New Windows 10 build released 10041 - download now

[RH00D]

About time... Build 10041 compiled at Microsoft less than 7 days ago so it is very recent.

 

Presumably you must be on Fast Ring to get this download. Slow Ring will get it later.

 

Here is something many desktop users will like... No more full vertical length network slide-out bar.

 

Here is what’s new for PC

Improving the Start experience: In 9926 we introduced the XAML based Start experience, and we’ve continued to make improvements since then. Start now has transparency, and we’ve addressed issues with the All Apps list like making the All Apps button easier to use with touch. Dragging and dropping apps from All Apps or your most used apps list to pin them to Start was a top request, and this has been added.

 

Improvements to Virtual Desktops: We’ve addressed your #1 feature request for Virtual Desktops from Insiders – you can now drag a window to a Virtual Desktop! Previously, you had to right-click and use a context menu. You can also drag a window to the “+” icon to both create a Virtual Desktop and move the window to it in single step. We also now support a filtered taskbar. This means that only the running windows in a particular Virtual Desktop will show in the taskbar. This allows you to better organize what you are working on. We are doing some A/B testing for this where there will be different defaults for different users to help us decide what default to use based on feedback from Insiders. We also added a filtered Alt+Tab so you only see the windows on the given Virtual Desktop.

 

Cortana is expanding into new markets on the desktop: Cortana now also works on the desktop in China, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain – in addition to the U.S. For you in these new markets, look for her to help you find the things you need and proactively bring you information that you care about. Currently, Cortana will help you search for apps, settings, and files as well as search the web. Cortana learns your preferences and provides smarter recommendations over time. Cortana is still fairly new to the desktop but we are continuing to fix bugs and add new capabilities all the time.

 

New network fly-out from the taskbar: We’ve heard a lot of feedback on this and have introduced a network fly-out from the taskbar when you click on the network icon for quick access to your network settings. You’ll be able to easily connect to wireless networks from this fly-out. We have more work to do here as the UX isn’t complete just yet.

 

Enhancements to the Photos app: The updated Live Tile for the Photos app will now include your photos on OneDrive in the recent photo rotation where previously you would only see local photos.  We’ve made lots of performance and reliability improvements across the entire app. You will see added support for RAW format files, which should be up to date with new major cameras. If you find a RAW file that doesn’t show up correctly in the Photos app, let us know what camera model it’s from using the Feedback app. We’ve also implemented our first set of keyboard shortcuts for the Photos app – try using the tab, arrow keys and page up/down with the Photos app open. In coming weeks we’ll be adding keyboard shortcuts for popular actions/workflows. If you have one you really count on – let us know via the Feedback app.

 

New Text Input Canvas: We’ve introduced an updated experience for handwriting panel recognition optimized for short text entry. Auto displayed on tap in edit control with pen, positioned near the edit control, provides recognition candidates, suggestions and next word predictions.

 

Experimenting with the Lock screen: We often hear feedback around the learning curve when it comes to a big new release. To make things easier, we’re experimenting with the Lock screen as a place to share some “did you knows” as well as tips and tricks to help people learn Windows 10. Some of you may have noticed the Lock screen lighting up with beautiful imagery and a “Welcome to the Windows Insider Program” message with the previous build we released back in January (9926). Between now and our final release, we’ll be rolling out more of these – first in the U.S. and France. In other countries, for now you will continue to see rotations of beautiful imagery. Your Lock screen may look different than your fellow Windows Insider’s lock screen, as we rotate through a variety of different content. Send us feedback through the Windows Feedback app and let us know what you think about this. And of course you can still change your Lock screen background to any photo of your choice.

 

The improvements to Virtual Desktops are huge compared to old builds, see 2nd paragraph in above quoted text.

