Windows 10 November Update version 1909 Release Demo

Windows 10 November 2019 Update version 1909 Release Demo

In this post we're taking a look at the windows 10 November 2019 updates also known as version 1909 this is Microsoft's second major update for Windows 10 this year and it's not actually that major this time around now and I feel like I've been saying that with the last two or three major future updates for Windows 10 but this time I really mean it this is a very minor update for Windows 10, so much so if you're already running version 1903 this update will just apply like a normal monthly security pack it won't require much time to install and will just simply sit on top of 1903.

Think of it as a service pack if you will it's a service pack for the May 2019 updates that was released earlier this year oh just with some minor features and enhancements here and there but most of it being under the hood so with that in mind this post going to take a look at the surface level features and changes that are in 1909 so all of the under the hood stuff, we're not really gonna talk about because that's under the hood stuff and I can't show it to you but I can show you some of the minor features and enhancements they've added on the surface.

Windows 10 1909 Some New Features

1. Start Menu Opens Automatically

So it demonstrates in the first noteworthy change with version 1909 is the ability for the Start menus hamburger menu to open automatically when you hover over it so if you just hover here you'll see that the hamburger menu opens just like that now this apparently wasn't a thing before Microsoft is highlighting it as a feature in version 1909 in the past you would have to press this button up here to get access to the titles of whatever's pinned and the hamburger menu here so being able to just hover over it is a nice addition now this has actually been possible within apps for a while some app makers have been able to enable this functionality but now it's in the Start menu and Microsoft is very proud of this fact so if you wanted to add the hamburger menu automatically open when you hover over it that's now a feature in version 1909.

2. Ability to Add Events from Taskbar

Moving right along the next noteworthy change in this update is the ability to add events to your calendar straight from the taskbar, if we come down to the date and time for out here and click on it there's now a text box up here which will allow you to type in an event or reminder which is then added straight to the calendar app on Windows 10 which then syncs with your marks of the count and of course all of your devices. So if we add an event here we type birthday party you see you can control how long this event lasts, let's say TARDIS and press on save and now this event has been added to your calendar and if you click on that that would take you into the calendar app where you can see that events that you've just added and you can click on that to change any more details if you need to so that's a nice change that most calendar users will appreciate you can now quickly add calendar events straight from the taskbar instead of having to go into the calendar app.

3. Customize Notifications on Windows 10

Microsoft has changed up how users customize notifications on Windows 10, there's now a manage notifications button and if you click on that that'll take you into these settings now which will allow you to customize a whole bunch of things such as what apps are allowed to send notifications how those notifications show up etc etc. So if we scroll down here the first notable change in this UI is that this list is now organized by most recent by default, previously it was alphabetical which was fine but that's not very handy if an app that begins of Z shows up in the notification sensor and you want to turn that off you'd have to come into here let's go all the way to the bottom of the list but if it just come through you can set to the most recent and it would be at the very top so it's just the quicker way to access the apps that you want to customize notifications with which is very nice indeed.

Now if we jump into Skype for example there's now a new UI here that sort of consolidates a whole bunch of settings into one area that you can now customize for this specific app so as in the top here up and turn notifications on and off entirely if you want to or you can customize individual aspects of how those notifications show up on the system so you can enable or disable show notifications banners show notifications in Action Center and also hide the content when notifications on the lock screen and you can also turn off whether or not you want to play a sound when that notification pops up I can also change the number of notifications visible in the Action Center. So if you have an app installed that allows you to force a whole bunch of notifications if we go into there and pop this a few times we have five of them for example you'll see that in the Action Center by default it only shows three and to see the others you have to press on see more button but if we change this to five for example you will now see all five of those without having to press a see more button so that's a handy for those of you who have an app that's constantly sending you notifications that you really need to see you can have it up to 20 so any more than 20 then it will ask you to see more but otherwise and that's pretty nice by default. It is set to 3 though just to keep the Notification Center nice and clean but know that is the priority for notifications now this is a new feature in fact none of this is technically new it's just all of these options would spread out across the settings at before in weird places.

They've now been consolidated into one area so users can customize it more easily but down here the priority area allows you to set the priority of apps so a top priority app will always show up at the very top of the Notification Center high priority apps will show just below top priority and in normal priority apps will just show up below that whenever they come in based on time so that's how that works and you can customize which apps are top and high priority if you want to you believe only one app can be top priority so if you click on this one for example it will ask you to change your currently set top priority at which by default is Cortana but you can do that if you so please there's also these tick boxes up here which just allow you to generally turn on and off notification related features so you can turn off hips and tricks for example or you can turn off show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and you can also turn off notifications on the lock screen if you really want to.

Finally when it comes to notifications if we pop one more here you'll see that if you hover over it there's now a quick access button to the area which you was just in if you click on this that will give me a context menu which allows you to go to the notification settings page so there or you can turn off all the notifications from this app directly from this context menu so if you click on that and then back out of here you'll see that's this app is no longer set to show notifications at all which is it's super handy so if you and that comes in and you never want to see a notification from again you can just simply enable that through the context menu without having to go into settings first.

4. File Explorer Search UI Updated

Microsoft has updated the search UI in Windows 10 File Explorer it's now powered by Windows search which is the same thing that powers this search UI down and what it primarily does is allows the user to search not only their local PC but their onedrive storage as well so it's tied to the cloud if you're logged in with the Microsoft account and you use onedrive to store things like documents and photos this search bar is now useful to you because you can search for things in your onedrive even if they're not locally present on your device. So for example you can search for a PDF file called getting started with onedrive and this is a file that isn't on your device locally it's stored in yout onedrive right now and if you click on that, that will then sync to your device and then open up in your PDF Reader of choice which is super handy for somebody who uses onedrive to store all of their files the search bar within file explorer is now much more useful to you it also has some general UI improvements it also works of local files of course so if you search for back here an image that's stored in your pictures folder which is local on this device and you can click on that and they'll just launch it as normal so yeah it works for local and cloud-based files which is super handy and it also just has a slightly cleaner UI than the previous search UI as well.

Windows 1909 and Release Date

So that's a quick look at Windows 10 version 1909, isn't a huge updates on the surface there's very little features to be excited about under the hood there are some improvements such as improved battery life and whatnot but overall this is a very minor update. Microsoft hasn't said when it will be rolling out we just know that it will be sometime in November likely within the first half.