2016-08-02



Microsoft is set to release the Windows 10 Anniversary Update sometime soon today. The update brings several new features to Windows 10, as well as a tonne of minor enhancements. There are improvements to the Start Menu, Action Center, Microsoft Edge, the built-in apps, Cortana, and much more. This is just a simple list of some of the things coming with the Anniversary Update today — however, there are quite a lot of changes throughout the operating system. Here’s the full list of features in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, courtesy of ChangeWindows:

Start and Action Center

You can now right-click on the header of an app in the Action Center instead of only the name and close icon

Dismissing all notifications from one app has been made easier with a larger target

The All Apps list and Most Used have been merged

“Recently added” can now show up to 3 apps instead of just one

All Apps is now full screen in tablet mode

The left rail now only consists of icons that can be expanded with the hamburger button

The Action Center icon has been moved to the right hand side of the clock

The Action Center icon now shows the number of new notifications and logos of the apps that have triggered them

Individual app notifications no longer have icons, instead the header now shows the icon

Notifications now support hero images and more

Clicking the Wi-Fi quick action will now open the Network fly-out instead of toggling Wi-Fi on and off

You can now manage all your playback devices from the Sound fly-out

When an app is shown with a name like “@{<app package name>}”, there will now be an option to remove it

You can now dismiss notifications by middle clicking on them

The Action Center has a more polished interface

The start menu has a new default tile layout

In All apps, the numbered apps are now listed under “#” instead of “0-9”

The target to dismiss notifications is now larger

You can now sync notifications between desktop and Mobile (as long as Mobile is on build 14352+)

The Action Center icon no longer shows the number of new notifications when the taskbar is set to small icons

The margin at the top off start is now smaller

Scrollbars will now disappear in start as soon as you leave their active area

The Recently installed-list is now displayed above Most used

Recently installed apps now stay visible under Recently installed for 7 days

If a Quick Action turns a certain functionality in your device on or off (Bluetooth, Flashlight, etc.) it will now show On/Off for a short period

The Action Center now has an animation when notifications are deleted or moved by Windows

Cortana and search

Cortana will now show a button on the top to search for music

Cortana is now supported in Spanish (Mexico), Portuguese (Brazil) and French (Canada)

Cortana now provides more freedom when creating new reminders

Cortana can now provide turn-by-turn directions with the new Maps app

Cortana can now sync across devices

You’ll now get a notification whenever your mobile device is running out of battery

Find my phone/Ring my phone is now available through Cortana

You can now share map directions between your devices

Cortana can now automatically fetch the required speech language for you

Cortana can now give reminder suggestions

You can now change Cortana’s language

Cortana’s Settings have been moved outside the Notebook

Cortana is now available on the lock screen

You can now create reminders with photos or shared info from apps

Cortana no longer needs to be initiated to get started

Cortana now fully supports cross device functionality

You can no longer disable Cortana from within her settings

Reminders are now no longer sorted on type, but are shown in one list

OneDrive is now intergrated in search

Improved share UI for reminders

Cortana can now search in your Office 365 account

You can now let Cortana play music from the Groove Music Catalog

You can now set a timer in Cortana

You can now enable Cortana to help you on the lock screen with reminders, appointments and messages

The buttons for Settings and Feedback in the rail have been moved to the bottom

When listening to you, Cortana now shows a sound wave instead of random characters

Cortana should now listen more reliably after tapping the mic button

Cortana’s home UI no longer shows your cards but hints and a button to show the cards

Right-clicking on a file will now allow you to open its location

The keyboard shortcut to open Cortana in listening mode is now Win + Shift + C

Desktop

Controls in taskbar previews now look better on high resolutions

You can now show a window on all your desktops

You can now set the taskbar to auto hide only for tablet mode

The clock on the taskbar now has calendar integrated into it

The clock is now visible on all monitors the taskbar is visible on

UWP apps can now show a badge on top of their icon in the taskbar

You can now switch desktops by swiping with 4 fingers over the touchpad

The File Explorer has a new icon

File Explorer is no longer pinned to the taskbar by default

Windows will now remember the “Show windows from this app on all desktops”-setting for each window

WIN + Alt + D can now open the clock flyout

User Interface

The logon screen now uses the lockscreen image as background

The upgrade experience has a new design

The emoji set has been completely revamped

The default emojis are no longer grey, but yellow

The lock screen no longer shows your email address

When playing media, the media controls will now be shown on top of the lock screen

User Account Control has been reworked to match the Windows 10 design language

The credential window has been redesigned

When closing a snapped app in tablet mode, the other app will take the full screen

When your profile starts to load, the background on the lock screen will zoom in a little

