Back on October 2nd, Microsoft announced general availability for the latest update to Windows 10, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. The new naming is improved over what they’d been doing in the past, where updates were called Creators Update or Fall Creators Update, and hopefully this continues. As a version, this update is Windows 10 1809.

But of course, the October 2018 Update wasn’t really available in October after all, since shortly after it was released for users to install manually, several serious data loss bugs were discovered that had slipped through testing, and the update was then pulled. There’s been plenty of discussion online on how this happened, and why it’s happened, but regardless, it’s caused a rather sizeable delay in the actual rollout of this second update for 2018.

This is unfortunate on a number of levels, with the first being that these bugs were actually reported during the preview releases to the Windows Insider Program, but they weren’t actioned, and second, as Windows 10 has matured since it first came out in 2015, the hope has to be that with fewer major feature changes in each update, updates should be less intrusive and cause fewer issues, but clearly Microsoft is not quite there yet. They’ve made some changes to the Insider Program, but time will have to tell if that helps or not.

Windows 10 Version History
Version	Version Number	Release Date
Windows 10 Original Release	1507	July 29, 2015
November Update	1511	November 10, 2015
Anniversary Update	1607	August 2, 2016
Creators Update	1703	April 5, 2017
Fall Creators Update	1709	October 17, 2017
April 2018 Update	1803	April 30, 2018
October 2018 Update	1809	October 2, 2018

We’ve not heard of any changes to the current servicing model of two updates per year, although with both of the 2018 updates having major issues causing them to halt deployment, there’s still some concern over whether the current method is sustainable for Microsoft, and of course for the millions of business customers who have to test and maintain the OS in their companies.

But with the preamble out of the way, there are still quite a few new features for Windows 10 in the October 2018 Update which should make workflows a bit easier to manage, as well as plenty of smaller updates which we’ll go over as well. Microsoft has been focusing more on productivity features for Windows 10, which fits in well with where the operating system is most used, but they continue to improve security, privacy, and accessibility as well. Let’s dig into some of the new features coming with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.

Your Phone

Arguably the headline feature for this update is a new app called Your Phone, which allows you to link your PC with your Android handset to integrate some of the functionality. As a first release, the Your Phone link is limited to photos and SMS messages only, although both of these are very welcome additions to the PC.

With Your Phone, you can access the previous 25 photos on your phone, which makes it handy for when you grab a quick shot of something and need to share it on your PC, but with only access to 25 photos, it’s not going to replace true file and photo sharing apps on your phone like Microsoft’s OneDrive, or Google Photos.

Once you link your phone with your PC, you simply open Your Phone and select Photos, and you’ll have access to the full resolution images just as if you were working on your phone. It works with screenshots as well, so there are times where this will be very handy.

The other functionality is the ability to send and receive SMS messages from your PC, which is something that Windows Phone was able to do, but with its demise, Microsoft needs to leverage Android for this. At the moment, iOS users won’t be able to sync iMessage with the PC, and it’s unclear whether Apple will ever allow this outside of their ecosystem.

As with Photos, once you pair your phone, the previous month’s worth of SMS messages will appear on your PC, and you can send new SMS messages or continue your current conversations. There’s going to be a bit of a delay when sending and receiving messages, since your Android phone will need to be the relay, but it works well and is something that most users should appreciate.

Microsoft has hinted at additional features coming in future updates, such as the ability to mirror calls on the PC, and Your Phone should be a nice space to watch with the importance of the phone in most people’s lives.

In addition, if you’ve installed the Microsoft Launcher on Android, it will link with the Timeline feature introduced in the April 2018 update allowing you to quickly get back to where you were on multiple devices.

Cloud Clipboard

Windows 10 1809 brings some much-needed improvements to the clipboard. First, you can access your clipboard history, and second, you can access your clipboard on multiple devices. Both of these can be configured, of course, if you prefer to not use these features. In addition, hopefully this fixes the long-standing bug with Windows 10 where it wouldn’t always copy when you do Ctrl C, especially in a UWP app, but as it’s difficult to prove a negative, all we can say is that so far after over a month with 1809, this bug hasn’t occurred.

