Hands On: Windows 10 Redstone 3 Build 16199 & Feature 2 Development Channel Progress

With the exception of a couple of builds, the Windows Insider team seems to be settling into a routine of releasing new Fast Ring builds of Redstone 3 each Wednesday at 1PM Eastern Time (10 AM Pacific).

While the team would never commit to a release schedule publicly it is easy enough to see that they spend Monday and Tuesday of each week looking at feedback on their self-host and Canary ring builds and then evaluate a build for Insiders to receive on Wednesday's. After that, they spend Thursday and Friday looking over telemetry and feedback for the build they sent to Insiders and then start the cycle all over again.

In these early days of testing, we are now up to seven testing builds of the Fall Creators Update since 07 April, a steady strain like this is fairly normal.

It also seems like we are seeing two trends when it comes to PC builds compared to Mobile builds. First, Microsoft continues to release a testing build for each platform together and each has had seven builds released. While the PC builds are beginning to see a regular stream of new features and enhancements, the mobile builds are seeing a lot of focus on fixing lingering issues. Many view this as just a maintenance mode as the platform heads to what they believe will be its retirement and end of life with the lack of new features. However, Microsoft software engineers are knee deep in the mobile code and taking care of a lot of items that are on their to do list. Why go through that time and effort without a long range plan? Personally, I say standby for more on mobile down the road.

As for today's PC release, Build 16199, there are several new features that I have in this gallery that you can check out but just wanted to note the removal of one thing from Windows 10 Redstone 3 in this build.

The Quick Action OneNote Note tile has been removed as an option for the Action Center due to low usage.

Obviously, there will be some users who were in fact using this feature on a regular basis despite Microsoft's data that shows low usage. While I do not know what Microsoft's criteria is for low usage levels, the bottom line is that all aspects of this massive piece of software have a cost and obviously this tool was not making the grade when it comes to usage.

What do you think of the progress on Windows 10 Redstone 3 so far?

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