A number of icons, like the Blu-Ray icon and network icon have been updated

The width for the Japanese 12 key keyboard is now wider on small screens in portrait mode

Windows Hello will no longer show your name when logging in

Microsoft Edge

Edge has been updated from version 25.10586 to version 38.14393 with the following updates

Right clicking the back-button will now show a dropdown with pages visited earlier

The ellipses-menu has a slightly new design

The hub-, webnote- and share-items will no longer appear in the settings-menu when there isn’t enough space on the addressbar

When closing Edge, you can now choose to clear the browsing data

You can now change the favorites bar to only show icons

You can now create a folder right from the favorites bar

You can now rename items from the favorites bar

You can now require a prompt to pop up before a download starts

You can now choose the location where a download should be stored

Edge now supports Extensions

Extensions can now add an icon to the address bar

Tabs can now be pinned to the tab bar

The address bar now supports “Paste and go”

The address bar now supports “Paste and search”

When a download has completed, Edge will not show a notification in the Action Center

When the window becomes too narrow, the Hub, Web Notes and Share buttons will appear in the ellipses menu as icons instead of text

The padding between the URL bar and Hub-icon is slightly larger

You can now upload folders

Edge now supports importing favorites from Firefox

Imported favorites will now be put in their own folder, instead of the already existing favorites folder

The Favorites hub now uses a tree view

When closing Edge with running downloads, Edge will now warn you

You can now set a default save location for downloads

Edge’s default opening settings are now a dropdown

When Flash content isn’t the focus, Edge will pause it automatically

There is now an accessibility tree view in F12

You can now debug extensions through F12

You can now use DOM API profiling

Developer items no longer appear by default in context menus and have to be enabled by visiting the F12 tools one time

Extensions can now be downloaded from the Windows Store

You can now swipe to go back and forward

“What’s new and tips” has been added to the menu in Edge

Download notificaions in Edge now include filenames, download status and site domain on separate lines

When a download is opened outside of Edge, Edge will now launch with the download hub enabled

EdgeHTML has been updated from version 13.10586 to version 14.14393 with the following updates

Support for grab and grabbing values for the cursor property

Default parameters

Async/await

Object.values and Object.entries

Opus audio format

Time element

Date element

Output element

Color input type

Canvas Path2D objects

Web Speech API

The User Agent String has been updated

Improved accessibility features

Web Notification API

Beacon API

Fetch API

The following flags have been added

You can now enable the ability to unload unpacked extensions

You can now set a flag for “Compose scrollbar thumbs independently”

You can now set a flag for DirectX settings “Use Windows.UI.Composition”

A flag for WebRTC 1.0 is available but not functional and will be removed in a later version

ES6 Regex symbols

You can now allow Edge to use an unrestricted amount of memory

You can now enable H.264/AVC for Object RTC

Experimental support for TCP Fast Open can be enabled

TCP Fast Open is disabled by default but can be enabled

A flag has been added to enable Standard Fullscreen API

Settings

New panels, settings and options

You can now back-up your Startscreen layout, accounts and passwords to OneDrive

Windows Defender has been updated to version 4.10

Taskbar settings have been added under System

Your personal info and email settings are now split up under Accounts

Insiders can no longer change the Feedback behavior, it is now set to always ask questions

Windows Defender can now be used offline

You can now remove temporary files, downloads, recycle bin and previous Windows installations from Storage

You can now choose which app’s notifications are more important to you

You can now choose how many notifications an app can have in the Action Center

You can now choose between dark and light mode

The color for title bars and the color for the taskbar, start and Action Center can now be toggled separately from each other

You can now manage on a per-app basis if an app can run in the background or not, or if this has to be handled by Windows

Windows Update now allows you to set the time you’re most active in so that it can avoid updating at that point

You can now override Active Hours with the Restart Options

The Windows Update notification, after installing an update, now takes you to the device’s update history

You can now enable Device Portal

You can now enable a number of developer-focused settings for File Explorer

There are now a number of developer-focused settings for Remote Desktop

You can now share your Wi-Fi as a hotspot

PowerShell also has a number of developer-focused settings

You can now set the position of all quick actions in the Action Center and choose which should be visible

The Pen settings have been updated to allow you to set pen shortcuts

You can now reset an app from the App settings

You can now set whether or not the lock screen should show your email address

“Project to this PC” settings have been added under System

“Dial Up” settings have been added under Networks

“Magnifier” settings have been added under “Ease of Access”

There is a progress bar added under “Battery” to indicate the charge of the battery

