Windows 10 Preview Build 18277 Improves Focus Assist, Action Center

Microsoft released a new build to Fast ring and Skip Ahead members of the Windows Insider Program. Preview Build 18277 includes numerous improvements to Focus Assist, Action Center, and other aspects of Windows 10 that aren't particularly flashy but are used quite often. The company asked for help improving Cortana's support for Alexa, too.

The improvement to Focus Assist is pretty simple: it now offers to snooze notifications whenever something's in fullscreen. Windows 10 currently silences notifications while playing games in fullscreen, so expanding that option to additional programs makes sense, especially since games aren't the only form of entertainment people enjoy on their PCs. This isn't a big change, but it is a quality of life improvement many will likely notice.

Preview Build 18277's changes to the Action Center are similarly plain but welcome. Microsoft said one of the most popular requests it gets for Action Center is to make the Brightness "quick action" a slider instead of a button. Now it is. The company also made it easier to manage these quick actions by rearranging them, adding them, or removing them right from Action Center instead of requiring a trip into the Settings app.

Other changes in this build include preliminary support for Emoji 12, an additional Windows Defender Application Guard setting and improved support for high-DPI displays, among other things. There's also the usual grab bag of bug fixes, performance improvements, and known issues. Most of them seem innocuous, but Windows Insider Program members should be on the lookout for this bug in particular:

"Some users will notice the update status cycling between Getting Things Ready, Downloading, and Installing. This is often accompanied with error 0x8024200d caused by a failed express package download."

Microsoft also said that downgrading from the Fast ring to the Slow ring can disable extra features, including developer mode, so devs are discouraged from jumping through the rings. Per usual, the company advised people who aren't comfortable with particularly unstable pre-release software to move between the rings, though, because the builds released to the Slow ring will have been more thoroughly tested.