Kana mode.
• We fixed an issue where when using the previous version of the Japanese IME, if you set the IME to off mode during a composition, then immediately starting typing, it could result in the underlying app crashing.

Finally, there are still some known issues:

• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. We’re continuing to work on polishing this experience.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• We’re working on a fix for an issue causing some devices experiencing a KMODE_EXCEPTION bugcheck when using certain virtualization technologies.
• We’re looking into reports where some devices are still experiencing a DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION bugcheck after taking build 20236.
• We’re investigating reports that some devices are receiving a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL bugcheck on tcpip.sys.
• We’re working on a fix where after taking build 20236 devices running Malwarebytes Web Protection are no longer able to connect to the network. Users can roll back to 20231 and pause updates or disable Web Protection as a workaround.
• We’re investigating an issue reported by some Insiders wherein the taskbar is obscuring the Power button in the Start menu. If this is happening on your PC, you may need to use the Windows key plus X menu to shutdown for the time being.
• We’re investigating GPU Compute scenarios, such as using CUDA and DirectML, not working inside of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
• Windows Insiders on ARM PCs such as the Surface Pro X will notice that Windows PowerShell will fail to launch on this build. As a workaround, please use “Windows PowerShell (x86)” or “Windows PowerShell ISE (x86)” from the Start menu if you need to use PowerShell. Or download the new and modern PowerShell 7 which takes advantage of ARM by running natively. Plus the icon is prettier.

If you're not in the Insider program, Microsoft released a new Windows 10 feature update, version 20H2, just yesterday, and we've rounded up all the new features in it. There are also some known issues for it, but nothing new if you were already using Windows 10 version 2004. It'll likely be a few months before the features in these new Insider builds make their way to the general public.

 

 

Here's what's fixed, improved, and still broken in Windows 10 build 20241