To access your clipboard, you have to use the new keyboard shortcut of Windows Key + V. Once opened, you’ll see your most recent items in your clipboard and if you click on them it pastes that item into whatever program is open. You can also delete some or all of your history.

In the new settings feature for this app, you can set it to also sync between devices, so you’d be able to access your clipboard anywhere if needed.

Functionality wise, the new feature works as expected, although the interface could use some work. Having to open it with Win + V works, but it would be nice to be able to keep your clipboard open as an app as well, and where the clipboard opens on the display seems to be relative to what you have open at the time, so it does move around a bit. Unlike most apps you can’t drag it around either. Hopefully this gets turned into a full-fledged app you can just have open on your screen.

Also, if you have a lot of items in your clipboard, it’ll take a bit of scrolling to find what you’re after, so you may find that you need to prune it from time to time.

Screen Sketch

Working in harmony with the updated clipboard is Screen Sketch tool, which is a big improvement over previous versions. Most users know that they can do a PrintScreen to grab a capture of the whole screen, or Alt+PrintScreen to grab an active Windows in a screen capture, but Windows 10 also had a shortcut to access a screen sketch tool accessed through Windows Key + Shift + S, and this would provide much of the same functionality as the Snipping Tool from Windows 7 where you can draw a box around anything on the screen and it would be instantly copied to your clipboard.

With 1809, Screen Sketch has been improved dramatically. Opening the Screen Sketch tool lets you pick between a full screen capture, freeform capture, or the default rectangular capture, where you can draw a box around something to copy it. Once copied, it will then open the Snip & Sketch app where you can crop, annotate, save, or share the capture.

For those that do a lot of screen captures (raises hand) this new functionality speeds up the process significantly, and cuts out steps like having to paste a screen capture into paint or another program in order to save it as a file. In previous versions of Windows 10, the Win+Shift+S shortcut was already great tool, but 1809 really brings the entire process altogether into a single experience.

Finally, many people will likely not love having to use a three-key combination to launch this new tool, and with the 1809 update you can now map the Print Screen key to this new screen clipping method.

Accessibility and Typing Updates

As has been the norm, Microsoft has also added some new accessibility features with the latest update. In Settings, there’s an Ease of Access menu which lets you adjust all of the accessibility features.

In the display settings, you can adjust text size with a slider, and apply without having to log out. This changes the text size of all of the system text, such as the Start Menu, Edge tabs, and settings. It doesn’t affect applications though, since they render their own text, but apps like Edge will allow you to zoom in which helps as well. The advantage here over doing the entire display with DPI scaling is that it doesn’t impact the visual layout, or amount of desktop space you have available. For some, setting the DPI to a larger scaling factor is going to be the preferred method, but this is a great option as well if you do want to keep your desktop space available. You can set it from 100% to 225% in 1% increments. At maximum size, it does impact usability though, since text won’t fit in its windows very well.

This can also be used with the new Magnifier features which also allow you to set the zoom level increments to smaller levels of 5 and 10% for better control of the magnification, and you can set it to keep the mouse centered so you don’t lose it as easily when using magnifier.

Microsoft has also updated the Narrator functionality, starting with a new QuickStart tutorial when Narrator first launches, and they’ve updated the Narrator keyboard as well to improve ergonomics and usability. There’s also a new Narrator Find feature to search for specific text, and the ability to automatically read dialog boxes, and a new Scan Mode which will stop the Narrator on interactive elements so you can interact with them before it moves on. Check out the updated Narrator Guide for more information.

Typing Updates

There’s also new functionality for typing, both with the on-screen touch keyboard, or with a hardware keyboard. First, Microsoft’s SwiftKey predictive keyboard can be used as the touch keyboard in certain languages, and as we’ve all gotten used to on our mobile devices, predictive typing can be very helpful when using a touch keyboard. You can access insights into your predictive typing to see how often you use the predictive typing.

In addition, people using hardware keyboards can also enable the predictive typing so that the system will generate suggestions as you type.

If you love the Emoji picker added in a couple of updates ago, you’ll be happy to see that it now supports Unicode 11, and offers 157 new emojis.

