Windows 10 May 2022 Update review: Sandbox and a better Windows Update improve your PC - cappsequitiardead

Microsoft's Windows 10 May 2019 Update offers some mischievously needed improvements to Windows Update, a much speedier search operate, and troubleshooters that solve problems on their own. There's even an updated emoji keyboard with symbols and the Thomas More sophisticated kaomoji (❁´◡`❁). The best feature, however, is the cool new Windows Sandbox.

The May 2019 Update (also known atomic number 3 19H1 or version 1903) whitethorn non officially be pushed to your PC until later in English hawthorn, but it's already on tap if you privation to manually download it via Windows Update. We've also compiled a separate roundup of the best hidden features of the Windows 10 May 2019 Update that lurk below what we've talked about Hera, including a better Focus Assist and reserved storage.

Windows Sandpile: A safe space for new apps

Windows Sandbox stands out as a secure safe-deposit for testing new apps and sites—but only when you're running Windows 10 Pro. If you're familiar with Windows 10 In favor of, you're aware that virtualization is one of the keystone differentiatiors—everything from a full-fledged Hyper-V practical simple machine, to the more purpose-driven WDAG protected web browser. Sandpile is somewhere in the midst: It's a simplified, protected, essential "Windows PC" that lives within your actual, natural science PC.

Mark Hachman / iDG

Windows 10 Sandpile is a pristine, secured Windows installing that'snot linked to your account. It's essentially a barrier isolator for bad stuff that power impairment your PC.

You've already conditioned not to mess up with an app that might be malware—the same goes for a website. Sandbox changes the game. Forthwith you can open a distrustful entity within Sandpile. If itis malware, it bequeath remain trapped within the Sandbox virtual environment—and formerly you close the app window, everything disappears, permanently. There's one exception: If you copy a downloaded file out of Sandbox and into your PC, it remains. You'll need to be sure you haven't downloaded any malware. But that's the whole degree of Sandbox.

Mark Hachman / IDG

You can use Sandbox to chatter places along the Vane you might normally not go, and run apps inside a protected environment. Don't use it as an excuse for piracy, though.

Sandpile carves out a chunk of your CPU and memory to run, and then how presto your PC performs will affect Sandbox's performance. But it's a useful tool for testing that "system of rules utility" that's giving you some bad vibes, operating theater just browsing securely in places you probably shouldn't go. (It doesn't anonymize you, though, so beware.)

Want a deeper dive along Windows Sandbox? Feel out our Windows Sandpile tutorial for more.

Windows Update tries a lot harder

Each year, twice a year, a new raft of videos surfaces showing how Windows Updates trash gaming sessions, livestreams, presentations, and more. Microsoft's listened and successful improvements. A new icon appears connected your taskbar when an update that requires a boot is imminent, spell a redesigned Settings page puts the "break updates" option movement and center on. Finally, a smarter Active Hours option debuts, using AI to figure out when you'rhenium least expected to use your PC.

Mark Hachman / IDG

At long last, Windows will visually prompt you that a Windows update is nigh.

The addition of an "update imminent" alaru to your taskbar is slap-your-head obvious, and will certainly supporte palliate the shock users rump feel at an unexpected update. (Browsers like Chromium-plate already use a look-alike icon.) It's a seemingly small but precise welcome new feature of the Windows 10 Crataegus oxycantha 2019 Update. (Itshould get on by default, but sense inexact to hitchSettings > Update &A; Security measur > Windows Update > Advanced Options to make sure.)

Grade Hachman / IDG

The Windows Update settings menu now puts the option to break updates front and center.

I'm less indisputable about the new option to "mechanically aline active hours for this gimmick based along bodily function" (Settings > Update & Security measur > Change active hours). Though I go down backward and forward between "product" and Insider machines, Windows' AI thought that my underway active hours were 'tween 10 PM and 11 Atomic number 61—instead of all the hours expended during normal business hours victimisation that PC. You can penetrate the Commute link to open up a card to interchange the On the go Hours yourself, but Microsoft could better inform users on how to desexualize it.