 

TOP ISSUES FIXED AND KNOWN ISSUES IN THIS BUILD:

Some top issues fixed in this build

• In 9926 there were several issues which prevented Start from launching, these should all be fixed.
• Search box now works if you have taskbar on the top/side of your screen.
• After installing the last build (9926), you saw a boot selection menu when you rebooted your PC. We’ve fixed this and you should no longer see the boot selection menu – unless you’re intentionally dual-booting.
• We received feedback that people were seeing persistent grey thumbnails in the Collection view in the Photos app on Build 9926. We think we’ve worked through all these issues, so definitely let us know if you find a case where one still crops up.

Here are some known issues for this build

• Some people might hit an issue where the username and password boxes do not appear or don’t accept input when logging in, which will prevent them from logging in. Possible workarounds include clicking the “Switch User” button, using Ctrl+Alt+Del, or pressing the power button on your PC to sleep/resume and try again.
• It is possible to manually lock your PC during the initial out-of-box experience. If you do this, you will have to hard reboot your PC and restart the OOBE experience. (So don’t lock your PC during OOBE 
• There are several accessibility issues in this build, which may make it difficult to use with Narrator or 3rd party screen readers. Additionally there is an issue where using a Lens after enabling Magnifier may cause the screen to be unusable.
• Some apps in the Store Beta will fail to install or update due to a licensing issue.
• In this build, the Mail, Calendar, and People apps may be broken due to a licensing issue with the Store Beta. To get these apps working again, you need to follow these steps:
  • Open powershell as administrator
  • Run the command Get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like “*windowscommunicationsapps*”} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online
  • Re-install Mail, People and Calendar from the Store (green tile)
• You might notice a chess knight icon on your Lock screen to the right of the screen. This was added by the Lock screen team so they could tell via screenshots if someone was using the new Lock screen or the old one, and will eventually be removed in a future build.
• Font sizes on the Lock screen on devices with high DPI can be really large.
• We currently have the Tablet Mode notification turned off by default to address some of the issues we’ve been seeing. The notifications can be turned back on via Settings.
• The touch keyboard doesn’t show up on login screen which prevents you from unlocking your PC when Narrator is on.
• Some people might see frequent prompts to restart to install updates, even though no updates need a restart. This prompt can be ignored safely.

 

It has been really fun and exciting for us at Microsoft to work with you and hear your feedback as part of the Windows Insider Program so far. We will continue to listen to your feedback about the program and evolve over time, and we sincerely hope that it’s something for which you’ll feel proud to participate.

As always, THANK YOU for all of your effort and great feedback so far.

 

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8250991/windows-10-march-preview-build-10041

Source: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/18/windows-10-technical-preview-build-10041-now-available/

[blu4]

OP- looks good to me but I can't be bothered to install another VM I'll wait until they release a dev build with the Spartan beta. 

Edited March 18, 2015 by colonel_mortis

[Kherm]

MUST DOWNLOAD

[Sauron]

Nice! Virtual desktop navigation IS a bit lacking, it's nice to see they're addressing it (although it's still not nearly as seamless and efficient as linux' implementations).

[GoodBytes]

Nice! Virtual desktop navigation IS a bit lacking, it's nice to see they're addressing it (although it's still not nearly as seamless and efficient as linux' implementations).

Be sure to mention what you would like as feedback.

[Sauron]

Be sure to mention what you would like as feedback.

 

I did ^^

[benthegreat17]

Stuff and Things

 

In your opinion, would it be worth it to use windows 10 as a go to operating system, or is there too many issues and should stay with windows 8.1 until windows 10 gets fully released?

[JaeDee884]

In your opinion, would it be worth it to use windows 10 as a go to operating system, or is there too many issues and should stay with windows 8.1 until windows 10 gets fully released?

been using Windows 10 as my only OS on two different PC's for over a month now. it causes issues on the laptop (usually updates fail and has to rollback) but its smooth and great on the desktop. actually feel undeserved at work using windows 7 and windows 8. It's pretty stable and aside from the forced updating (ie can't turn off automatic updates) its really good.

