Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16273 includes a LOT of improvements and fixes for PCs

Today, Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16273, its first build for PCs in the Fast ring for three weeks. As we get closer to the rollout of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft is now focusing less on adding new features, and more on improving the quality of the OS, including more fixes, fine-tuning and bug squashing.

Microsoft has had plenty of time to deal with various issues in the OS over the last few weeks, and it certainly shows - on paper at least. While build 16273 is light on new features, it's packed full of improvements and fixes.

First up, here are the improvements that Microsoft has documented to the Windows Shell:

• We fixed an issue resulting in Start, Action Center and notification toasts at times having a background that was 100% transparent.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where the Action Center icon might show it had some number of notifications but when you opened Action Center no notifications were displayed.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where suggested apps were visible in Start despite the related setting being off. For now, if you encounter this please try toggling Settings > Personalization > Start > “Occasionally show suggestions in Start”.
• We fixed a recent issue where removed placeholder tiles in Start might come back after explorer.exe restarted.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain live tiles not updating in the last flight, including the Weather and Money apps. If you were impacted by this you may need to unpin and repin the live tile for it to work again.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where typing immediately after opening up the Start menu would sometimes not switch to Cortana, even though if you tapped the Cortana icon Cortana was up and running.
• We fixed an issue where notification groups in the Action Center couldn’t be dismissed by swiping across the app name. We also fixed a recent issue where notifications in the Action Center couldn’t be dismissed with pen.
• We’ve fixed some timing issues so that swiping to dismiss a notification toast should feel more reliable now.
• You can now middle click to dismiss a notification toast!
• We fixed an issue resulting in no “Safe to Remove Hardware” notification after following the device removal process from the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” tray icon
• We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to tab to the quick action area of Action Center if there were no notifications visible.
• We fixed an issue where the network flyout might become unresponsive when Bluetooth was enabled.
• We fixed a deadlock resulting in Start, the network flyout, and other Shell UI elements becoming unresponsive after tethering certain Android phones.
• We fixed an issue that could potentially result in Start not launching after installing a 3rd party IME.
• We fixed an issue where if you started dragging a tile on Start just as the flip animation started in the tile, it could result in the tile becoming invisible under your finger until you released it.
• We fixed an issue where right clicking on an image file in File Explorer would show “Next desktop background” instead of “Set as desktop background” in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where desktop icons sometimes couldn’t be drag-and-dropped to certain places on the desktop, even though the desired spot appeared to align to the same grid as the other icons already in place.
• We fixed an issue where desktop icons could become unexpectedly spaced out when logging in after the primary monitor’s DPI had changed.

The new build also includes plenty of fixes and improvements for Microsoft's Edge browser:

• When using Find on Page, pressing F3 will now go to the next result. Shift+F3 will go to the previous result.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain websites not rendering correctly when used in inPrivate mode.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge sometimes getting into a state where after right-clicking a website the context menu would immediately dismiss.
• We fixed an issue which resulted in the video element defaulting to a black background if the size didn’t match the aspect ratio of the video.
• We fixed an issue where right-clicking and selecting “copy link” would sometimes not work as expected.
• We fixed an issue where copying bitmap images from Microsoft Edge wouldn’t work.
• We fixed an issue where pasting Chinese, Japanese, or Korean text into Microsoft Edge in recent builds would result in question marks instead of the expected characters.
• We fixed an issue where misspelled words in input fields were sometimes not updated when a correction is selected from the spell checker.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where a session cookie might unexpectedly get overwritten, potentially resulting in login issues on certain websites after a page refresh.
• We fixed an issue resulting in status updates to Facebook.com sometimes being erased during input.
• We fixed an issue causing certain controls such as calendar widgets to break on some sites.
• We fixed an issue for websites with images added using source-set where the height would sometimes unexpectedly be computed to 30px.
• We fixed an issue where clicking Run on a download in Microsoft Edge that required elevation would result in input no longer being received in that window until switching focus away and back to it.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the tab bar sometimes drawing incorrectly after dragging the window between two monitors with different DPIs.
• We fixed an issue from recent builds where you couldn’t use the letter ‘x’ when renaming a favorite.
• We fixed an issue resulting in a crash when using drag and drop to rearrange favorites.
• We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to type @ using the Hungarian or Czech keyboard in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where PDFs containing xref streams might have rendered as blank pages in the last few flights in Microsoft Edge.
• Scrollbars in Microsoft Edge will now be the correct size on secondary monitors where the DPI differs from the primary monitor.