Kaomoji and symbols arrive ╰(*°▽°*)╯

The addition of emoji to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update was unity of its underrated achievements. Simply by typing WIN+; (a bit of emoji humor away Microsoft) you could assailable the emoji keyboard, quickly and easily adding emoji to any app. Now you can do the same with kaomoji and symbols, adding two more effectual means of expression to Windows. Don't block that Emoji 12 icons are like a sho here, too: yay, flamingos!

Mark up Hachman / IDG

The untested kaomoji and symbols buns be accessed by the aforementioned WIN + . or Profits + ; shortcuts every bit in front.

What's a kaomoji? Basically, they're a longer, more complex emoticon, exploitation the same mix of punctuation symbols to anatomy more svelte patterns. You may be familiar with the indignant "put over summersault" (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ as well as the "angry glare" ಠ_ಠ symbols. At that place's also a check for consecrated symbols, too, such As currencies.

Be sensible that while the emoji portion of the keyboard has a search occasion at the top, the kaomoji tab lacks anything similar—well, except for an every bit arcane tabbed interface at thebutt, which is sorting of a mess up to use. There's also a very thin scroll bar to the right of the emoji keyboard that offers more choices. On my machine, though, moving the entire keyboard some was extremely laggy.

Unfortunately, as you Crataegus oxycantha see in that story, not every app treats the kaomoji as a azygos word. Many of the effect is therefore perplexed if it's broken up over much incomparable dividing line. Nevertheless, typewriting the Windows key and a semicolon (or menstruum) opens the keyboard. Information technology's Super Cool ®™‼

Mark Hachman / IDG

Windows 10's older layout is to the left, with the updated separation of Cortana and search to the right in the Windows 10 Oct 2019 Update.

Search separates, speeds up

Aesthetically, the other prima shift within the Windows 10 May 2019 Update is Microsoft's decisiveness to give Windows Search pride of place, and sideline Cortana. Antecedently, the search box served American Samoa an incoming point in time to your day, tapping Cortana to summarize your calendar when you clicked on the glassy search corner.

Now, some the orthodox huntingand Cortana shortcuts ( Win + S, Win+C ) open the search box. Microsoft may be tacitly revealing you to use "Hey Cortana" to orally command your PC, just in a worldwide that's increasingly displeased along something as underlying as a voice call, leave this feature really be used? I'm doubtful.

You'll notice same tension between this new Seek box and the more traditional substance of hunting down files on your PC, File Explorer. Windows Search wants to be your gateway to all the content connected your Microcomputer and in the OneDrive cloud.

Bell ringer Hachman / IDG

This is the Windows Search mise en scene menu inside the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (19H1). Note that farther down the page are options to keep out any folders you might not require to constitute searched.

You can speed the search function using a new Windows Search indexer (Settings > Search > Intelligent Windows). By default option, only your document libraries (Pictures, Documents, etc.) are searched, but you may as well as turn connected Increased manner to index your entire PC. Indexing isn't in particular quick, though it sucked aweigh only if 10 percent of my Come on Laptop's CPU power.

Saint Mark Hachman / IDG

When you archetypical open Windows Hunting, you'll see a list of top apps and recently-yawning documents.

At that place's a catch, though. While Windows Search afraid down photos and documents in a flash, it tended to ignore the smaller, pith configuration files associated with a particular keyword. Windows will surface them much Thomas More pronto using File Explorer, accessible via the (slightly redesigned) folder icon in your taskbar. File Adventurer, however, excludes whatsoever email and entanglement searches. Information technology's also as dog-slow as ever, without whatsoever apparent benefit from the Windows Search indexing.

Mark Hachman / iDG

Search results are essentially fast, rearranging themselves equally you type additional letters—like modern search engines, basically.

If a user searches for "HoloLens," how does Windows know if a drug user is searching for photos and documents, and non the HoloLens conformation files? If Windows fails to surface a file the substance abuser wants,or clutters up the explore results with supernumerary fluff, the answer is the selfsame: an irritated substance abuser.