Shell Updates and More

File Explorer Dark Mode

Windows 10 has offered a Dark Mode for quite a while now, but as with everything Windows, the legacy bits can take a while to clean up. But with the October 2018 Update, users using the Dark Mode setting will now also see the new dark mode in Windows Explorer.

Home Screen

The Home Screen has also gotten an updated look, and new functionality. You can easily open TimeLine from within the Home Screen, and searches within here offer previews for apps, documents, email, people, and more. You can also more easily filter searches for web results versus documents or files, and the preview pane lets you get a better feel for what you’ve found, showing modified dates and more.

Registry Editor

For those that love Regedit, the extra functionality of being able to type in a location has been improved with a dropdown that fills in as you type, and you can now do Ctrl + Backspace to delete the last word for easier navigation, or Ctrl + Delete to delete the next word.

Biometric Remote Desktop Sign-In

Windows 10 1809 also brings biometric login support for Remote Desktop when authentication to a VM over Active Directory or Azure Active Directory.

Wireless Projection

There’s also updates to wireless projection, to improve the experience across multiple scenarios. There’s now a control banner on the host device to let you set and configure the wireless display projection, and there’s three settings you can choose:

• Game Mode: minimizes the screen-to-screen latency to make gaming over a wireless connection possible
• Video Mode: increases the screen-to-screen latency to ensure the video on the big screen plays back smoothly
• Productivity Mode: strikes a balance between game mode and video mode; the screen-to screen-latency is responsive enough that typing feels natural, while ensuring videos don’t glitch as often.

Storage Sense

Storage Sense is the feature that helps keep Windows clean, and in previous updates it’s gained the ability to empty your recycle bin or delete files in Downloads. New to 1809 is the ability to mark content as online-only in OneDrive if you not opened it for between 1 and 60 days, or never. For those on small SSDs, it should help keeping some space available.

Task Manager

The Task Manager now offers columns showing an applications power usage, and it’s power usage trend, so you can use it to track down where all your battery has gone

Fonts

New to 1809 is the ability to install fonts from the Windows Store with no admin rights needed, or to install fonts on a per-user basis where admin rights also won’t be needed.

HDR and Wide Color Gamut Updates

If your display offers HDR and Wide Color Support, you enable support for video, HDR games and apps, and Wide Color apps in the new Windows HD Color Settings menu under Display properties. There’s a preview video as well so you can test the changes quickly. HDR still seems to be in its infancy on the PC, but with more displays now offering HDR it won’t be too long before it becomes more mainstream like it is in the TV industry.

Windows Subsystem for Linux

The developer reaction to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has been quite good, and Microsoft continues to update it with pretty much every release of Windows 10. There’s some really great functionality with this update which should improve the experience even further.

Distros

There’s now additional Linux distros available in the Microsoft Store. If you are an Ubuntu fan, version 18.04 is now available, and Microsoft has a guide on how to update to the latest version. Also, Ubuntu 18.04 can be run on ARM devices, which is interesting.

There’s also WLinux, OpenSUSE 15, and SLES 15 available in the store now.

Microsoft has also added the ability to install WSL distros right from the command line, which should make setting up a new dev machine quite a bit easier.

Notepad

Announced at Build to much fanfare, Microsoft has updated Notepad to support Linux line endings, which means you can use Notepad to open files from Unix/Linux, macOS, or Windows.

Shift Right Click Menu

If you’ve ever been in explorer and thought wouldn’t it be great to be able to launch a Linux shell from right here, today is your lucky day. The shift right click menu will now have entry to launch a Linux shell here, which will open your default WSL distro to that path, much like the existing PowerShell option did already.

Improved Per-Directory Case Sensitivity Support

Case sensitivity is now off by default on new directories created in WSL, which fixes an issue introduced previously when new directories were created in WSL which would then not work well in Windows where applications expected the directory to be non-case sensitive. You can switch directories back and forth with the setfattr command as needed. If this has been a pain point for you, check out Microsoft’s blog on the topic.

Copy and Paste

With the latest update, there’s a new option in the console option window to allow copy and paste from the keyboard shortcuts of Ctrl + Shift + C and V.

