Microsoft has announced the newest version of it’s server platform – Server 2019, which will be available the latter half of 2018. There is a preview build available via the Insider program (sign up if you haven’t already, and try it out on test hardware or VM!).

Windows Server 2019 is built on the strong foundation of Windows Server 2016 – which continues to see great momentum in customer adoption. Windows Server 2016 is the fastest adopted version of Windows Server, ever! We’ve been busy since its launch at Ignite 2016 drawing insights from your feedback and product telemetry to make this release even better.

We also spent a lot of time with customers to understand the future challenges and where the industry is going. Four themes were consistent – Hybrid, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-converged infrastructure. We bring numerous innovations on these four themes in Windows Server 2019.

A new build for Windows 10 Fast Ring insiders – build 17127 has been released. Again, another build with a few improvements, but nothing mind blowing being added as ‘new’. No new known issues as we get closer to the final release of this version.

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue where if you had your phone linked to your PC prior to upgrading, you’ll find it has become unlinked after upgrading.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Microsoft Edge crashing when turning off certain extensions.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator would crash when using scan mode to read dialogs in Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the page up and page down keys not working when using Microsoft Edge in Reading View.
• We fixed an issue resulting in focus being lost after using WIN+A to close the Action Center.
• We fixed an issue where if you switched your formatting to Japanese without having the Japanese language in your language list, newly installed apps wouldn’t appear in Start.

Known issues

• There are currently no known issues for this flight however if any issues are discovered based off Insider feedback, we’ll add them here.

Michael Niehaus has a new blog post up that goes over a sensitive topic (and sometimes confusing) for many. When you install Windows 10, a set of applications are installed from the Windows Store. However, those apps are different based on a few things – the edition of Windows you are running and/or the type of account that you are using to log into the installation, and the region of the world that you are in.

So a quick summary: You’ll get games on Windows 10 Pro 1709 only when using local or MSA accounts; you’ll lever get games for AD or AAD users, or for anyone on Windows 10 Enterprise.

Also note that Windows 10 Pro for Workstations will soon have the same behavior as Windows 10 Enterprise, as described in the Windows Insider blog:

Productivity focused out of box applications: In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the out of box experience for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations draws from the Pro edition of Windows 10. One area where this is noticeable is the suite of applications installed out of the box visible as tiles in the start menu. In the next release for Windows, you will see for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations productivity and enterprise focused applications in place of consumer applications and games. This was one of the top feedback shared with us by our partners and users and we’re delivering this in our next update.

Also note that on Windows 10 Enterprise, you can turn off the installation of apps from the store altogether by configuring the “Turn off Microsoft consumer features” GPO or the equivalent MDM policy.

For those in the Windows 10 Fast Ring Insider group, build 17123 has been released. Of course, this won’t last long as the builds are coming much faster these days leading up to the final release of this version.

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• We fixed an issue from the last flight on PCs with the Dolby Access app installed and expired Dolby Atmos license, where the Windows Audio service (audiosrv) would crash with a stack overflow exception and the PC won’t have sound.
• We fixed an issue resulting in a bug check with the error message SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR in recent flights.
• As of Build 17063, a change was made that may have caused some older drivers to not load properly. This may have caused update failures or bugchecks (GSODs) shortly after the PC was rebooted. This build includes fixes for this that should prevent these update failures and bugchecks from occurring.
• Thanks everyone who’s shared feedback about our Embedded Handwriting Panel so far – we’re making a change such that if you clean install, reset your PC, or upgrade straight to this build from the Fall Creators Update this experience will be turned off by default. The setting will remain on for Insiders who have upgraded from previous builds where it was enabled, and can be turned on by anyone with a pen capable device via the “Write directly into text field” option under Pen & Windows Ink Settings.

Known issues

• If you had your phone linked to your PC prior to upgrading, you’ll find it has become unlinked after upgrading. You can relink your phone from Settings > Phone.

For some Windows Insiders, they may see some new privacy settings screens when installing the most recent build. There are several different versions. Microsoft seems to be more transparent with it’s use and ability to change some privacy settings. Of course, there is no “All off” when it comes to privacy in an OS like Windows 10, which does use a lot of data from online sources.

For our Windows Insiders who install today’s build, they’ll be able to experience this new set up for the first time. Not everyone will experience the same setup, however. For example, some will review their settings through a single screen set up where selections such as ‘Find My Device’ and’ Inking & typing’ are independent selections.

Build 17115 for Fast Ring Insiders on Windows 10 has been released. A lot of great fixes, but what I find exciting this round is the Known Issues part of the notes:

Known issues  

• There are currently no known issues for this flight however if any issues are discovered based off Insider feedback, we’ll add them here.

This is great news as we head into the last part before it is finally released to everyone! Great work Windows Insider team and to all the Windows Insiders! As usual, the team isn’t resting on their laurels, they are continuing to kick butt and work on this release as well as the next release!