Microsoft has long tried to offer different modalities (pen, voice, touch, etc.) as ways to interact with Windows. Some of that may be going on here. If that's true, though, Microsoft needs to Doctor of Osteopathy a healthier job of explaining what each lookup tool around does, and improve the performance of File Explorer, overly.

Original passwordless, PIN options struggle to simplify logins

Windows has traditionally given you the option of either logging in to a PC with a "local account" OR parole, Oregon with a more overloaded-featured Microsoft news report ID that manages the information you've stored in the cloud. The May 2019 Update adds a new twist: a "passwordless" history that uses your mobile sound as an authentication gimmick. Though Microsoft hasn't very said why it added this third alternative, presumptively it's to satisfy the younger peregrine-first workers World Health Organization get into't want to represent tied down to a formal Microsoft account.

For now, a passwordless account can't Be created on a Microcomputer. Microsoft recommends that you instead download a mobile Position app like Word, then create your new account Idaho by typing in your mobile telephone number in situ of an email address. Confirmation, and then authentication, takes home via SMS codes dispatched to your phone.

When you logarithm in to your PC with the new business relationship, though, Windows will boost you to use a PIN or Windows Hello, as you normally behave. (Microsoft believes that a PIN is stronger than a password.)

The overtake is that some services, like OneDrive, still invite a Microsoft account. When I set out in my mobile number, the service failed to send a notification to my speech sound. Okay. For now, I'll bind the traditional way of logging into Windows.

Microsoft

Right away you don't even need an email savoir-faire to sign astir for a Microsoft account within the Crataegus oxycantha 2019 Update.

A new, separate PIN retrieval feature that Microsoft added to the Windows 10 May 2019 Update works, though you'll need a coupled ring and the Microsoft Authenticator app. Windows already provides a multitude of ways to log up in (your countersign or a biometric login, as fortunate as PIN made up of numbers and/or letters) so thereare options if you've forgotten one of them. Now, if you forget your PIN, Windows checks to visualise if you have a phone associated with your account and sends you an assay-mark notification ahead it allows you to reset your Stick. Simple, appropriate? It does work, though the process feels somewhat slower and laggier than it should.

Automatic troubleshooting does more in the ground

Microsoft has softly begun sprinkling artificial word into American Samoa many nook and cranny as it can, and Windows 10's May 2019 Update is zero exception. Microsoft already had a troubleshooting feature built into Windows 10: an automatic process that you could launch in response to a particular problem, such as an inability to connect to the Internet. Directly Microsoft will take that decision away of your men, introduction that trouble shooter autonomously with Recommended Troubleshooting.

We couldn't test this, Eastern Samoa our quiz PC didn't suffer any problems that Microsoft could, or persuasion it could, fix. You'Re not supposed to notice, though, that Microsoft is pickings more control: Recommended Troubleshooting will work quietly in the background. "These are changes you won't notice," Microsoft says. "Critical troubleshooting happens automatically and can't be turned forth."

Mark Hachman / IDG

Windows 10's new Recommended Troubleshooting feature sounds worthy in rule, only you'll have to adjudicate how much you'll faith Windows to wor its own problems without your help.

Recommended Troubleshooting will likewise come out issues that may "impact your experience," and these wish be optional fixes that you can choose to let Microsoft notify you virtually. In Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & Feedback > Recommended troubleshooting, you can order Windows to notify you when your PC has problems that need fixing, or own Windows just fix them automatically in the background.

There's one catch: Advisable Troubleshooting works unsurpassed if you send "air-filled" diagnostic data spinal column to Microsoft—typing, speech, the works. If you food waste, the troubleshooter won't work as fortunate Eastern Samoa it could.

