[OFFICIAL] Windows 10 Insider Program

[freak180]

This fix the full screen start menu. It basically displays your wallpaper infront of active windows ... Looks good and not messy like the previous build. Good work!

[indospot Veteran]

Is "Ask Cortana" working for you guys? Maybe it's because of my region settings but it always gives me some sort of error.

[PGHammer]

So far, Spartan is far from broke - in fact, one thing I expected to NOT work, turns out to work just fine.

 

First. the specifics - I upgraded to 10049 Enterprise from 10041 Enterprise (WU); the upgrade itself was absolutely flawless.

 

Because Spartan was the obvious new application, it went under the gun first.  The first site I opened was, in fact, Neowin.

 

It imported no settings from IE (which I expected, honestly).

 

Next up was testing the integration with Cortana - I did a search on Spartan and the first hit was the article on TheVerge claiming that IE was going to be killed.  (Considering that the two browsers can co-exist - oooops.)

 

Also, searches using Cortana in Spartan open IE.

 

There was a new article on Neowin about the release of non-commercial-use Renderman - ah; another test opportunity.

 

For a supposedly broke downloader, I had no problems at all downloading the installer for Renderman using Spartan.  (I'm adding the trial version of Maya 2015 for use with Renderman as well.  That is ALSO being downloaded via Spartan - not IE.)

 

My first (and only) issue with Spartan - it has issues with the installer for Autodesk Maya (which uses Akamai NetSession) - unsurprising, as Akamai NS trips up established browsers.  IDM downloaded the installer just fine (and I had to give the okay for it to pass through the firewall - also unsurprising).

 

So far, Spartan is proving to be a pleasant surprise.

 

However, tomorrow brings the browser obstacle course known as Facebook.

[Studio384]

The fix for the startscreen background was already release as an update last week, not new in this build.

 

Anyway, Dot, you're wrong, I thik we can prety much concider this still alpha software, not beta.

[spaceelf]

Is "Ask Cortana" working for you guys? Maybe it's because of my region settings but it always gives me some sort of error.

I had nothing on 10041 on my laptop, I assume it's not working for quite a few people.

[Guest]

Does the browser properly support TPLs?

[indospot Veteran]

No.

[Studio384]

Yes, TPL is supported in Spartan, through there is no way to change its settings. It takes the TPLs you're using in IE.

[Mugwump00]

May I ask how you do this?

[Guest]

What? Why? That is just flipping stupid. IE is so powerful in terms of customization of security, if they remove support for custom security policies in Spartan, I will just switch to Firefox.

Why would they dumb down an already established feature? Hopefully this is just this way for now, and ALL features of IE will be in Spartan on release.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Downloading the update now, but in 10041 none of the tiles are 'live' in my Start menu, did I miss a setting?

[Guest]

They already pooped upon WMP with the new Xbox apps, killing an app that is vastly more powerful than that Xbox crap, making me permanently switch to MPC... Same with their Expression suite, which killed the WMA codec for me, making me switch to FLAC... I hope the won't do the same with the browser.

[Mugwump00]

May I ask how you do this?

 

Neowin forum quoting not fixed by Spartan then 

 

I was asking about adding Photos to the left pane of Explorer?

[timster]

User Agent on Spartan

 

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Downloading the update now, but in 10041 none of the tiles are 'live' in my Start menu, did I miss a setting?

?I find they dont go live until I open the app first.

[siah1214]

Hey Elenarie, it's not done yet.

[joddie191]

User Agent on Spartan

 

 

Looks like useragentstring.com needs to update to recognize Edge/12.0 as "Spartan" / IE 12

[Dot Matrix]

What? Why? That is just flipping stupid. IE is so powerful in terms of customization of security, if they remove support for custom security policies in Spartan, I will just switch to Firefox.

Why would they dumb down an already established feature? Hopefully this is just this way for now, and ALL features of IE will be in Spartan on release.

Relax, Microsoft had mentioned that addon support wasn't quite working with this release.

[PotatoAlchemist]

Anyone experiencing a silent crash whenever inputting something on the address bar in Spartan? As soon as I type in a letter, it gets killed off.

[gohpep]

I would say it is fine to criticize beta software if it is useful feedback, but it is not ok to determine the status of the final product because of the state of the beta software.

 

For example, these would not be ok:

"Windows 10 is going to be DOA the beta is so buggy i can't believe they are going to put these on consumer products!!!"

"windows 10 sucks it keeps crashing"

whereas these would be ok:

"The current build is buggy, I think it has something to do with the recoding of pointer events in the mini start using the new XAML"

"In 10041, whenever I click a tile and touch something at the same time, start crashes"

 

Just saying it is buggy or sucks is not ok because betas will be buggy, but what does help is stating what these bugs are. Also, never judge the final product based on a beta build. However, stating the bug or if you are a bit knowledgeable, the possible cause, will help.

Anyone experiencing a silent crash whenever inputting something on the address bar in Spartan? As soon as I type in a letter, it gets killed off.

Spartan is just really slow and buggy for me. I guess since they are rewriting the whole browser it will take time until they actually make it usable. Perhaps in the next build it will be significantly more polished.

[Jan Veteran]

Some new things:

 

 

New apps to Windows 10 have new icons (these were first shown in the 9901 leak). Also the tile colours are the same which I imagine means that they'll change to the system accent colour once Microsoft adds it - using the System accent colour is also now supported in Windows 10 for developers.

 

 

 

Completely new stopwatch UI with an expanded mode too.

 

Changing the wallpaper also crashes the Clock app for me.

 

 

Old clock app back on 9936:

 

 

Overall Microsoft are polishing up these apps well and it'll be exciting to see how they look in the next few builds as I presume they'll begin to draw in the titlebar and take advantage of the user's accent colour more.

[PotatoAlchemist]

Spartan is just really slow and buggy for me. I guess since they are rewriting the whole browser it will take time until they actually make it usable. Perhaps in the next build it will be significantly more polished.

Ah, fair enough. It's just odd that last night when I tried it, it still worked, today, however, it started to crash. Not sure if I changed anything.

[indospot Veteran]

Spartan Web Notes are supposed to have clickable links in the pages, right? It's not working for me, at least not yet.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

The upgrade to 10049 took a long time, like 2 hours. It does seem to have a little more polish than previous builds. Cortana works again for me. The mail stopped working again just like it did in 10441. Spartan is really quite stable and fast. Definitely one of the top features of Windows 10. Every site I tried rendered perfectly including Neowin and Facebook.

[gohpep]

Every site I tried rendered perfectly including Neowin and Facebook.

I would hope so, since the rendering engine has not been changed. Spartan is just Edge mode.