Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview with Android phone screen mirroring. The update bumps Windows 10 from build 18353 (made available to testers on March 8) to build 18356. These builds are from the 19H1 branch, which represents the Windows 10 update that will arrive in the first half of this year (likely finalized for Windows Insiders this month and rolled out to the public in April).
Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released six major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, April 2018 Update, and October 2018 Update.
We don’t yet know if the next update will be called the Windows 10 April 2019 Update. We do know, however, that it will bring Windows 10 to version 1903.
The highlight of the previous update was Your Phone, which lets you access your phone’s content — like text messages, photos, and notifications — right on your Windows 10 PC. While not strictly tied to today’s release, it’s about to get better. That’s because Microsoft is finally letting testers try screen mirroring, which it showed off back in October.
Called simply phone screen, the feature mirrors your Android display directly on your PC. You can thus access all your phone apps without having to even unlock your phone. To take advantage of a bigger screen, keyboard, and mouse, you’ll need Your Phone version 1.0.20701.0 or above and the latest 19H1 build. On the phone side, you’ll need Android version 7.0 or newer, but Microsoft is limiting compatibility to just four devices for now: Samsung’s Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S9, and Galaxy S9+.
Bug fixes and known issues
This 19H1 build includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:
- Fixed a Microsoft Edge crash encountered when interacting with combo boxes in PDF forms.
- Fixed an issue that could result in night light being on after an upgrade, even though all the settings showed that night light should be off.
- Fixed an issue where using the slider to adjust the night light strength could result in night light getting stuck on.
- Fixed an issue where night light was skipping the fade transition when it was turned off (manually or scheduled).
- Fixed an issue resulting in increased battery drain while the screen was on in recent builds.
- Fixed an issue resulting in the “…” menu contents being clipped for certain apps like Voice Recorder and Alarms and Clock when the app was full screen.
- Fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing bugcheck green screens citing a KERNEL_SECURITY_VIOLATION error.
This build has five known issues:
- Launching games that use anti-cheat software may trigger a bugcheck (GSOD).
- Creative X-Fi sound cards are not functioning properly.
- Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly.
- VMware cannot be installed or updated in Windows Insider Preview builds. Hyper-V is a viable alternative if available to you.
- If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring, optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings.
As always, don’t install this on your production machine.