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Windows 10's latest Insider build makes your life easier with minor tweaks

microsoft windows 10 anniversary update current branch business released windows10
Matti Mattila/Flickr
Microsoft’s latest build of Windows 10 hit the Fast Ring of the Insider program today. It doesn’t look like there’s much in the way of groundbreaking features, but there are a couple small improvements that should make life easier for Windows users.

First up — aside from the usual bug fixes — is a little feature Microsoft snuck into Edge, the latest iteration of the venerable Internet Explorer web browser. Edge has, of course, been attempting to take ground against wildly popular browsers like Chrome and Firefox and today’s Insider build might help woo some of those users back.

Microsoft Edge will now feature a “Snooze” button on your browser tabs. Not unlike the button on your alarm clock that makes you late for work, hitting the snooze button on a browser tab will effectively set a timed notification to remind you to return to that tab and complete whatever it was you needed to do there.

It’s a narrow use case, but it could come in handy when you’re trying to tackle multiple different tasks in your browser.

The next feature is, again, a narrow use case, but for some it’ll be like a cool breeze on a hot day. With the latest Insider update, Windows 10 will not require Num Lock to be pressed before keying in a PIN on the login menu.

It’s a small change — minuscule even. But after restarting your PC or booting up in the morning, it’s just a nice little feature that keeps you from having to key in your PIN, then do it again once you realize Num Lock wasn’t on.

Like all the improvements in this build, it’s small, but helpful.

In that vein, Microsoft has also removed another annoyance from the lives of people who upgrade their Windows install frequently — like people in the Microsoft Insider program. Once you’ve uninstalled a prepackaged Microsoft app (like the default Mail app) it’ll stay uninstalled, even after you upgrade to a new Windows 10 Build.

Finally, the latest Windows 10 Insider build revamps the Wi-Fi settings page to bring make it more in line with the “unified experience” of Windows desktop and mobile devices, making certain menus the same across all platforms.

These features are only available in the Microsoft Insider program’s Fast Ring, MSPowerUser reports, but depending on their success we should see them rolled out to consumers before long.

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Jayce Wagner
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A staff writer for the Computing section, Jayce covers a little bit of everything -- hardware, gaming, and occasionally VR.
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