Edge Updates

As with every update for Windows 10, Edge has gotten some new features as well.

Media Autoplay

Likely one of the most annoying things on the web is auto-playing videos, and Edge now has a setting to allow you to control this behavior. You can find this setting under Advanced. Allow is the default, and lets media play if the tab is in the foreground. Limit will restrict videos to only play if they are muted by default. Block will prevent all autoplaying videos unless you directly interact with the element.

In addition, this can be done on a site by site basis by clicking the icon beside the URL which will be a lock if the site has HTTPS or a circle if it’s HTTP.

Menu Changes

Edge started life as a browser lacking a lot of functionality, and with every update there’s been more added in, so with the 1809 update, the menus and settings interface has been adjusted to cope with the additional settings and features. The Favorites icon is now the hub for Favorites, Reading List, History, Books, and Downloads.

Settings is also broken up in the same manor, making it a much cleaner and easier to navigate settings page.

Reading View

Reading View now supports a Line Focus feature which highlights only a few lines of text at a time, which can help with distractions.

Additionally, Reading View now supports the ability to look up a definition of a word by selecting it. This works in Reading View for websites, Books, and PDFs, and the functionality works even if you are offline by referencing a built-in dictionary. This is exactly the same as a Kindle, and is great functionality.

Web Authentication

Edge now supports the Web Authentication API known as WebAuthN, and Edge supports authentication using Windows Hello to sign in with a biometric login. The end goal is to replace the multitude of passwords with stronger credentials that are easier for people to use, and hopefully this gains some traction on the web as a whole, because the password authentication system is not the best.

Under the Hood

In addition to these features, the Edge team has been busy adding new features under the hood for developers to tap, such as improvements to their CSS handling, and Service Workers. For a full list of all of the features on the current road map, check out the Platform Status page, and for a full change log of all new features in Edge, the team has a convenient changelog page as well.

Final Words

Although the Windows 10 October 2018 Update has gotten off to a pretty rocky start, when people get the update they will find some new functionality that isn’t just for show. There’s enough new features here that it’s already difficult to use devices on previous versions, which is generally a good sign.

The Your Phone app is likely the highlight, since it really helps integrate the PC with the world of mobile in an easy to use way. The app is a bit light on features right now, but functionality will improve over time. The ability to send and receive text messages on the PC is a nice feature though, and there’s been many times where the new photo sharing would be very handy.

The new clipboard functionality, tied in with the new screen capture tools, are a great update. Being able to map the new screen capture to the print screen button also makes it much easier to access, and it would not be a huge surprise to see this get eventually set as the default. What would really put the cloud clipboard over the top though would be having it as a standalone app, so you can leave it open and reference it when needed, since right now you have to open it every time you want to paste something.

Proper Dark Mode is slowly taking shape, although we’ll likely continue to see it evolve over the next several updates. Having File Explorer added to the list of Dark Mode views though is welcomed. As with everything on Windows though, having a full system dark mode is difficult to achieve since buy-in from developers is not as strong as some platforms, and much of the software is legacy. But some applications such as Visual Studio do offer proper dark modes, and many of the built-in UWP apps like Skype support this as well.

Edge has come a long way since Windows 10 first launched. At that time, it was pretty difficult to use, but the Edge team has continued to improve their product significantly over time. With Edge now being available on Android and iOS, it’s now quite powerful. There’s no doubt that Google Chrome is still the browser of choice for most people, but Edge does offer a solid product now, with low power usage, and great text rendering.

Overall this is a nice update, and is really the style of update that suits Windows 10 now. It’s been out for three years, and there’s not a big push for major UI changes that drastically alter how people interact with the operating system. There’s likely always going to be a debate about how often is too often for a major feature update, and the twice per year scenario we have now is perhaps too aggressive, when you see Android and iOS both updating only once per year, and neither of those have the legacy devices of Windows to contend with. Having major bugs missed during the launch of this update hasn’t helped the discussion either. The other side of the coin is that even with yearly updates, these bugs still could have been missed.

Major bugs aside, and now hopefully fixed, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update provides really useful new features, and three years in, that’s really all we can ask for.