Windows 10 Redstone 4 build 16251 is now available for download. The new insider preview build comes with new features, bug fixes, improvements and more. The Fall Creators Update insider build now lets you link your phone and PC. The build also added new Cortana commands. Now you can restart, shutdown or lock your PC with Cortana commands.
Windows Insider team also released Windows 10 Mobile build 15235. Previously, Windows 10 build 16241 for PCs was released with fixes.
New In Windows 10 build 16251
Windows lets you link your phone and PC
Now you can link your phone to your PC. Currently, Android phones are supported. Support for iPhone is coming very soon.
To access new feature go to Settings > Phone and link your phone. Having you link your phone ensures that your sessions from your phone are continued only on to the PC that you’ve chosen. After adding your phone to be linked, you will receive an SMS from us directing you to install a test application called “Microsoft Apps” for Android that completes the link between your phone and PC and enables one of our first cross device browsing scenarios.
After you’ve linked your phone, just go to your phone and start browsing the web. When you are at a website you want to view on your PC, simply invoke the native share experience on your phone and share the website to the “Continue on PC” option. You might need to click the “…” or more to add this test app to your share menu.
Once invoked, it will first ask you to sign in with your Microsoft Account. It is important you use the same account you are using on your PC. Next, it will ask you if you want to “Continue now” or “Continue later”. If you choose “Continue now”, the website will magically open on the linked PC. If you choose to “Continue later”, the website will show up under Action Center for you to get to later when you’re ready.
Get web search results in Cortana without opening your browser
With Windows 10 Redstone 4 build 16251, you can view the results that Cortana has for you without launching the web browser. For some questions, the Cortana pane will expand automatically, quickly showing you exactly what you need to know.
Use Cortana voice commands to lock, sign-out, shutdown, or turn off your PC
With Windows 10 build 16251 insiders can now command Cortana to turn off, restart, lock, or sign-out of Windows. While previously announced, we haven’t fully enabled it via the cloud until now. New Cortana commands:
- “Hey Cortana, restart PC.”
- “Hey Cortana, turn off PC.”
- “Hey Cortana, sign out.”
- “Hey Cortana, lock PC.”
Improved Boot Up Experience
Use sign-in info to apply settings after a restart or update: The advanced Windows Update feature to use your sign-in info to automatically finish setting your device after an update has been extended to regular reboots and shutdowns. When you log in and initiate a reboot or a shutdown through power options available on the Start Menu and various other locations, Windows will automatically setup your account after it’s has booted back up.
Command-line options:
- shutdown /sg
Shutdown the computer. On the next boot, restart any registered applications.
- shutdown /g
Full shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is rebooted, restart any registered applications.
Opt-out: Under the Privacy section of the Sign-in options page of your Settings, you can disable and re-enable using the option show below:
Note: The feature is only available on PCs that are not managed by enterprises. This includes home PCs that are sync’d to enterprise (work, school, etc.) email.
Input Improvements
- Windows 10 build 16251 adjusted the size of the one-handed touch keyboard to be a little bigger, as well as added a thicker border as padding around it so you’re less likely to accidentally tap outside the keyboard and dismiss it.
- We’ve updated the new XAML touch keyboard to now support a full keyboard layout option for English (United States), English (Australia), French (France), Italian (Italy), German (Germany) and Spanish (Spain) languages. Appreciate everyone who shared feedback on the subject! To access this keyboard layout, tap the button in the top left of the touch keyboard.
- As you launch and dismiss the touch keyboard, you’ll now notice an animation of it sliding in and out.
- Softened the sound of typing on the touch keyboard – thanks for your feedback!
- Fixed an issue where the touch keyboard might get into a state where swiping across it would move the keyboard contents around.
- Windows 10 build 16251 updated the Japanese one-handed touch keyboard specific key labels to be written using the Yu-gothic UI font.
- Fixed an issue where the Japanese touch keyboard might sometimes take multiple taps of the delete key to delete a selected character or phrase in certain text fields.
- Fixed an issue where the touch keyboard’s options in Settings to disable suggestions and disable “add a space after I choose a text suggestion” didn’t work.
- Adjusted two-finger precision touchpad scrolling so it should feel a bit smoother now – please try it out in today’s build.
- Fixed an issue where the Microsoft Pinyin IME candidate window wasn’t visible when Microsoft Edge was in full-screen mode (F11).
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed an issue where Japanese IME status notification didn’t appear when the IME was turned on with Kana input method.
- Addition to scrolling, pen can now also select and drag objects when barrel button (a button on the side of the pen) is pressed. This functionality was already available in Win32 apps and Microsoft Edge as of 16215, and today we’re expanding it to include all UWP apps as well. Please try it out in your favorite apps and let us know how the experience is working for you.
- Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to use the pen to move a Win32 app window up and down by dragging the title bar.
- Fixed an issue where the coordinates were slightly off when using the pen to point erase in the last few flights.