The release notes include a bunch of Input improvements as well:

• We fixed an issue that resulted in words sometimes being input twice when using the handwriting panel in certain websites using Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue where you could end up with multiple underlined words when using shapewriting in a text field then switching focus away from and back to that text field and shapewriting some more.
• We fixed an issue in Win32 apps where a space wasn’t automatically inserted if you used shapewriting to write a word then tapped a letter to start a new word on the touch keyboard.
• We fixed an issue with the Hebrew touch keyboard where tapping certain keys didn’t produce the expected character. Please take a moment with this build to try out the touch keyboard in your language and let us know how it feels for you.
• We fixed an issue where the Full touch keyboard layout was unexpectedly not available at certain screen resolutions.
• We fixed an issue when using the Emoji Panel with Narrator where using tab to switch sections would resulting in Narrator repeating the old section name for each emoji instead of the current one.
• Changes to pen behavior in recent Insider builds have been met with positive feedback, however also caused drawing in certain apps to work incorrectly. In this Insider build we’ve made a change to address this feedback pertaining to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Clip Studio Paint.

....and finally, Microsoft detailed a long list of "general changes, improvements and fixes":

• We fixed the issue causing the Virus and Threat Protection pillar in Windows Defender Security Center to show as “unknown” after upgrading to the last build.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in the idle timer continually being reset – thus preventing the display from going to sleep.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected 0x800706BE error sometimes when trying to initiate a remote desktop connection in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue some Insiders were experiencing where Windows Update’s Delivery Optimization settings would reset back to default upon leaving the page.
• If you previously accessed Device Encryption on the About Settings page, you’ll find we’ve moved it to its own page under Settings > Update & Security > Device Encryption.
• We fixed an issue where the lock screen might unexpectedly just show your theme color instead of the selected custom or Spotlight image after upgrading in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in certain apps crashing when attempting to use the app to capture a picture using the webcam.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Node.js (v6.9.4) not being able to run scripts stored in OneDrive or access any paths in OneDrive.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpectedly large number of OneDrive app-requested download notifications.
• We fixed an issue where using Alt-P to open the preview pane in File Explorer for PDFs associated with Acrobat would say “This file can’t be previewed.” in recent builds instead of displaying their first page.We fixed an issue where right-clicking on the volume icon in the systray might sometimes unexpectedly take 3-5 seconds for the context menu to appear.
• We fixed an issue where changing the selected option in the dropdown under Multiple Displays in Display Settings didn’t do anything.
• We fixed an issue resulting in adding a phone or taking a new profile picture in Settings not working if Settings was run elevated.
• We fixed an issue resulting in DVD Player failing with error 0xC00D36B4 on machines with DX10 graphics cards.
• We fixed an issue for PowerShell in Japanese where the “た。” character of the sentence “検証 23% が 完了しました。” would display repeatedly when running SFC /scannow.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain games like Cut the Rope, Buggy Racing and others from unexpectedly extending past the bottom of the screen when put in full screen mode in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue with the custom color picker, for example seem in Color Settings, where panning with touch across the colors would move the area rather than smoothly update the selected color.
• We fixed an issue resulting in acrylic material’s noise layer blinking in a second after the rest of the UI if the UI was animating in on top of a video.
• We’ve improved the rendering performance when using touch to pan UWP app windows that have applied acrylic material.
• We fixed an issue resulting in XAML controls sometimes unexpectedly becoming pure white in recent builds when transparency was enabled.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the OneNote app sometimes having rendering issues in recent flights (for example, missing text blocks).
• We fixed an issue resulting in Forza Horizon 3 crashing when loading (after selecting “continue”).
• As a result of low usage, Screen Saver functionality has been disabled in themes. Screen Saver functionality in Group Policies, Control Panel, and Sysprep is now deprecated but continues to be functional. Lock screen features and policies are preferred.

Incredibly, not a single known issue has been documented in the build 16273 release notes, so it seems that Microsoft is getting very close to the quality it needs for the Fall Creators Update rollout.

Source: Windows Blogs