The Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809): Let's Try This Again
by Brett Howse on November 14, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
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.
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haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That is so true. But they can now play with this new toy and in two or three years from now, we may actually see ten or more games to use it! And after that some more...New trend has to be started one day. But early bird in this case may not to be the best place to bee. The second or third generation of ray tracing cards will be a heck of lot better in ray tracing than these and there will be more of them. Then we will have Nvidia, Intel and AMD competing the best ray tracing card title and also hopefully some price competition too!
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That's true, but I'm still curious to see if Raytacing is worthwhile from a graphical point.That and if the RTX cards are crap at pumping out rays, then maybe the pricing will come back down to earth. So far the high prices are sort of justified by this big mythical feature that no one can verify.
Martijn ter Haar - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Yup. The Battlefield V is the first game where raytracing can be enabled, albeit only for reflections. There's still some bugs though. Hardware Unboxed has a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZmH0_1gWQhoutek - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
this OS has been buggy for decades. After spending three days on the phone with HP, and reinstalling Win 10 at least twice, i'm done. I had a high end HP laptop with a unreliable OS. I wiped the hard drive, installed Ubuntu Linux, immediately got $200 in refunds on Windows support utilities, never looked back.Spunjji - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
This OS hasn't been out for decades. Next troll, please.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Refunds for support utilities? What support utilities?PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
While I totally support your decision to switch to Linux and would encourage people that are interested in something other than Windows to give it a try, my experiences with Win10 haven't been like that. I use it at work on a daily basis with very few problems. I use Linux at home on a daily basis, also with very few problems. Every modern operating system will have bugs regardless of whether or not you go with something open or closed source. I've run into a variety of mostly minor issues Linux since picking up shop and moving to it so I'd hardly call it a perfect experience. Mint Tara, version 19 and the latest from the Mint team, has resolved some instability with Audacity I've been experiencing while making recordings for video production so I'm a pretty happy clam at the moment. I would argue that it runs neck-and-neck with 10 (or at least so close that there isn't a notable difference) in terms of reliability which is to say that both operating systems are quite usable and each has its own set of pros and cons.haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Yep. I have has much less problems with win10 than I did have with win7. Win7 was quite nice at the end of its career, but all in all win 10 has been more stable operation system to me.On worst nitpick is that win10 has to keep so much legacy support in it that many setting are too numerous places (so that old programs can also work in it...) But stability has clearly been quite good. I did reinstall win 7 4-5 times. Win 10 I have not installed it again a single time. But it is all up how lucky you get with hardware vs firmware, vs software lottery that is quite excessive in windows machines.
Targon - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Talking to clueless support reps in India or wherever that only read from a script and expecting THEM to be able to help you just shows you should have checked online first for help. Windows 10 has been fairly solid for over a year now, even with the bugs that only apply to .05 percent of the user base.The big 1809 problem was due to people who redirected Documents for example to point to another directory instead of c:\users\USERNAME\Documents. If you had set up a proper JUNCTION link in the filesystem to do the job, it wouldn't have been a problem as well.
Laitainion - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Given that redirection is redirection is the only method exposed via the gui and not working across hard discs/partitions I don't think that's entirely fair. I find it quite reasonable that Microsoft check the use-cases that they expose for people to use than expect people to use a method that isn't.