Microsoft Edge Improvements
- Microsoft Edge will no longer re-scale sites when in Tablet Mode with narrow viewport width (such as in a snapped view or portrait orientation). This provides a more natural experience on modern responsive sites in tablet mode.
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed an issue from recent builds where the Copy Link option displayed in Microsoft Edge when you right-click a hyperlink wasn’t working.
- Fixed numerous reliability issues in Microsoft Edge that will improve user experience with crashes and hangs within the app.
- Fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge with PDF failing to open on refresh.
- Fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge with PDF fitting to page for certain books.
- Fixed an issue with Pinned Sites from Microsoft Edge where it wasn’t showing the right favicon on the taskbar.
PC Gaming Improvements
- Some users may see Game Mode enabled in the Game Bar by default for some of their games.
Fixes for Windows 10 Redstone 4 Build 16251.1000
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed an issue from the last flight where if you had display scaling set higher than 100%, you might encounter a bug where the hit targeting was offset when interacting with various parts of the shell. This was particularly noticeable in Action Center, where it might appear that nothing in Action Center could be clicked or tapped, but could also have been experienced in other UI around the system.
- Fixed an issue resulting in IMAP email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Aol potentially not syncing in the Mail app in the last two builds.
- Fixed the issue causing Windows Defender Security Center to be unable to configure and list items for Controlled folder access, Threat History and Exclusions due to a crash in the UI.
- Narrator Scan Mode is now on by default for just the Edge app. You can continue to toggle Scan Mode on and off with Caps Lock + Space. We made this change based on your feedback. Please keep providing feedback with Caps Lock + EE.
- Fixed a bug that resulting in poor text rendering on some machines when Magnifier was running with bitmap smoothing enabled. Please try it in today’s build and let us know if it seems better now.
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed an issue where the Windows Defender Security Center icon appeared unexpectedly stretched out when using a wide sized tile pinned to Start.
- Fixed an issue where certain inbox apps might unexpectedly show a progress bar on their Start tiles for a short time after upgrading.
- Fixed an issue resulting in explorer.exe using an unexpectedly high amount of CPU in recent flights when certain apps such as Microsoft Edge were running.
- Fixed an issue where Groove Music’s mini view player would reset its position to default if you used File Explorer to open and start playing a new mp3 in Groove Music.
- Fixed an issue resulting in some apps, such as Tweetium, not rendering the UI correctly and becoming difficult to use.
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed an issue resulting in the notification prompting you to enter tablet mode not working properly when you access in recent flights.
- Adjusted the My People emoji above the Taskbar to now be referred to simply as “My People notifications”. This terminology can be found in Taskbar Settings.
- Fixed an issue where the mouse response might appear erratic on certain devices when playing games with Raw Input disabled.
- Fixed an issue where the insertion point mouse cursor appeared white for some Insiders, making it invisible against the white background of many text boxes.
- Some Insiders may have noticed the Windows Error Dialog had a new string in recent flights (“opening a portal to another dimension”). It was a placeholder while we decided what string we wanted to go with, and based on your feedback we’ve updated it to explain that the problem is being reported to Microsoft.
- Windows 10 build 16251 fixed the issue with PC Games using the Origin overlay where the use of overlay may cause game movement to lock up.
- TruePlay, formerly called Game Monitor, is a placeholder within the Windows UI. Your games cannot be affected at this time. We’ll have more to share soon.
Known Issues in Windows 10 Insider Build 16251
- If you installed Builds 16226-16237 and upgrade to this build, Storage Spaces will not work correctly. While Build 16241 contained a fix for the general reported issue with Storage Spaces in that build range, we discovered that the fix only applies for computers not already in the bad state, and need to do some extra work to return those already impacted to the good state. Special thanks to the Insiders that have helped us investigate this!
- Trying to use the dictation hotkey (WIN + H) in UWP apps won’t work – you’ll see the UI come up and immediately dismiss. If you’d still like to use dictation, the microphone in the touch keyboard will work. You can right-click the Taskbar for an option to show the touch keyboard button if it’s not already visible.
- Insider team is investigating your reports that after upgrading to the latest Insider Preview builds, some network settings are lost and revert to default settings. Static IP address configuration is reverted to DHCP. Networks which were marked as private are reverted to public. After the upgrade you will need to manually readjust your network settings back to your preferred settings.
- Start, Action Center and notification toasts may at times have a background that is 100% transparent. A fix will be available in later flight – for now, if you encounter this issue, try ending ShellExperienceHost.exe via Task Manager or rebooting to resolve the issue.
- Connecting to a VPN using a solution downloaded from the Windows Store may result in a system crash.
- The battery flyout might show unexpected text for the % charged (specifically “%1!s!%2!s!% until fully charged”).
You can download Windows 10 build 16251 ISO files from our website later. Check back for Windows 10 build 16251 ISO download links.
