Microsoft has released Windows 10 build 17661 from the RS5 branch. Among the changes are snipping, Sets, Fluent, security, and gaming improvements.
Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs with snipping, Sets, Fluent Design, security, Focus assist while gaming, sound, language, and HEIC improvements. This build is from the RS5 branch, which represents the Windows 10 update the company plans to release later this year.
Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released five major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, and April 2018 Update.
Microsoft is merging the various ways you can take screenshots (and annotate them) in Windows 10. WIN + Shift + S now brings up a snipping toolbar, which you can use for taking a quick screenshot. Immediately after taking a snip, you’ll get a notification that opens your snip into Screen Sketch, which has been turned into a standalone app (it can also be set to open with a pen click, the print screen button, or the screen snip button in the Action Center). Screen Sketch, which was originally introduced as part of Windows Ink Workspace, can thus be updated via the Microsoft Store, chosen when you hit Alt + tab, has a resizable window, supports multiple tabs, and of course works with tabs (thanks to Sets).
Speaking of Sets, Microsoft’s new tabbing interface, the experiment is expanding. If you’re a Windows Insider who had the feature until now, you still will, regardless of how you got access. In fact, most Windows Insiders will now see Sets, although a small group still won’t.
Microsoft’s Fluent Design has added another player to its team. The Task View has gone acrylic — the background now has a soft blur effect.
Windows Defender Security Center is now called Windows Security. Microsoft loves renaming features, and at least this time around it’s a simplification. The app could have easily been renamed to Windows 10 Defender Security Center 2018 Pro.
Gamers will be happy to learn that Focus assist will now turn on automatically when you’re playing any full screen game. This is the default behavior, but you can always turn it on or off (Settings => System => Focus assist => “When I’m playing a game”).
After moving Sound settings to the Settings app with the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, Microsoft is now moving on to integrating Device properties into Settings. When you click on the links in Sound Settings, you’ll now get a new page where you can name your device and select your preferred spatial audio format.
For those who write in Chinese (Simplified), the Microsoft Pinyin IME is being updated with a new logo, new IME toolbar, and dark theme support. A bunch of options have also been added to the IME mode indicator’s context menu in the taskbar and the IME now uses the same UX for Expressive Input as other languages.
After adding the High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) a few builds ago, this preview lets you rotate HEIF-format images in File Explorer and edit metadata under Properties.
This desktop build also includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:
Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number for the RS5 branch from 17655 (made available to testers on April 25) to build 17661.
This build has 15 known issues:
As always, don’t install this on your production machine.
