6 ms·

What’s new in the Windows 10 May 2020 Update

23 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

Iwan-Zotow 6y ago
Any news wrt WSL?
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Nothing that I know of, but this recent news[1] about DirectX support coming to WSL is from Build 2020, 8 days ago. I’ll look more into the release history KB is out. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040 Oh and here’s this: ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enhancements The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment. Here's some enhancements we've made in Windows 10, version 2004. Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). This new version of the architecture powers the WSL to run on ELF64 Linux binaries on Windows and adds support for ARM64 devices. Connect to WSL apps from localhost: Connect to your WSL Linux networking applications from the local host. For example, start a NodeJS service in a WSL 2 Linux distro, and connect to it from Microsoft Edge. Global configuration options. We've added global configuration options that you can set on the local host which will apply to each of your WSL distros.’[2] [2] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/what-s-new-for-it-pros-in-windows-10-version-2004/ba-p/1419764#wsl https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/w...
- withinrafael 6y ago
  This is the first release of Windows 10 that includes WSLv2 (the full linux kernel) [1]. [1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/
graycat 6y ago
On my HP laptop with factory installed Windows 10 with the latest updates, opening or closing the CD/DVD device consistently causes the screen background to change from the Autumn scene to black. Hitting the keys Start-Tab shows small version of whatever screens (sessions, whatever they are called -- can have multiple such screens), each with its proper background and a left click on one of those will give a correct screen. In addition the background of the screen from Start-Tab has Autumn, and a left click on part of that background give a correct screen. When this error first occurred, just after a Windows 10 update, in Firefox a Web page caused Windows to display a pop-window about a security problem. The Autumn background went to black, and the desktop icons were scattered across the desktop. I ran a "quick scan" and a "full scan", and they found no problems. I put the icons back where they belong, and they have stayed there. Looks like the most recent Windows 10 Home Edition update has a bug that causes the screen background to go to black. Starting Firefox puts up a pop up window asking if I want to permit Firefox to "change" my system or some such. As this popup is displayed, all other windows have been minimized, and the screen background is black. If I left click on the push button "No", then Firefox runs and the background and all my windows are restored.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Black desktop usually is a sign of a Windows licensing/activation issue. I'd guess when your DVD drive opens, the driver somehow reloads, and windows sees a different serial number, so the windows license is no longer valid. It then auto-re-licenses itself a few minutes later, provided it has an internet connection and the desktop background returns.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    That’s interesting. I would have guessed something like an unsigned driver or malware. I don’t think just one device change would be enough to cause a reactivation, but maybe repeated ones. I’ve changed CPU, GPU, optical drives, RAM on a system with no reactivation. Motherboard seems more likely to trigger it, but that doesn’t seem likely in this case. More info would help, but in the meantime OP should scan for malware with RogueKiller or at least ADW Cleaner/Malwarebytes/ESET or another decent alternative. Not affiliated, just use the product as a free user. https://www.adlice.com/roguekiller/ https://www.adlice.com/roguekiller/
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  If you don’t have the new update, get it after making a backup. Then run these commands in an elevated command prompt to attempt repairs to your Windows 10. Make sure you restart and have all programs closed when you do this. dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth sfc /scannow Run the first one, then run the second one until it says no problems or violations found or something to that effect. Then reboot as soon as you can.
pnako 6y ago
I can't wait to find out what's going to break this time.
- viewer5 6y ago
  The last big update replaced my user profile with the temp one, that it apparently makes normally during the process, but also is supposed to swap it back before the update process finishes. Took me a couple days of googling and chanting to figure out how the hell to fix it, and it still left marks, like the start menu has "computer (1)" and "Control Panel (1)", because the temp-profile-owned ones are still out there occupying the "computer" and "Control Panel" names.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    I see that problem at work every few weeks. It’s simple enough to fix if you know how, if you have the easy path.[1] There are some corruptions I’ve seen on failed Windows Updates where the user profile was entirely gone and had to be recovered from hard disk with data recovery software. It’s fairly rare. For what I do, I don’t usually have the justification to find out why this happens when it does. The system is hardware and software. Some software problems have an underlying hardware problem causing them. Relatedly, drive failure is very common in the field, especially on laptops. SSD failure is also a thing, but nearly an order of magnitude less frequent in my own workload. Neither here nor there, just trying to say there’s a lot of ways a computer can break. In my opinion it’s great they work as well as they do considering what I’ve seen them put through. [1] https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/145678-fix-user-profile-service-failed-sign-error-windows-10-a.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/145678-fix-user-profile-...
aryehof 6y ago
Name your virtual desktops? I'm underwhelmed. How many years will it take the get the ability to have different desktop backgrounds, which is what users really want?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hanasn 6y ago
  You can always install CDE :)
Jaruzel 6y ago
> Stay on top of your numbers. Keep the calculator close by—now you can choose to keep the Calculator app on top of everything. This would be brilliant... if the Windows 10 Calculator app wasn't the size of a small country.
- miles 6y ago
  An "always on top" option for... a single app. Chris Rosa wrote Push Pin almost 25 years ago to keep any window on top of other windows. He even included the source code, which should give Microsoft a head start ;-) https://web.archive.org/web/20011031015225/http://rosafamily.org/software/pushpin/ https://web.archive.org/web/20011031015225/http://rosafamily... Here it is in action under Windows XP: https://imgur.com/a/KDHEtPO https://imgur.com/a/KDHEtPO
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    >An "always on top" option for... a single app. pretty much the single feature I miss the most when I switch between linux and windows machines. It's so ridiculously usful to have available across the entire desktop.
    - contravariant 6y ago
      This is why I've got a 'toggle always on top' action mapped to Ctrl+Win+A with Autohotkey. Not sure why Microsoft chose to hide that particular functionality when it's natively supported by windows.
- fortyseven 6y ago
  It shrinks quite a bit when in on-top mode, I found.
bni 6y ago
Is the Chromium-based Edge part of this update?
- withinrafael 6y ago
  That's unrelated and can be downloaded at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge for Windows 7 and up.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    Do you know when Vertical Tabs are coming? I really hope it gets upstreamed to chromium because I have yet to find a great extension solution that works well on Windows 10 and macOS.
fomine3 6y ago
Happy to use WSL2 in stable!
8fingerlouie 6y ago
> Go passwordless. Did you know—for improved security and a simple sign-in experience, you can sign in with your face, fingerprint or PIN How on earth would a 4-6 digit PIN be more secure than my 20+ character password ? In the end, an PIN is just another password. They may employ a million iterations to their KDF, but 6 digits is still a lot easier to bruteforce than 20 characters. As for the rest, fingerprint and face, they're not secure. Convenient yes, secure no.
- PieUser 6y ago
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/hello-for-business/hello-why-pin-is-better-than-password https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-p...
  - 8fingerlouie 6y ago
    Oh, so a (Windows 10) PIN is more or less like a password, allowing PIN (Password) policies to make complex PINs including letters and punctuation... Explain to me again how this is better than just a password ?
- gbba 6y ago
  PIN is probably not the best term they could've chosen since the term implies it should be a number. However in this case, the Windows 10 "PIN" can actually be a longer password.
  - soylentcola 6y ago
    Like a personal identification npassword? Seriously, though, PIN implies a number for a reason (even if people don't think about it or say things like "PIN number"). They should expect confusion if they refer to a password as a PIN.
  - 8fingerlouie 6y ago
    >However in this case, the Windows 10 "PIN" can actually be a longer password. So why is it better to have a longer PIN instead of a longer password ? If a PIN is just another password with the same length/complexity requirements as a regular password, why should i bother ?

