Windows 10 has been adorned with a new pre-build update due to land in the first half of 2020, and this is the first release that has introduced many changes, though none of them are major new features.
Highlights for building 18963 (which rolls testers into the fast ring) include adding Task Manager's GPU temperature reading so when you pull to the last one you can see how hot (or cold, hopefully) your graphics card is running at a glance .
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This is only for discrete (that is, not integrated into the processor) video cards, but it is a possibility, which means you do not need to install some third-party monitoring application to check the temperature of the processor.
Windows Search has also been improved to be smarter, and to pick up spelling mistakes, for example, when you're rummaging through files and folders looking for things.
Microsoft gives an example that earlier search would not be able to deal with misspellings like “powerpiont” and “Z;”, and these would be the results, but now, search will automatically correct them with “presentations” and “Excel” respectively.
Interestingly, this feature doesn't just go to testers, but to retail versions of Windows 10 in English territories, because it's a server-side change (meaning you need to be connected to the internet to take advantage of these automatic spell-checking fixes).
The search settings have also been reworked to add a 'related:' line below the best match result, giving you relevant options and clarifying why the result will be presented to you. Again, this isn't just for testers, it's also for the retail edition of Windows 10 - but only in the US. This feature will expand from just setting to include app search in the coming weeks.
Finally, in other tester news, Microsoft is bringing an updated search home experience that gives quick access to the latest search activities as well as the most used apps - for those using the October 2018 update. This was previously only available to humans as of the May 2019 update.
Carefully Note
Notepad has received quite a bit of attention in the recent past (including the introduction of circular search), and as it is a pre-release version, future Notepad updates will be automatically pushed through the Microsoft online store. This is useful because it means that Microsoft will be able to update Notepad as it goes along rather than waiting for major Windows updates.
Microsoft has also given some users the ability to rename virtual desktops (with these new names persisting across reboots). We are told by some users because this particular change is only live for 50% of testers, but will be rolling out more time.
There are still minor changes, including clarifications to streamline the process for changing the Windows account picture, and as always, check out Microsoft's full blog for all the details.
There are some known issues, and probably the most interesting nugget here (which was also recognized in build 18950) is the link to the 'Cloud Download' option when you reset your PC in the Windows Recovery Environment. Microsoft notes: “This feature does not work yet. We'll let you know as soon as it's available so you can try it!”
So hopefully it won't be too long before you can try out the ability to reinstall Windows via internet download, as the rumors have previously stated.
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