Over the last five months, Microsoft’s Windows Insider Team has been working to perfect the Creators Update, incorporating Insiders’ suggestions into the OS. Dona Sarkar’s team rolled out a series of new features and improvements in waves, and keeping track of them all is a pretty difficult task. Fortunately, one resourceful and patient Windows 10 user has managed to compile all this information. Microsoft stopped rolling out new OS features in February, so it’s pretty safe to state that the Windows 10 version 1703 changelog listed below is complete. SPONSORED
The Windows 10 Creators Update changelog
Major highlights:
New Night light feature: Windows 10’s Night Light filter lowers the amount of blue light projected by your computer’s screen. New OOBE (Out Of Box Experience): A new wizard to guide you through the initial install and setup of Windows. Native USB Audio 2.0 support. New keyboard shortcut: Win + Shift + S to select an area on your screen. Users can now create folders in the Start Menus tile area. Game mode: A new feature dedicated to games that will boost the gaming experience on Windows 10. New inbox app: Paint 3D. You can now buy PDF books from the Windows Store and read them in Edge. The Windows Defender systray icon has been replaced with Windows Defender Security Center icon. New “Pick up where you left off” features — requires Cortana. Game Bar now provides full screen support for an additional 88 titles. On-screen touchpad. Updated Bluetooth API with GATT Server, Bluetooth LE Peripheral role and unpaired Bluetooth LE device connectivity support.
The new Windows Update experience:
Your settings are kept through updates: Numlock setting, UAC settings, startup shortcuts, custom (registry) scan code mappings, optional components, custom printer names and folders pinned to the Start Menu are now preserved through updates. Apps that have been de-provisioned from your OS image won’t install again automatically unless you reinstalled them yourself. Apps that you have previously uninstalled will no longer be installed with every new update. Windows Update will now ask you to schedule a pending update. The Unified Update Platform increases update download speed by 65%. Windows 10 users can defer/pause cumulative security updates for 7 days.
Windows Shell new features and improvements:
Lunar calendar support in the Taskbar-Calendar flyout. You can now connect to a VPN faster from within the Network fly-out. New default tile layout for clean installs. New Share icon. New share experience/Share UI. Improved high-DPI scaling support in Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and Disk Management. Desktop wizards like “Map a network drive” and “Extract from zip” will now scale properly when moving from one monitor to another. New per-application enhanced scaling mode. Improved the system tray logic to be more robust when bad data is presented. Notifications in the Action center now support inline progress bars. Behavior of the scrollbar has been improved for apps using the Creators Update SDK. The Settings entry in the taskbar context menu has been renamed Taskbar settings. The “All apps” button in Start will now show a badge with the number of new apps.
Cortana new features and improvements:
You can now set Cortana to not listen when Windows + C is used. When searching for an app in Cortana, it will now show you commands that work within that app. Cortana time-based reminders can now be recurring every month or year. Cortana can help you set up your PC, shut down, restart and lock your device. Cortana can now change the volume of your device. If the device is idle, saying “Hey Cortana” will show a full screen UI optimized for long distance reading.
UWP and Apps new features and improvements:
New inbox Quick Assist App Request remote help from friends or assist friends remotely even on Home Edition New inbox Mixed Reality App Apps can now implement compact mode, which allows an app to be shown on the screen in a small window on top of the window that’s currently in focus. Apps can now make custom groups for notifications. Apps can now overwrite the timestamp in their notifications. New rendering technology for all UWP apps. Reliability improvements to UWP apps. Alarms from 3rd party alarm apps can now break through Quiet Hours.
Settings app improvements:
New Apps settings page that consolidates many previously scattered settings. New Gaming settings page. You can now hide the apps list in the start menu. Custom accent color picker. Custom background color picker. Many Settings moved around. You can now set websites to open in apps if the website allows it. Wi-Fi Sense and Paid Wi-Fi Services have been merged into the new Wi-Fi Services on the Wi-Fi page. Windows now removes unused temporary files and files that have been in the recycle bin for longer than 30 days. Dynamic lock. PCs will no longer have to reboot after turning on Developer Mode. Settings up Windows Hello now provides visual guidance which tracks your face in real-time. Improved design on the Printers & scanners settings page. Improved design on the storage usage settings page. Custom scaling factors now possible. Theme section in settings. Enhanced telemetry/diagnostics choice removed. Many more custom gestures for precision touchpads including custom key macros. You can now let Windows block most non-Store apps or ask for confirmation before installing. Under Restart settings you can now require Windows Update to show more notifications before restarting. Windows Update has a new icon.
Hyper-V improvements:
You can now override the scaling in Hyper-V Virtual Machine Hyper-V instances will now remember your zoom level for the next sessio You can now resize Hyper-V windows in Enhanced session mode.
Other improvements and changes:
Windows Hello recognition has been improved. Improved video playback quality on the target device when using Miracast to connect between a high-DPI PC to another high-DPI device. Registry editor got an address bar and new keyboard shortcuts. Narrator keyboard shortcut changes. Narrator can now explain context of whatever it is reading. OAuth is now supported for Yahoo Mail accounts. Improved many translations. Rainbow flag emoji added. Support for spatial sound, e.g. Dolby Atmos. Beam.Pro live streaming now built-in to the GameBar. Windows will now respond better when Win+L is pressed when playing a full screen game. The Alt+F4 Shutdown dialog has been improved to better handle DPI changes with external monitors. Updated advanced properties in Sounds control panel to allow you to select 24 and 32 bit at 176400Hz, and 16, 24 and 32 bit at 352800 Hz as the default format for devices that support it. The Trusted Platform Module Management control panel has been updated to provide more info when the TPM is “Not ready for use” or “Ready for use, with reduced functionality”. Snipping tool can now be used completely without a mouse. Installing Bash on Ubuntu on Windows will now install version 16.04 instead of 14.04. Many many WSL improvements lead to better compatibility. You can now launch Windows binaries from a WSL command prompt. You can now launch Linux binaries from Windows by calling “bash.exe -c
Microsoft Edge improvements:
Edge will now open the Connect pane when clicking “Cast media to device”. The behavior of the “Find on page” feature has been improved to show the results on the center of the page. New eBook Reader, including reading books aloud. Edge now automatically blocks flash. Full color emoji. WebRTC 1.0 now on by default. H.264/AVC is now enabled by default for RTC. Re-deferral support. Chakra JIT is not out-of-process by default. Support for SharedArrayBuffer and WebAssembly behind the Experimental JavaScript Features flag. Web Notes has a new icon and works like Ink Workspace now. Users can set tabs aside and share them. Run.exe download without saving it. New PDF toolbar + search. Improved performance, reliability and support for todays and tomorrows web standards and new technologies. You can now import and export favorites from and to a file. In addition to “Alt + D” and “F6” You can now also use “Ctrl + O” to move focus to the address bar.
This is what the Windows 10 Creators Update OS has to offer. Are you ready to make the switch?
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