23 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

Iwan-Zotow 6y ago

Any news wrt WSL?

aspenmayer 6y ago
Nothing that I know of, but this recent news[1] about DirectX support coming to WSL is from Build 2020, 8 days ago. I’ll look more into the release history KB is out. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040 Oh and here’s this: ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enhancements The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment. Here's some enhancements we've made in Windows 10, version 2004. Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). This new version of the architecture powers the WSL to run on ELF64 Linux binaries on Windows and adds support for ARM64 devices. Connect to WSL apps from localhost: Connect to your WSL Linux networking applications from the local host. For example, start a NodeJS service in a WSL 2 Linux distro, and connect to it from Microsoft Edge. Global configuration options. We've added global configuration options that you can set on the local host which will apply to each of your WSL distros.’[2] [2] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/what-s-new-for-it-pros-in-windows-10-version-2004/ba-p/1419764#wsl https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/w...
withinrafael 6y ago
This is the first release of Windows 10 that includes WSLv2 (the full linux kernel) [1]. [1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/

graycat 6y ago

On my HP laptop with factory installed Windows 10 with the latest updates, opening or closing the CD/DVD device consistently causes the screen background to change from the Autumn scene to black. Hitting the keys Start-Tab shows small version of whatever screens (sessions, whatever they are called -- can have multiple such screens), each with its proper background and a left click on one of those will give a correct screen. In addition the background of the screen from Start-Tab has Autumn, and a left click on part of that background give a correct screen. When this error first occurred, just after a Windows 10 update, in Firefox a Web page caused Windows to display a pop-window about a security problem. The Autumn background went to black, and the desktop icons were scattered across the desktop. I ran a "quick scan" and a "full scan", and they found no problems. I put the icons back where they belong, and they have stayed there. Looks like the most recent Windows 10 Home Edition update has a bug that causes the screen background to go to black. Starting Firefox puts up a pop up window asking if I want to permit Firefox to "change" my system or some such. As this popup is displayed, all other windows have been minimized, and the screen background is black. If I left click on the push button "No", then Firefox runs and the background and all my windows are restored.

