Skip to main content

The latest Windows 10 build has love for Cortana, but not for the Surface Pro

Another week, another Windows 10 build for insiders. The increased release schedule pace hasn’t slowed down the new features, and this build, 14279, is chock full of them, but it isn’t without its issues, and one of them might draw the ire of Surface owners.

Most notably, Cortana has some new functionality, and she’s been brushing up on her language skills. She now speaks Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Canadian French. These aren’t just translations either. The Cortana team actively works to adapt her personality, preferences, and word choice to reflect local dialect and culture.

Recommended Videos

She’s now better at remembering things with the reminder function. For example, tell Cortana to remind you to feed your cat when you get home, and she’ll wait until the perfect time to bring it up again.

Moving on to a more aesthetic changes, the logon screen and lock screen backgrounds are now one and the same. There are still two separate screens when you login, but now they’ll both have the same image, whether that’s a custom wallpaper or the default one. There are also improvements to the Japanese typing experience, with improved text prediction and smooth performance.

A ton of bugs have been squashed this time around. Microsoft Edge and Cortana were crashing for some users on roaming profiles. Cortana was also sometimes showing reminders for tasks that were already marked completed. The desktop wasn’t updating when files were moved to it without refreshing, and certain drivers from Windows Update were causing blue screens. That’s all been ironed out.

There are a number of known issues that tend to pop up in these updates. In this case, it’s the usual suspects – anti-virus compatibility issues, misaligned interface elements, apps crashing – but there’s one in particular that drew my attention.

“We’re investigating an issue in which some Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book devices experience a freeze or hang and all input such as keyboard/trackpad and touch do not work. The workaround is to hold down the power button to force the device to hard reboot.”

To be clear, this is just one of myriad problems that have plagued my Surface Book over the last few months. It happens for no discernible reason, it happens often, and it has nothing to do with this update. Perhaps this is an admission by Microsoft of the Surface line firmware issues, and hopefully it leads to a fix soon.

Windows 10 mobile users have to wait a bit longer for their update, but there’s some good news. Firmware updates for Windows 10 devices will be auto-published for Windows Insiders. No more waiting, the updates will go up for download as soon as they’re ready, hopefully allowing for faster and more reliable iteration.

Downloading build 14279 is as easy as switching to the Fast ring in your system settings. That being said, Surface owners may want to avoid this one, lest they exacerbate their crashes.

Brad Bourque
Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…
Windows 10 security risks are now more of a reality for users
Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating system logos are displayed on laptop screens.

It appears more and more Windows 10 users may be finally ready to let go of the legacy operating system ahead of the end of its life status on October 14. Microsoft has been urging system users to update to the latest Windows 11 software before that date and after months of ignoring the call, tens of millions of users are now opting in to the update.

Figures from StatCounter indicate that the percentage of Windows 10 usage has now dipped below 60% for the first time with 58.7% of global users running the system as of February 2025. Meanwhile, stats for Windows 11 are slowly creeping up toward 40% with 38.2% of global users running this version of Microsoft’s OS.

Read more
Windows 10 KB5051974 update adds a new app without asking
A Dell laptop with Windows 10 sitting on a desk.

Microsoft has released the KB5051974 cumulative update for versions 22H2 and 21H2, adding security fixes and patching a memory leak. However, as Bleeping Computer reports, the update also includes a surprise: the new Outlook for Windows app.

The update is mandatory because it includes the January 2025 Patch Tuesday security updates. Once you install it, you will notice the new app icon near the classic one in the Start Menu's apps section. Since the new app can operate concurrently, you don't have to worry about interfering with the old one.

Read more
Microsoft is cracking down on unsupported Windows 11 installs
A Dell laptop with Windows 10 sitting on a desk.

A support document showing users how to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs was deleted sometime in the past two months. Its disappearance, noticed by Neowin, echoes Microsoft's recent "year of the Windows 11 PC refresh" rhetoric, encouraging (or forcing) users to buy new PCs that meet Windows 11 hardware requirements.

When Windows 11 launched in 2021, Microsoft announced that it was adding TPM 2.0 as a hardware requirement -- a move that was met with plenty of resistance. To soften the blow, Microsoft also published a support document detailing how users could edit their registry key values to bypass the TPM 2.0 check.

Read more