For those of you that are interested in information security, Kali Linux is now available in the Windows Store as part of the Windows Subsystem for Linux. While this isn’t as great as a native Kali installation, it still brings some great tools to Windows. I know this might interest some people, as well as students learning about Kali, but most infosec professionals will most likely stick with the native installation. This is still pretty cool and I will definitely be playing with it and comparing it to the dedicated install of Kali on a separate machine.

While running Kali on Windows has a few drawbacks to running it natively (such as the lack of raw socket support), it does bring in some very interesting possibilities, such as extending your security toolkit to include a whole bunch of command line tools that are present in Kali. While not officially supported by WSL yet, we’ve tested running a desktop manager such as XFCE on WSL’d Kali…and it seems to work quite well. We will update our blog with more news and updates regarding the development of this app as it’s released.

As we get closer to the final release of this new version, the builds come quicker and quicker. Up today, we have build 17112 for the Windows 10 Fast Ring Insider group. Definitely some things to check in the Known Issues section as it might affect you. Also, be aware of a critical Windows Mixed Reality bug if you have a WMR device.

Known issues

• IMPORTANT: The Microsoft Store may be completely broken or disappeared altogether after upgrading to this build. Please see this forum post for details including a workaround on how to get the Microsoft Store back.

• If you try to open a file that is available online-only from OneDrive that hasn’t been previously downloaded to your PC (marked with a green checkmark in File Explorer), your PC could bugcheck (GSOD). You can work around this problem by right-clicking on these files and selecting “Always keep on this device.” Any file-on-demand from OneDrive that is already downloaded to the PC should open fine.

• Post-install at the first user-prompted reboot or shutdown, a small number of devices have experienced a scenario wherein the OS fails to load properly and may enter a reboot loop state. For affected PCs, turning off fast boot may bypass the issue. If not, it is necessary to create a bootable ISO on a USB drive, boot into recovery mode, and this this will allow bypass.

• When Movies & TV user denies access to its videos library (through the “Let Movies & TV access your videos library?” popup window or through Windows privacy settings), Movies & TV crashes when the user navigates to the “Personal” tab.

For those in the Fast Ring of the Windows 10 Insider group, you can now update to build 17110. Some cool new things included in this one for enterprise users. As usual, check the known issues. As we are edging close to the final release, they are minimal but still might be impactful to you.

What’s new in Build 17110

Improvements for Enterprise Customers in RS4

Enterprises can now run custom actions during feature update: In RS4, we are adding a new feature that will enable your enterprise to run your own custom actions/scripts synchronously with setup. Setup will execute custom actions during two update phases controlled by using preinstall.cmd or precommit.cmd:

• Pre-install: This would be just before all the system and device compatibility scans run.
• Pre-commit: This would be just before the system reboots into the offline phase.

For those Windows 10 Fast Ring Insiders, a new build has been unleashed – Build 17093. A lot of new things in this build, as well as a lot of fixes. As usual, check the known issues for anything that might be a show stopper for you. For some, it may be best to stay on the slow or release preview ring. I’ve noticed a few posts in various forums complaining about the various bugs (and many are in the known issues) and other things. The Insider program releases are guaranteed to have bugs during most of the development. They are not meant for critical production machines. They are to try out the latest and greatest and provide feedback, including telling them of those bugs, so that they can create a much better product. You are a beta tester and feedback producer. If you’re good with that, like many are, the Insider builds are excellent and fun. If you have something to lose on your PC, try a VM or wait for the final release to consumers.

Also, the Bug Bash continues until the 11th, so do some quests and throw the Insider team some good feedback to help make this release a great one!

Known issues

• We have observed seeing longer-than-normal delays during install at the 88% mark. Some delays are as long as 90 minutes before moving forward. Please be patient as the install will complete successfully.

• Some PCs will fail to resume from hibernate requiring a hard reboot to recover.

• If you install a font product from the Microsoft Store, then later install a new build (feature update), the Store package will remain installed, but the fonts within the package are not installed. Until this is fixed, the temporary workaround is to uninstall the product from the Apps page in Settings, then re-acquire the product from the Store.

• If an East Asian keyboard is the only input method on your system the touch keyboard will show an English layout with no IME on/off key. Until this is fixed, the workaround is to add a second keyboard language from the Region & Language Settings page, or to use the IME mode button in the taskbar.

• We’re investigating an issue where the Japanese IME sometimes can’t turn on in UWP apps. If you encounter this issue switch to a Win32 application (e.g. Notepad), turn the IME on there, then switch back to the UWP app.

• We’re investigating reports that 3 and 4 finger gestures on the touchpad have become unresponsive starting with the previous flight.

• Windows Hello will fail to work on Surface Laptops with this build.

• Plugging in an external optical drive (DVD) will cause an Explorer.exe crash.

• Settings will crash if you open the Themes Settings page.