londons_explore 6y ago
Black desktop usually is a sign of a Windows licensing/activation issue. I'd guess when your DVD drive opens, the driver somehow reloads, and windows sees a different serial number, so the windows license is no longer valid. It then auto-re-licenses itself a few minutes later, provided it has an internet connection and the desktop background returns.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  That’s interesting. I would have guessed something like an unsigned driver or malware. I don’t think just one device change would be enough to cause a reactivation, but maybe repeated ones. I’ve changed CPU, GPU, optical drives, RAM on a system with no reactivation. Motherboard seems more likely to trigger it, but that doesn’t seem likely in this case. More info would help, but in the meantime OP should scan for malware with RogueKiller or at least ADW Cleaner/Malwarebytes/ESET or another decent alternative. Not affiliated, just use the product as a free user. https://www.adlice.com/roguekiller/ https://www.adlice.com/roguekiller/
aspenmayer 6y ago
If you don’t have the new update, get it after making a backup. Then run these commands in an elevated command prompt to attempt repairs to your Windows 10. Make sure you restart and have all programs closed when you do this. dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth sfc /scannow Run the first one, then run the second one until it says no problems or violations found or something to that effect. Then reboot as soon as you can.

pnako 6y ago

I can't wait to find out what's going to break this time.

viewer5 6y ago
The last big update replaced my user profile with the temp one, that it apparently makes normally during the process, but also is supposed to swap it back before the update process finishes. Took me a couple days of googling and chanting to figure out how the hell to fix it, and it still left marks, like the start menu has "computer (1)" and "Control Panel (1)", because the temp-profile-owned ones are still out there occupying the "computer" and "Control Panel" names.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  I see that problem at work every few weeks. It’s simple enough to fix if you know how, if you have the easy path.[1] There are some corruptions I’ve seen on failed Windows Updates where the user profile was entirely gone and had to be recovered from hard disk with data recovery software. It’s fairly rare. For what I do, I don’t usually have the justification to find out why this happens when it does. The system is hardware and software. Some software problems have an underlying hardware problem causing them. Relatedly, drive failure is very common in the field, especially on laptops. SSD failure is also a thing, but nearly an order of magnitude less frequent in my own workload. Neither here nor there, just trying to say there’s a lot of ways a computer can break. In my opinion it’s great they work as well as they do considering what I’ve seen them put through. [1] https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/145678-fix-user-profile-service-failed-sign-error-windows-10-a.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/145678-fix-user-profile-...

aryehof 6y ago

Name your virtual desktops? I'm underwhelmed. How many years will it take the get the ability to have different desktop backgrounds, which is what users really want?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hanasn 6y ago
You can always install CDE :)

Jaruzel 6y ago

> Stay on top of your numbers. Keep the calculator close by—now you can choose to keep the Calculator app on top of everything. This would be brilliant... if the Windows 10 Calculator app wasn't the size of a small country.

miles 6y ago
An "always on top" option for... a single app. Chris Rosa wrote Push Pin almost 25 years ago to keep any window on top of other windows. He even included the source code, which should give Microsoft a head start ;-) https://web.archive.org/web/20011031015225/http://rosafamily.org/software/pushpin/ https://web.archive.org/web/20011031015225/http://rosafamily... Here it is in action under Windows XP: https://imgur.com/a/KDHEtPO https://imgur.com/a/KDHEtPO
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >An "always on top" option for... a single app. pretty much the single feature I miss the most when I switch between linux and windows machines. It's so ridiculously usful to have available across the entire desktop.
  - contravariant 6y ago
    This is why I've got a 'toggle always on top' action mapped to Ctrl+Win+A with Autohotkey. Not sure why Microsoft chose to hide that particular functionality when it's natively supported by windows.
fortyseven 6y ago
It shrinks quite a bit when in on-top mode, I found.

bni 6y ago

Is the Chromium-based Edge part of this update?

withinrafael 6y ago
That's unrelated and can be downloaded at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge for Windows 7 and up.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Do you know when Vertical Tabs are coming? I really hope it gets upstreamed to chromium because I have yet to find a great extension solution that works well on Windows 10 and macOS.

fomine3 6y ago

Happy to use WSL2 in stable!

8fingerlouie 6y ago

> Go passwordless. Did you know—for improved security and a simple sign-in experience, you can sign in with your face, fingerprint or PIN How on earth would a 4-6 digit PIN be more secure than my 20+ character password ? In the end, an PIN is just another password. They may employ a million iterations to their KDF, but 6 digits is still a lot easier to bruteforce than 20 characters. As for the rest, fingerprint and face, they're not secure. Convenient yes, secure no.

PieUser 6y ago
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/hello-for-business/hello-why-pin-is-better-than-password https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-p...
- 8fingerlouie 6y ago
  Oh, so a (Windows 10) PIN is more or less like a password, allowing PIN (Password) policies to make complex PINs including letters and punctuation... Explain to me again how this is better than just a password ?
gbba 6y ago
PIN is probably not the best term they could've chosen since the term implies it should be a number. However in this case, the Windows 10 "PIN" can actually be a longer password.
- soylentcola 6y ago
  Like a personal identification npassword? Seriously, though, PIN implies a number for a reason (even if people don't think about it or say things like "PIN number"). They should expect confusion if they refer to a password as a PIN.
- 8fingerlouie 6y ago
  >However in this case, the Windows 10 "PIN" can actually be a longer password. So why is it better to have a longer PIN instead of a longer password ? If a PIN is just another password with the same length/complexity requirements as a regular password, why should i bother ?