Windows 10 Insider Build 21286 Arrives With A Useful New Update For The Taskbar
Microsoft today announced Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21286, which adds a collection of new features for all Insiders in the Dev Channel to test out. Chief among these new features is a new button on the taskbar that's taking up residence right alongside the system tray. This button will show weather information at a glance, and when clicked, it will pull up a new window that features a "feed of dynamic content."
According to Microsoft, that feed can be personalized by each user, and can potentially feature cards with headlines, stock market information, and even sports scores. Microsoft says the goal is to keep people from switching between a number of apps to get their news and updates on their interests. Users have the option of changing their privacy settings as they relate to the News and Interests feed – as it's officially called – or by turning it off entirely if they don't want to use it at all.
The company also notes that Insiders who are installing this new update will need to reboot their machines after they install Build 21286 to get the News and Features feed to show up on their taskbar. The feature is also only available to Insiders residing in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and India, and will require the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser to be installed (it'll be installed automatically with Build 21286 if you don't already have it).
While the News and Interests feed is the biggest addition coming along with this new build, there are some other features worth talking about as well. For instance, Microsoft says that users will be able to manage storage spaces – including creating new and optimizing existing storage pools – in the Settings app, which previously only offered limited controls over storage spaces.
Other smaller additions include an option to "run any specific Linux command on startup of WSL distribution," and a couple of changes to the "Set time zone automatically" feature in Date & Time Settings that will ask users if they'd like to change their timezone instead of doing it automatically when the system is making a low confidence location change. Of course, the build is shipping with a variety of fixes, which you can read about over on the Windows Insider Blog.