Windows 1803 Release (Spring Creators Update [RS4]) - Hardware & Software

1803 update is being deployed Tomorrow (Tuesday 10th April, Washington Time) into the targeted branch. It will take maybe around 2 months for most machines to be able to actually receive the update due to autonomous compatibility checks. Most known changes to the PC version can be viewed from this page: https://changewindows.org/build/redstone4/17133/pc Notable ones include; Near Share, a windows function for quickly sharing files/URLs between computers I Haven't been able to test this myself yet, think of it like Airdrop for Mac OS Apparently it uses Bluetooth Task View has been replaced by the Timeline feature I have this disabled personally, so if you don't like it, it remains optional It shows you files and applications that you've used over the past 4 days (by default) Edge has been updated to 42 There's a lot of changes for the dozens of users using it, do check out the log for everything It's got services workers too now though so that's cool I guess There's now an alternative sound settings to the crappy volume mixer hidden in the new Sounds settings withing the UWP settings area Some audio APIs have been changed too, this broke some software like Audacity and Firefox back in the preview. If you're having audio issues with these software still, update them. New settings area doesn't beat the old sound control panel though IMO, you can still find this by right clicking the sound icon in your taskbar and clicking 'Sounds' for quick access Individual Applications can be given specific input/output audio devices natively now Default keyboard can now be changed independently of the display language Windows Defender is now called Windows Security Keep calling it defender, no one cares Full on-screen keyboards now available for CJK languages The emoji panel (Win+. or Win+;) is now available in 190 locals, with 152 supporting tooltips Fonts are now managed by the windows store Yes, you can also buy fonts from here too, not that many people do this (it does happen) Fonts no longer opens the fonts folder, instead the store You can still access it from shell:fonts Ctrl+Shift and pressing Ok in Run will open the task as administrator As mentioned in the news, update times for this release should be significantly faster. Last version of windows came with support for Microsoft to no only ship smaller update packages (files that only were changed), but shifted quite a portion of the update that locks you out of using the machine into the preparation phase. Which brings it to about a half hour from shutdown to login, this may fluctuate significantly based on hardware configurations though. To mitigate getting the update out of nowhere, ensure that you're got notifications enabled. And may the update gods be forever in your favour.

Clean install solves most common upgrade problems dont even think about upgrading or you’ll regret it if you can take the downtime do the clean install

I've reinstalled the entire system once since before win10 came out That's also with almost bi-weekly upgrades. I can count upgrade issues on a single hand, granted that's also alpha functionality Asking users to do a clean install on every major upgrade (six months) isn't something I'm going to ask of them But, if you do run into issues, the first notable thing you can do is revert the upgrade (from the windows update panels) From there, it's your choice to clean install, and hopefully that fixes issues, or up until a point when windows decides that the machine is ready for an update again (unsure when this would happen, it would be weird if it came back on the next minor update (sometimes a week, sometimes a month) if the update is unstable on the specific machine

I hope the keyboard language thing fixes the extemely annoying issues windows has had this far with it. Nothing is more annying than you input language suddenly changing for absolutely no reason.

They're pretty shit. Look like the design was totally rushed, it's a mess. At least the Win Vista/7 style panel is still there for the time being.

Thanks for the heads up. Not too much of a big update then? The most notable change I see here that might affect my work is indeed the default way of managing fonts. Personally I haven't experienced issues stemming from Windows 10's upgrade process with any of my machines.

They make sense though, I can take one look at the screen and know exactly what each element does what. Functionally, it performs a lot more friendlier than dealing with volume mixer, which hasn't changed a lot since win95 But that's not to say it hasn't got room for improvement. Any feedback on design improvements are welcome for submission though

Wow, I don't care for any of this other than Near Share, which is going to be good shit. I love how airdrop works with my iphone and mbp (and other macbooks!). I use it so much.

The only remotely interesting feature is the extra shortcut in run though ultimately pointless because you can already do Win, type a thing and ^shift+Enter to run as admin and that's one less button press than the new one. The only time Win+R is useful is when explorer crashes which takes the hotkey with it lmao.

I love how I still have to use a AutoHotkey to use the Virtual Desktop feature that Windows added to Windows 10 with no seeming further support for it. I am still waiting for system based shortcuts instead of using a thirdparty software to get full functionality for multitasking. Thanks Microsoft. Thanks. Sigh.

Probably my biggest complaint with the updates is they add more functions to the main Windows Settings, but some functions are just so difficult to get to. Like for instance, how do I change PageFile settings? I can't find it anywhere in Settings and 'System' now doesn't show it., and I can't right click on Start and go to Control Panel. I have to manually search for Control panel, then settings, etc. I get they're trying to migrate, but the settings system still sucks and wastes so much space. They could fit so many more options inside there and not have so many damn sub menus.

So they cannibalized another piece of UI by making Fonts redirect to the Store? For fuck sake.

I haven't used any insider builds for it, but I thought I saw videos and articles showing that fonts takes you to the new Fonts settings page instead of the old fonts control panel, not the store.

Windows 10 doesn't seem to have anywhere near the number of issues previous Windows iterations did with the major updates. Some of the earlier ones did odd things like change my settings to the defaults. But it's not happened in such a long time. Reinstalling on a major update is a huge pain in the ass and just generally a waste of time today. MS seem to have gotten their shit together a bit.

I upgraded all the way from 8 to 8.1 to 10 without problems. Only reason I did a clean install at one point is because I switched to an SSD.

if by store you mean the UWP app called settings that doesn't update from the store at all and exists solely on your machine, then yeah sure

Fonts are now managed by the windows store Yes, you can also buy fonts from here too, not that many people do this (it does happen) Fonts no longer opens the fonts folder, instead the store Did I misinterpret something here? And if they did the same they did to all other settings when moving to their UWP trashware then it's just slightly less worse.

I think it may be a misprint, but again I haven't used the build. They did add a Fonts settings page that replaces the the old Control Panel applet. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/165573/25f04752-5340-429f-be52-546c972501cb/Screen Shot 2018-04-09 at 5.19.41 PM.png

It's a misprint, the "get more fonts" is the only thing that even links to the store

Updated today through the insider program, no issues so far. Not really sure any of the changes really affect anything I do on my PC so it feels kinda like nothing has changed but at least my PC is still fine (which I assumed it would be, I've never had a Windows update break anything)

I've made changes to the OP about fonts to prevent confusion

Individual Applications can be given specific input/output audio devices natively now This is actually fucking incredible and nobody can convince me otherwise

go to /r/windows10 and they'll find a way.

So, the release has been delayed, or pushed back. Still resting in just preview rings, which did get an update recently. A lot of undocumented security issues

I hope they don't push it back to the next patch Tuesday.

I wanted my WMR improvements.

You can get it still using https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/89dbpz/retail_redstone_4_1803_builds_are_ready_to_be/dwqd55w/

While I'm sure it'd work, that won't be the latest built.

People are so impatient for updates.

They gotta have something to complain about. Either the update got delayed or the update broke their computer, killed their cat, and elected the wrong state official.