The first new Windows 10 preview build is out today for all Insiders in the Dev channel. Indeed, the build 21286 from the RS_PRERELEASE channel is now available to download for all Dev channel Insiders, meaning that Insiders that remained on the separate FE_RELEASE can now join the rest of Insiders already on the RS_PRERELEASE development branch.

The main new feature in this build is the addition of news and interests on the Windows taskbar, right next to the system tray. This new shortcut will provide access to dynamic content including weather and news when you click on it.

How to pin Start Menu shortcuts to the taskbar. If you want to pin a shortcut from Start Menu’s apps.

Right click an empty part of the Taskbar and choose 'Taskbar settings' Turn off 'Show small Taskbar buttons' Close the settings App Right click your Taskbar and make sure;Lock the Taskbar is not icked Click and drag the top of the taskbar until the date and time is only two lines That's it! The Windows Taskbar is a handy place to have shortcuts because it's always visible when you use Windows.You can also pin favorite websites and even files (though pinning files takes a bit more effort). How to Change Taskbar location in Windows 10:- In this video you'll learn how to change taskbar position or move taskbar from bottom to left, right or top wi.

“You can personalize your feed with relevant content tailored for you. Instead of switching between apps or your PC and phone to stay up to date with the news and interests you care about – seamlessly peek into your feed directly from the taskbar anytime you want throughout your day,” the Windows Insider team explained.

This feature can be personalized and also turned off by right-clicking on the taskbar. News and Interests in the taskbar will roll out to select Insiders who install the build 21286, and it’s currently only available in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and India on PCs where the new Chromium-based Edge is installed.

While this new feature is quite unexpected, it’s something that the Windows Insider team plans to improve in the future. “Over time, we hope to bring your feed of news and interests to other places, such as in Microsoft Edge, so no matter where you are, you’ll be able to stay up to date,” the team said today.

The build 21286 also bring the ability to manage Storage spaces from within the Settings app, and adds the option to run any specified Linux command on startup of a WSL distribution. Other minor improvements include notifications for time zone changes and the addition of 2 simplified recovery modes for the Windows File Recovery tool.

How To Pin A Program To The Taskbar

You can also check out the list of other changes, bug fixes, and known issues for the build 21286 below:

Changes and Improvements

To The Taskbar

• Based on feedback, (GitHub issue #1495) we’re adding an option to disable automatic controller-to-virtual-key mapping for UWP apps. If you have a need to do this, add the following registry key, with a DWORD value of Enabled set to 0: HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInputSettingsControllerProcessorControllerToVKMapping.

Fixes

• We fixed and issue causing some Insiders to see a popup that says “Your PC ran into a problem and restart in 1 min” after logging in to Windows with either an Azure Active Directory or Active Directory account on Build 21277.
• We fixed an issue where no drives appeared under Settings > System > Storage > Manage Disks and Volumes.
• We fixed an issue resulting in some printers getting stuck on connecting when added from Settings.
• We fixed an issue that could result in sometimes unexpectedly being signed out of apps and websites after rebooting your PC.
• We fixed an issue where the Windows Security icon would sometimes be unexpectedly large in the context menu when shift-right-clicking taskbar icons.
• We fixed an issue that could result in MediaTranscoder hanging when transcoding certain files.
• We fixed an issue where audio playing from UWP apps wasn’t ducking after pressing the microphone icon to start Cortana listening.
• We fixed an issue that could result in VPN entries in the network flyout getting stuck at Action Needed until you pressed Cancel and Connect again.
• We fixed an issue impacting touch targeting when resizing windows using touch.
• We’ve made some fixes to our emoji keyword search results based on feedback, including adding a new keyword so that typing “lgbtq” will now return the rainbow flag emoji. Please continue sharing feedback with us in the Feedback Hub under Input and Language > Emoji Panel.
• We fixed an issue that could result in the Read Aloud options in Magnifier being unexpectedly greyed out.
• We fixed an issue where the “Help make Narrator better” toggle in Narrator Settings was disabled for Insiders.
• We fixed an issue so that Narrator will now read Excel cell contents when verbosity is set to 2.
• We fixed an issue where Narrator might not announce whether a combo box was in expanded or collapsed state.
• We fixed an issue impacting Narrator’s ability to read the names of certain hyperlinks on websites in Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue impacting Narrator’s ability to read code windows in Visual Studio.
• We fixed an issue for high contrast users that could result in Settings crashing when going to Ease of Access.

