Although yesterday we began to receive the new Windows 10 October update, Microsoft does not stop. The company has already been working for months on what will be the first 2021 update for its operating system. Insider users targeted to the DEV development channel can now have a first contact with the future of the operating system, testing its novelties and preparing for the future of Windows 10. Today, with the new build 20241, we have been able to see what they will be the recent changes that will come to our PC for next year.
It seems that the significant changes are already calming down a bit. It shouldn’t take much longer for Microsoft to start pushing the news and focusing on bug fixes. However, we could still see a few surprises in the coming weeks.
Table of Contents
What’s new in build 20241
Theme improvements
The main change that we find in this new compilation of the operating system is an improvement in the integration of themes throughout the system. We have already seen how some elements, such as the start menu, adapt depending on whether we have activated the light theme or the dark theme of Windows. Now it is the turn of UWP apps.
As of this build 20241, if we have a clear theme activated, we can see the loading screen of the applications in white, according to the theme. And the same if we have activated the dark mode, thus seeing a black loading screen.
This change will only reach a specific number of users, so we may not find it at first. Little by little, this will get all the applications of the system. However, for now, it is limited to Settings, Microsoft Store, Windows Defender, Alarms and clock, Calculator, Maps, Voice recorder, Groove, Movies and TV, Clippings, Microsoft ToDo, Office, Feedback Hub and Microsoft Solitaire Collection.
Defragment disks and SSD
The disk and SSD optimization tool has also been revised and brings some exciting improvements that will make using it more comfortable. These improvements are:
- New “advanced view” that will allow us to see all volumes, even those that are hidden.
- More details in the “Status” column.
- F5 to update.
Other changes
Microsoft has also taken advantage of the new build 20241 to improve Narrator notifications on the desktop and apply some more changes to the Japanese IME keyboards.
Bugs fixed in build 20241
Microsoft has taken advantage of the new update of its operating system to correct a large number of bugs and errors detected during its development. The bugs that have been fixed right in this version are:
- It has fixed APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error that was appearing to many Insider users.
- Fixed bug when zooming on specific devices, like Surfaces.
- It was fixed a crash when trying to use IME keyboards.
- It fixed a bug that prevented installing applications with Windows Installer on 32-bit systems.
- It fixed an error when choosing the option to restore the PC while keeping the data that caused no changes to be made in the system.
- We fixed a bug that prevented robocopy from working correctly.
- Eliminated errors that caused dwm.exe to stop working.
- It has fixed a bug that caused msinfo32 to close on startup or not display the information correctly.
- Fixed error 0x803100b2 in Bitlocker.
- It fixed a bug that caused some applications to flicker when moving the mouse or accessing power options.
- It fixed a bug that blocked the Task Manager when trying to close Edge from it.
- It fixed a bug in Windows Hello facial recognition that prevented us from using this feature.
- Connected Bluetooth pens return to regular operation when the PC is hibernated.
- It fixed error 0x80070003 in Windows Sandbox.
- We fixed a bug in a link to change the name of the PC on the projection page.
- We have fixed a bug that blocked the Settings page if we didn’t have an Internet connection.
- Fixed a problem in the printer and scanner configuration that caused the structure to fail when clicking on the “Get” button.
- It has fixed a bug that caused weird information to appear when copying hardware and connection properties.
- We fixed an issue that affected VPN connections.
- Fixed error 0xc0000005 when updating Windows.
- The windows.old folder is now much smaller for Insider users.
- It has fixed an issue that caused the new gesture to control the position of the text cursor using the spacebar on the touch keyboard not to work well.
- They fixed an issue that caused Internet Explorer to crash when used with IME keyboards, as well as other bugs and issues related to this special Windows 10 keyboard.
[Also Read: Errors detected while installing Windows 10 October 2020 Update]
Errors yet to be fixed.
In addition to all the previous bugs that have already been fixed, Microsoft has updated the list of still pending fixes in the operating system:
- Windows updates keep getting blocked for a long time.
- What’s new in Edge, like the preview for pinned sites, or the new taskbar for these sites, still doesn’t work.
- Some users still encounter the “KMODE_EXCEPTION” error when virtualizing.
- Many Insider users see a critical DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION bug since build 20236.
- New DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors in tcpip.sys.
- Users who have installed Malwarebytes Web Protection on their PC cannot connect to the Internet.
- The Windows taskbar hides the system shutdown options.
- CUDA, DirectML, and other NVIDIA elements do not work correctly when used with a GPU.
- Windows PowerShell does not work on ARM. Users who want to use it will have to download the new version 7 of PS.
Little by little, the new Windows 10 21H1 continues to take shape. There are still six months for this new version to reach all users, although Microsoft should not take long to put aside the news and begin to focus on debugging and correcting errors.
If all goes well, Windows 10 21H1 should arrive around April or May next year, and it will do so as a big update.
[Also Read: How to upgrade a Windows from 32-bit to 64-bit]