Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Build 16215 Adds Fluent Design System, Cortana Tweaks And More

Windows Insiders who are subscribed to the Fast ring—the Insider channel that receives new and less polished builds of Windows earlier than the Slow ring—have a new preview of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update to play with. Microsoft on Thursday announced that the Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16215 for PC and 15222 for Mobile are now available to download, and with those new versions come a bunch of new features.

Windows 10 Action Center
Image Source: Microsoft

First and foremost on the PC side are elements of Microsoft's Fluent Design UI now found in both the Start menu and Action Center. Improvements to Start include:
  • Acrylic: If you have transparency enabled for Start, you’ll notice it’s now been updated to use the new acrylic design.
  • Vertical resize: No more glitches at the bottom of the frame.
  • Horizontal resize: The frame now starts resizing horizontally immediately (like vertical resize), as opposed to only “snapping” to certain widths.
  • Diagonal resize: The frame can be resized diagonally!
  • Resize grips: It’s now easier to “grip” the edge of the frame to start resizing.
  • Tablet mode transition: Smoother transition into tablet mode.
As for the Action Center, Microsoft said it took user feedback to heart and rolled out a redesign, one that is intended to offer clearer information separation and hierarchy. Elements from its Fluent Design language such as Acrylic are found in the Action Center, though do not be surprised if things are a little buggy in the early going. In fact, Microsoft points out a known issue in the Action Center where notifications sometimes lose their outline of Acrylic falls back to having to no transparency.

Windows 10 EPUB
Image Source: Microsoft

Microsoft also made improvements to its Edge browser, including the return of pinned sites—you can now pin your favorite websites to the taskbar. There is a new full screen experience available (press F11), and for ebook worms, a new ability to annotate EPUB books by highlighting in four colors, underlining, and adding comments.

The new build brings some added functionality to Cortana, too. If you give Cortana permission, she will sift through your camera roll and create a reminder when she notices event posters. She now also recognizes future events that you circle with the Lasso tool using a stylus.

These are some of the bigger improvements that have been added to the latest preview build, though overall Microsoft injected a whole bunch of new and improved goodies, such as numerous improvements to handwriting in Windows 10, better pen interaction, and some Game Bar tweaks.

On the mobile side, the new build is a little less exciting, as it contains mostly bug fixes and minor improvements. You can check them out by hitting the source link and scrolling down.