Chrome support helps stand-alone Timeline

Microsoft has previously bet heavily on features it intellection would come across with consumers, but didn't: mixed realism, for representative. Timeline, a feature first introduced in the May 2018 Update, power exist another. Essentially, Timeline is a superpowered web history. However, instead of trailing the pages your browser visited, it tries to note everything you've sick, including the apps and documents you've interacted with over the past days and weeks.

Set Hachman / IDG

Before you can begin integrating your Timeline with Chrome, you'll need to download the appropriate wing. And make sure you subscribe in!

Tracking your web browsing has been historically limited to Microsoft Edge. Now Timeline tracks Chrome besides, with a Chrome extension you'll have to download from the Chrome Web Store. You'll still need to prod to encounte Timeline's history of Chromium-plate sites, by clicking the Timeline icon to the right of the Cortana icon on the Taskbar, and then clicking the small "Go through all XX activities" to the right of the "To begin with Today" header. (Timeline doesn't track sites you've viewed in Incognito Mood.)

Mark Hachman / IDG

Once you answer, sites you visit in Chromium-plate (represented by "Web Activities") will appear.

We considered adding this to our list of "hidden features" inside the May 2019 Update. But this actually closes the book on Timeline, a major factor of earlier feature updates and much more of an afterthought in the present-day release.

A revamped Candent Theme

We initially left wing out the updated light theme from our review, if only because a light root had already been part of Windows, along with the more popular dark theme. But the reworked light composition (Settings > Personalization > Colors) now adjusts the system colors to more consistently lighten them up.

Microsoft

The new Windows 10 May 2019 Update light theme.

App updates used to be percentage and parcel of new Windows 10 feature updates, as they were more dependent on the services inside them. Though app development now largely proceeds independently of Microsoft's Windows roadmap, it's still worth looking at how key out Windows apps have evolved during the English hawthorn 2019 Update maturation period.

Microsoft warned Old on that some of what it calls "inbox" apps—the simplified versions of Office apps, such every bit Mail and Calendar, as well as Photos—had become even more simplified for this release. Fortunately, my beloved Photos app added back its "magic wand" photo-fixing tool around that it warned it power remove.

Other changes include:

A redesigned Berth app:Microsoft's "radical" Office app didn't exhibit up connected my Insider machine, though information technology's really not that such distinct than the active Role app. Both apps offer the chance to grapple installs, select from among Office apps, and more. The new feature appears to be "recommended" documents, besides As a tab to "discover" documents, perhaps tied to Delve. Microsoft wants to facilitate sharing communal documents, and the new app seems designed to behave that.

Sticky Notes: I don't in person use Sticky Notes much, preferring other apps instead. With the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, Microsoft is consolidating Sticky Notes both in the overcast (at https://www.onenote.com/stickynotes) as well as in a pillar of notes on your PC, which also feature a new dark mood. I preceptor't suchlike the inability to rearrange the notes. But what Microsoft calls "insights," such as the app's ability to recognize a "remind me" note as an actual reminder, remains nonpareil of its most potent features.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mail and Calendar: Antecedently, Mail and Calendar's drab mode extended exclusively to your inbox, shift back down to a blinding "light style" when composing a new netmail. That's been secure. But thither's as wel an option to view emails in visible light operating theatre darkling mode via a new "sun/moon" icon that appears in the header bar of the compose pane.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Dark Mode extends further into Mail and Calendar, and a new image has been added to toggle independent items back and forth.

Snip & Sketch: The Windows 10 Snipping Tool has a warm place in my heart, but Snip &ere; Sketch will eventually replace it. I'm liking it more; the interface looks more like a Windows Ink app than anything else, but the functionality is largely duplicated. New this time around is the ability to add a border to your snap of varying thickness and color, to visually delineate a screenshot with a white background. Printing is simpler, also. Both are out of sight in the ellipsis menu in the upper right-hand over corner.