You can now change the sort order of apps on the “Battery”-pane

A link to Maps Storage has been added under Storage settings

The default pane for Network & Settings is now the new “Status”-pane

Settings now has a network speed test integrated

Hotspot 2.0 settings have been added under Wi-Fi

You can now disable badges on taskbar buttons

You can now prevent the lock screen from showing your email address

You can now see all add-ons per app

Under “Temporary Files”, Windows now shows the amount of storage that pending updates and builds are using

Some of the activation info has been removed from “Activation”

Under Privacy, you can now enable apps on other devices to start on your PC to continue where you left off

Under Privacy, you can now enable apps on other devices to start on your PC through Bluetooth to continue where you left off

Apps for websites has been added under System

Sharing a network with your contacts in Wi-Fi Sense is no longer possible

The IME Settings page now has a “Clear Input History” option

You can now let your PC only be visible to project when plugged in

Upgrading from Pro to Enterprise no longer requires you to wipe the system and doesn’t require a reboot

You can now enable Limited Periodic Scanning which provides a second line of defence when using other Antivirus solutions than Windows Defender

Recovery now shows a link to a help thread about starting anew with Windows

You can now allow Windows to use your login credentials to automatically finish setting up your account after an upgrade

Windows Defender will no longer sow recap notification in normal mode

Notifications has been added under “Privacy” to change which apps have access to your notifications

“Activation” now has a description to help people change their product key

The name, IP address, and mac address to be selectable for Mobile Hotspot are now selectable so that you can copy them

The 3D display state will now be saved when upgrading

Visual updates and others

The Settings app has a new design

The selected accent color now has a new marking

Power and sleep settings contain some new information about behavior of the lockscreen when using slideshows

Wi-Fi Sense and and Paid Wi-Fi settings are now relocated to Wi-Fi Settings

The accent color table has been redesigned and is now always shown

Battery settings are now displayed on one single page

Under “Activation” Windows will now say that the license is coupled to your account

Update History is moved out of Advanced Options in Windows Update

Individual pages now have their own icon

Every sign-in method (Windows Hello, Picture password, etc.) now has an icon

Windows Insider Program settings have been moved out of Windows Update

When using Search in settings, the initial results will appear in a dropdown instead of full screen

The “Updates installed” notification now links to the Update history instead of Windows Update

Ctrl + E now sets focus to the search bar

The “Change product key” link now has an icon

Some of the options under Network and Internet > Status now have an icon and description

Ink Workspace

The Windows Ink Workspace is now available

System

Improvements to OneCore

Fast user switching now also works with Picture Password

Improved performance for Japanse IME

Windows now has a one-handed Japanese kana keyboard

The Text Input Canvas has a new Japanese lined-mode

You can now use the Ubuntu Bash natively in Windows

Improved Japanese IME with improved predictions, cloud suggestion and typing history

Improved battery life for Connected Standby PC’s

You can now enable paths with more than 260 characters for NTFS

The installation is no longer divided in 3 steps and now shows as just 1 step

Improved performance for account migration

Windows 10 now provides support for Hyper-V containers

Handwriting Recognition support for 23 additional languages

Ctrl + Shift + P can now be used to turn of Private mode when Japanese Input Method Editor is used

You can now troubleshoot activations

It is now possible to link your Microsoft Account to your digital license

Improved consistency in scrolling and zooming speeds between monitors when using a multiple-monitor setup with a precision touchpad

Improved battery life for Surface devices

Projecting to a PC auto-discoverability is now off by default

You can now mount iPods as USB mass-storage devices

Apps

The Get Skype app has been removed

The Windows Feedback app has been removed

Skype has been added as a default app

Connect has been added as a default app

Paid WiFi & Cellular has been added as a default app

Sticky Notes has been added as a default app

Feedback Hub has been added as a default app

You can now react on feedback in the Feedback Hub

The Feedback Hub now suggests a category when you’ve typed in your feedback

The “Alerts” page in the Feedback Hub has been removed

The Feedback Hub will now show Microsoft responses

You can now make a screenshot and open Feedback Hub directly with Win + F

Option now available to use the Camera app to take a photo and send it with Skype

The Win32 Sticky Notes app has been removed

Other features

The Credentials window now allows you to paste into the name and password fields

Tapping anywhere in the “Set location” notification will now allow you to set a default location

The Game Bar now supports more full-screen games

Task Manager settings will now be saved after upgrading to a new build

Improved learning speed and prediction in the Japanese IME

Improved sound and network icon on non-standard DPI settings

Improved reliability of Start, Cortana and Action Center

Narrator now supports using physical volume buttons to change the volume while Narrator is in Scan mode

And further

Windows 10 Education is now supported for the Windows Insider Preview

Copyright info has been updated to 2016

Windows now identifies itself as version 1607

The full buildstring is now displayed at the bottom of the desktop for previews

The build numbers for desktop and Mobile are now synced

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