Known issues

• We’re working on a fix for an issue Insiders have reported where certain games like State of Decay 2, or Assassin’s Creed, may hang or crash when launching.
• We’re investigating an issue where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War may not launch starting with this build. If you play these games, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• You may experience some rendering / graphic issues after resizing certain app windows. If you minimize all your app windows and open them again it should resolve the issue (Press the Windows key plus D twice).
• We’re investigating an issue where some 32-bit systems may lose network connection after taking this build. If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• When Xbox Game Bar is launched from Start or via the Windows key + G when using a text editor, the computer may appear unresponsive. If you encounter this, dismiss the Xbox Game Bar with WIN + G and end the GameBar.exe process from Task Manager.
• Miracast users may experience very low frame rates in this build.
• We’re investigating reports that starting with Build 21277 where explorer.exe / the Windows shell is hanging and or crashing.
• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Aero Shake is disabled in this build. To enable it, you will need to go here in Registry Editor and create a new DWORD entry named DisallowShaking with a value of 0: HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
• Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. We’re continuing to work on polishing this experience.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout may show as offline even when the user is online.
• [News and interests] Users cannot navigate into the news and interests flyout using keyboard.
• [News and interests] In some scenarios, the news and interests flyout may appear empty with no content.
• [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with touch and pen.
• [News and interests] News and interests uses more taskbar space on the left than expected.

This new build is still not tied to a specific Windows release, so we don’t know yet if this experiment with news and interests in the taskbar will end up in the upcoming 21H1 update coming later this Spring. This feature may seem a bit redundant for users who use Live Tiles in the Start Menu to keep up with the news, though bringing some of this information right to the taskbar could have its advantages. Do you think this is an interesting addition, or are you against your taskbar being cluttered by too many things? Sound off in the comments below.

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The Control Panel in Windows 10 still houses many important settings which are not available in Settings. You can use Administrative tools, manage user accounts on the computer in a flexible way, maintain data backups, change the functionality of hardware and many other things. I would like to share a tip which can significantly speed up your access to frequently used Control Panel settings in Windows 10. You can also pin them inside the jump list to access them with just two clicks.

Microsoft wants you to get used to the Settings app, because the classic Control Panel will be removed soon. However, there are lots of classic applets which still do not have their counterparts in the Settings app, so Control Panel is still very useful tool for every Windows 10 user.

Tip: See how to restore Control Panel items in Win+X menu in Windows 10 Creators Update (Redstone 2)

How To Pin A Page To The Taskbar

Pin Control Panel Applets to Taskbar in Windows 10

The first thing we need to do is to pin Control Panel to the taskbar. Here is how it can be done.

1. Open Control Panel in Windows 10.
2. Right click the Control Panel icon on the taskbar and choose 'Pin to taskbar'.
3. Now, drag and drop your favorite applets from the Control Panel to its icon on the taskbar. The applet will be pinned to the jumplist of the Control Panel. See the following screenshot:
   You will get your favorite settings in the jump list! This is very useful. You can pin the desired applets which you need most frequently to the top of the list to make them always visible regardless of how recently you used them.

How To Pin To The Taskbar In Windows 10

Note: you can use this trick in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 too.

Pin individual Control Panel applets directly to the taskbar of Windows 10

Using the list of available shell commands, you can quickly pin your favorite classic Control Panel applets directly to the taskbar.

1. Pick a shell command from the list provided here:

   For example, I want to pin the Network connections folder. The shell command for the folder is as follows:

2. Create a new Desktop shortcut using the following command as the shortcut target:
   explorer.exe shell:::{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}
   
3. Name your shortcut as you wish and specify the desired icon:
   
4. Right click the shortcut you created and select 'Pin to taskbar':
   
5. The applet is now pinned to the taskbar. You can safely remove the Desktop shortcut you created above.

That's it.

On The Taskbar Icon

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