Latest Windows 10 Build Adds New Mail And Calendar Apps

The latest version of the Windows 10 technical preview has been made available to Windows Insiders on the ‘fast ring’, adding new Mail and Calendar applications and UI enhancements alongside a raft of new bugs for early adopters to contend with.

The new Mail and Calendar apps boast a three-pane UI, swipe gestures and enhanced multitasking between the two pieces of software. Windows 10’s black system theme and transparency options have been applied to the action center, taskbar and start menu, the latter of which can be resized.

Improvements to how the operating system is displayed on different types of devices have also been made. Entering tablet mode now causes the start button, Cortana and the task view button to grow in size and the notification area to widen.

Windows 10

Notable bugs within Project Spartan and Outlook have been stamped out, while Visual Studio no longer crashes when starting a new universal app project and Hyper-V can be enabled.

The new build also introduces a number of new problems. Win32 desktop apps cannot be launched from the Start Menu, something Microsoft admits is a bit of a pain. Instead, it recommends users search for the apps and then pin them to the taskbar.

Another issue with the Mail and Calendar apps causes every letter typed to be repeated. An automatic update should solve this, but Microsoft says not to open the apps within 15 minutes of installation. The downloading of music in Xbox Music and Music Preview apps is also broken and music may not play when an app is minimised.

A separate preview build for phones has also been made available to compatible smartphones, enabling flight mode, allowing users to disable data connections and fixing a number of issues.

Windows 10 will be available as a free update to Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users and is designed to work the same on a smartphone as it does on a PC. In what appears to have been an accidental revelation, AMD suggested Windows 10 could be slated for a July commercial release.

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