Your Phone: Because Your Phone is part of Windows 10, simply non intrinsically tied to it, IT's executable that you'll see the "screen mirroring" feature for Android devices that debuted late in the Insider physical process. Essentially, Your Sound provides an comfy direction to channel photos back and forward between your telephone set and PC, while mirroring" allows you to take care what it would display if you had it in in advance of you. A "mirrored" phone can't beryllium seen outside of Bluetooth range, though, which mitigates its collection somewhat. You'll also need a braced earphone (a Samsung Galaxy or recent OnePlus phone) as well as a PC with Bluetooth Low Department of Energy capabilities, like a Surface Go. It's a weird, limiting intersection of hardware, all to lay aside a few seconds pulling taboo your phone.

Microsoft

Lightning round!

Though we've highlighted some of the top features within the Windows 10 May 2018 Update above, many more lie within.  What we've listed below are some of what we'd call the additive updates: worth mentioning, but just as tokenish improvements.

ethernet settings migrate to Settings: All over clip, Microsoft has moved more and more functionality away from the legacy Verify Panel and into the Settings menu. This trend continues with the ethernet settings.

More apps can cost uninstalled: Hate a bunch of legacy operating room irrelevant apps clogging sprouted your Start menu? Now you can uninstall all of these: 3D Spectator (previously called Mixed Reality Witness), Calculator, Calendar, Groove Music, Mail, Movies & TV, Key 3D, Snip off & Sketch, Sticky Notes, and Voice Fipple pipe.

Right-click to unpin a Jump tile:This is obvious.

"Fix scaling for apps" by default: If you've ever connected to an external monitor, you may bear received a cryptic subject matter about fastening apps that are blurry (which, to ME, never are). Microsoft forthwith just solves any issues it finds, mechanically.

Drag-and-drop Fonts: If you want to ADD fonts to Windows 10 without downloading them right away, there's an user-friendly way to have a go at it: take the font file and simply puff it to a landing place area within the Settings > Fonts folder.

Mark Hachman / IDG

There's now a "landing strip" to deposit new Windows fonts upon.

Security system keys can be set up within Settings: With more of a push to add security measur keys (like Yubikeys) every bit additional authentications to WebAuthn, Windows has now made it convenient to add a security Florida key, alongside a fingerprint operating theatre external body part recognition. In point of fact, the sign-in options in general are simply better organized.

Clipboard history gets compact: Windows Insiders inexplicably voted the many compact Clipboard history their favorite have. If the tighter governing body of subject matter you've cut (CTRL+X) wows you, you'll know this.

Microsoft

Default sorting within Downloads: If you're like me, your Downloads (and Pictures) folders progress for miles, often qualification it difficult to find anything. Downloads at present separates downloads by day, highlighting the most recent additions. Interestingly, a previously available option to make dates "friendly" (like Dec. 25, 2019 versus 12/25/2019) isn't available any longer.

Label Hachman / IDG

Windows 10 applies a refreshing chronological hierarchy to files downloaded within the Apri 2019 Update.

Revamped Protection History: Within Protection History (Settings>Windows Surety>Computer virus and Threat Tribute>Protection History), Microsoft has revamped the layout to show you any actions that Windows took to protect your PC. Hopefully there's nothing here—that's good! But hither's what Microsoft could show you in case there was an attack.

Conclusion: A loose touch

We entered into this inspection with metrical expectations, but we were pleasantly surprised at how the original update reall pushes the PC ahead. True, we have mixed feelings about the separation of Search and Cortana, and the interaction between the Research app and the more traditional File Explorer. Users will undoubtedly pickle through and through, though. Features like Windows Update show Microsoft's finally pickings some of its criticisms to heart. And hey, kaomoji!

We're assigning the Windows 10 May 2019 Update an average score for a middling release. Simply given the windmills Microsoft has tipped at in the past (mixed reality, for example) and the horrendous bugs that overshadowed the last release, a ho-hum sport update isn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe Microsoft's developers are temporary or else on something new, such as the rumored Windows Lite? No substance. Spring is here: Install the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, learn a tour of what's improved, and move happening.

Updated on June 3 to add more details about the new light theme.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/403424/windows-10-may-2019-update-review.html

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