[benthegreat17]

been using Windows 10 as my only OS on two different PC's for over a month now. it causes issues on the laptop (usually updates fail and has to rollback) but its smooth and great on the desktop. actually feel undeserved at work using windows 7 and windows 8. It's pretty stable and aside from the forced updating (ie can't turn off automatic updates) its really good.

 

I shall give it a shot and backup all my things Thanks!

[JaeDee884]

I shall give it a shot and backup all my things Thanks!

it's also really good at teaming internet connections, got two wifi networks going into it and it runs smooth as, actually getting better connection then on wired.

[GoodBytes]

Hmm ... maybe I am going crazy here... but I have Office 2016 installed with the new build.

I am alone on this? I had Office 2013 and Office Touch beta installed on 9926.

 

update:

Office Touch version crashes at startup. Maybe needs a re-install.

[deviant88]

I cant update mine for some reason.

Anyway im looking for some changes that they still dont want to implement: ModernAeroTheme,better customization and 3rd party themes,a start menu layout theme,and have 1 preinstalled start theme that looks/feels like win7 modern or startisback for 8 current start menu is completely useless(no all programs flyout menu,no controlpanel/this pc/run options),unification of modern control panel/options and removal of the old and put all options/menus/checkboxes from the old into the new one,option to disable cortana and web search i want to search my pc not the hijacked web search.

Its just sad to follow the progress of this trash os,all my hopes down the drain.

[TheKDub]

Fuck yeah! I hate that bullshit sliding panel shit for wireless networks that 8 has! Now I just want aero back...

[RH00D]

In your opinion, would it be worth it to use windows 10 as a go to operating system, or is there too many issues and should stay with windows 8.1 until windows 10 gets fully released?

 

For daily use I would stay with 8.1 until 10 is released. There's just too many bugs and things that can break easily right now for it to be used as your primary OS in my opinion. I myself am just running Windows 10 in a virtual machine and still use 8.1 for my primary OS.

[RH00D]

Hmm ... maybe I am going crazy here... but I have Office 2016 installed with the new build.

I am alone on this? I had Office 2013 and Office Touch beta installed on 9926.

 

update:

Office Touch version crashes at startup. Maybe needs a re-install.

 

I installed the Office Touch preview versions on 9926 and they also won't start after the upgrade. Haven't looked into a fix yet. But no Office 2016 or the such.

[Dabombinable]

Ok... I started downloading the tech preview an hour ago, and its only 9926. wtf?

[Brughc]

Sweet, looks like it's only getting better and better. Hope I don jinx it though .

[RedRound2]

Ok these are my problems with the current build:

• What is up with that Recycle bin Icon. Looks like they make it using paint
• The start logo got smaller for some weird reason
• While shutting down and restarting the loading logo looks awfully big
• The close, minimize and resize button just plain looks weird
• The whole Modern UI and the traditional one are a huge mess

and this is after 5 min of using windows 10. So far TBH I'm really disappointed in what MS has offered. 

[TopWargamer]

Very cool. Do you know if the Xbox app was updated in this build to allow game streaming from Xbox One to the PC?

[AlexGoesHigh]

Very cool. Do you know if the Xbox app was updated in this build to allow game streaming from Xbox One to the PC?

that feature won't be available sometime after launch, also the app is update independently from the os

[TopWargamer]

that feature won't be available sometime after launch, also the app is update independently from the os

Well true, I was just hoping that there was update to the app alongside the update to the W10 beta. Oh well.

[SuperShires]

Quick semi-related question, will Win10 be installed via Windows update? or will require a fresh install?

[Dabombinable]

Quick semi-related question, will Win10 be installed via Windows update? or will require a fresh install?

You can install it via Windows update (you can do that with the tech preview as well, and start using Windows 10 now).

[Opcode]

I've been waiting for a new build to come out to jump on the Windows 10 bandwagon but it's still too buggy to migrate over. I will probably end up waiting until the Consumer Preview until I swap out Windows on my machine. That or just wait for it to hit RTM and install the final build.

[Dabombinable]

I don't think the build is actually out, because 9926 is all I can download from Microsoft still.