Windows 10 build 20270 (Dev channel) adds a new skill to Cortana

Microsoft has released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 20270 to the Dev channel. The build comes from the fe_release branch. Today's update is notable for adding a new Skill to Cortana. As usual, there are also general fixes and improvements.

Here are the official announcements highlights.

What's new in Windows 10 build 20270

File Skill in Cortana

You can now use Cortana on your PCs to translate their thoughts into direct actions to open and find files and save time spent navigating to apps/folders to locate and open files.

Enterprise users, who sign into Cortana with their corporate credentials (e.g., AAD) can search for files saved on OneDrive For Business and SharePoint along with files saved locally on their PCs (this setting is at Settings > Search > Searching Windows). Users using Microsoft account (e.g., ending with Outlook.com or Hotmail.com) can use Cortana to find files saved on their PCs. This feature is currently available to our English-speaking users in U.S.
Try and use Cortana to open or search files by:

• Parts of file names (Example: “Hey Cortana, opening marketing deck.”)
• Author names (Example: “Hey Cortana, open budget Excel from Anthony”)
• Find a document you have been editing (Example: “Hey Cortana, find my recent files”)
• Find a document of a particular type (Example: “Hey Cortana, find my recent pdfs”)

Changes and Improvements

• The new “Advanced View” checkbox in Optimize Drives is now up and running and checking it will display volumes previously not visible in this window (for example system and recovery partitions).
• Using the touch keyboard in a portrait posture on a 2-in-1 touch device now supports split keyboard mode. (This was released to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel as part of the recent Windows Feature Experience Pack update.)

Fixes

• We fixed an issue resulting in some dialogs, such as Properties, displaying black text on dark backgrounds in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue that could result in certain apps unexpectedly closing when clicking the Maximize button in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue resulting in printers with Japanese characters in their names not displaying correctly in Printers & Scanners Settings.
• We fixed an issue that could result in some delay logging into your PC on devices with a large number of users.

Known issues

• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• 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.
• We’re working on a fix for an issue resulting in some users seeing error 0x80070426 when using their Microsoft account to sign into various apps. If you encounter it, rebooting your PC may resolve this.
• We’re working on a fix for an issue where, in recent Dev Channel builds, no drives appear under Settings > System > Storage > Manage Disks and Volumes. As a workaround, you can manage your disks in the classic Disk Management tool.

The Dev Channel, formerly known as the Fast Ring, reflects the latest changes made to the Windows code base. It is a work-in-progress, so the changes you see in Dev Channel releases may not appear in the upcoming feature update. So we can expect to see some features which will never appear in stable Windows 10 versions on Desktop.

If you have configured your device to receive updates from the Dev Channel/Fast Ring ring, open Settings - > Update & recovery and click on the Check for Updates button on the right. This will install the latest available Insider Preview of Windows 10.

Microsoft is planning a big Windows 10 update in the second half of 2021 that will introduce new top-level features and a new user interface which is more modern and consistent. There will be a focus on wider adoption of WinUI in the Windows Shell and native applications, an updated taskbar built with modern code and an improved user interface for the old File Explorer.

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