Just as we prognosticated this morning Microsoft has indeed released the next build of Windows 10 Mobile to Windows Insiders who choose to occupy the fast ring.
The build, 10080, brings several additions including the previously promised Office Preview apps.
Those of you on Lumia 930, Icon, and 640XL finally get back in the build cycle as they have addressed the scaling issues with those devices.
The first non-Lumia device also joins the ranks of Insiders as the HTC One (M8) gets a chance to participate as of this build.
Of course, the official announcement blog post from the Ring Master, Gabe Aul, does provide the standard warning we have come to expect with fast ring builds:
This is a Fast ring build so be aware there are some bugs that will affect your experience with it, make sure to read the known issues below before installing.
With the warnings out of the way let’s look at what new:
- Windows Store beta for phones. App selection and available markets are limited in this release. While other payment methods are available there is no carrier billing in this version. It also has the Movies & TV page built in juts like the Windows 10 desktop version of the Store Beta.
- Universal Office apps. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote previews are included in the Store beta.
- Xbox App. You will also find this in the Store beta and it brings all of your Xbox activity to your phone. You can read more about this Windows 10 app at the Xbox Wire site.
- Music and Video Preview apps. Access your entire music collection including songs stored on OneDrive plus browse and play your video library and purchases.
- New Camera app. While this can be made your default camera app be aware that some features of high-end Windows Phones such as the 1520, 1020, 930, 830, 640 and 640XL will be unavailable.
As for known issues in this build – the list is long:
- Migration related issues:
- After upgrading, you may see duplicate tiles for apps like Search and Phone under All Apps.
- “Pending” may show under some apps after upgrade and those apps are unresponsive. Restarting the phone will clear the pending flag and the apps should work.
- All data and settings for apps installed on a SD card do not get migrated and you cannot launch these apps or install them again. Workaround is to uninstall then reinstall these apps.
- The old email app will still show up after upgrade in All Apps list with “Error” text displayed and cannot be removed. This app also shows up banged out on the Start screen if it was pinned previously. It can simply be unpinned to remove.
- When upgrading from Windows Phone 8.1 to this build, even if you have your cellular data connection turned on, it will get turned off during upgrade. Go to Settings > Network & wireless > Cellular and SIM to turn it back on.
- VERY IMPORTANT: there is a condition in which you may never receive MMS messages. Usually when someone sends you a MMS message and your phone’s cellular data connection is turned off, you will receive a “Get message” link in the text thread from the sender, allowing you to download the message once you turn your cellular data back on. There is a bug in which this link is not received in this case and the MMS message is completely lost. To ensure MMS messages are not lost, be sure to turn cellular data on (via Settings > Network & wireless > Cellular & SIM > Data connection). This issue will occur any time your cellular data connection is turned off in this build.
- If you are in a region where Cortana is enabled (US, China, UK, France, Italy, Germany, or Spain) and you have changed the default shipping language on your phone – please ensure that your region, language, and speech settings are restored to their default values before initiating the update. This is required in order to avoid a bug that will cause Cortana/Search to repeatedly crash.
- After upgrade, uninstalling an app may not remove it from the All Apps list. Usually restarting your device resolves this issue.
- Playback of movies and TV may fail with error 0x8004c029 in the Video Preview app. If it does, go here to learn more about how to fix it.
- After upgrading, the Twitter app may crash on launch. If you uninstall and reinstall the app, it should work.
- Auto-update for apps is not enabled in this build for apps installed via Store Beta. You will have to manually check for updates.
- After upgrading from Build 10052, the Insider Hub still does not launch. However, if you upgrade from Windows Phone 8.1 the Insider Hub should now launch.
Testing in the Fast Ring of the Windows Insider program is not for the faint of heart!
I am currently installing the new build on a Nokia Lumia 830 so I will put together a screenshot gallery once I have it up and running!
