For the first time since the middle of May we have had back to back builds released over these last two weeks with just a seven day gap between them. Prior to this there had only been two builds released over a 37 day period for testers.
This week, Windows 10 Mobile Build 15228 is the 11th overall build in the Feature 2 branch and, while this release has more fixes than we have seen in past builds, there are no new features or enhancements included.
However, Windows 10 Build 16232 on the PC side, the 10th build released for Redstone 3, is the exact opposite with a hefty list of new features and fixes. The vast majority of the additions in Build 16232 are all security related with a mixture of items that are available only to Enterprise testers and those available for consumers.
The Enterprise related security features in this build are Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) and Exploit Protection aka Windows Defender Exploit Guard. You can read more about these end to end security features for the Fall Creators Update in the companies announcement blog post from earlier this week.
That brings us to the consumer accessible additions to Windows Defender in this build and it is called Controlled Folder Access and has two levels of control available. One allows you to designate a protected folder to prevent unauthorized changes to the content in that folder. The other aspect of this feature is the ability to grant a program access to those protected folders.
I have a screenshot gallery that shows both of these features and their related UI's so you can see how they are laid out.
After looking at these two enhancements in their current state I have two observations:
-- Be very careful designating a protected folder because that means unknown software will not be able to write to that folder and its contents. This feature is meant to protect against malicious software but you could very well block legitimate software from properly accessing the content.
-- Most consumers will have no reason at all to add a program to the app list to allow permissions to protected folders. There are some very detailed settings when you do that and of course the same risk is there to break something if you are unsure. My recommendation is to just leave it alone and there is also no reason to worry about standard Windows folders and programs as they are already covered in this area.
Microsoft also stated in the release notes for these two builds that there would be a change in what versions of inbox apps Windows Insiders will see for testing:
"In order to provide Windows customers with the highest quality inbox apps possible, we will pause testing new versions of our inbox apps with Windows Insiders. This means that Insiders will not receive app updates from the Windows Store for our inbox apps that are newer than the apps included in the build. Insiders may notice that some features we were testing in our inbox apps – including recent updates to the Photos app – will temporarily disappear. This is because some of our inbox apps won’t have all the latest new features without getting an update from the Store. It is critical that Insiders are experiencing the same version of Windows that will be released as the default version for all Windows users. Insiders will once again start receiving app updates in the very near future. As always, your feedback will help us tremendously to define the overall Windows experience and insure the quality of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is excellent for our customers."
Finally, I am very pleased to report that it looks like the OneDrive Files on Demand folder/thumbnail issue I wrote about in last weeks hands on with Build 16226 has been fixed in this release.
I had opted to clean install 16226 last weekend and not return to using OneDrive Files on Demand but with the install of 16232 it appears to be sorted out - at least for the most part.
While thumbnails no longer take the place of folders, it does appear that some of the thumbnails are now not appearing inside the folder in that view. Here are two images to show you want I mean:
OneDrive Files on Demand Image Folder Showing Picture Icons (Build 16232)
OneDrive Image Folder Showing Thumbnails in the Folders (Windows 10 Current Branch)
So while I am very glad to have folders instead of thumbnails, there seems to be one last issue pending.
How has your 16232 experience been so far?
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