PC World - USA (2019-10)

8 PCWorld OCTOBER 2019

NEWS UPCOMING WINDOWS 10 RELEASES

to cover them. Meanwhile, here’s where we

stand on each release as of early August:

NEW FEATURES FOR

WINDOWS 10 19H

Microsoft has aimed the 19H2 release

primarily at enterprises, but a few potential

features from recent builds are intriguing.

We’ll also see a number of tweaks to

various UI elements.

A CHANGE TO ENABLE

THIRD-PARTY DIGITAL

ASSISTANTS TO VOICE-

ACTIVATE ABOVE THE LOCK

SCREEN

Previously, Windows 10 voice control was

the domain of Cortana. But with Amazon

Alexa’s integration into Windows (go.

pcworld.com/intg) as a Cortana skill, it

appears you’ll be able to yell at a laptop or

desktop running Alexa, similar to the way

you’d command a smart speaker.

A FIX TO REDUCE THE

INKING LATENCY BASED ON

DEVICE CAPABILITIES

According to Microsoft, Windows

apparently “decided” on its own what the

inking latency could be depending on the

typical hardware configuration, rather than

the actual capabilities of the device. An

odd decision to make in the first place, but

one that’s apparently been rectified. With

the 19H2 release, OEMs will be able to set

this themselves.

DIVVYING UP WORK

AMONG ‘FAVORED’ CPU

CORES

A CPU may have multiple “favored” cores

(logical processors of the highest available

scheduling class), according to Microsoft. To

provide better performance and reliability,

Microsoft has implemented a rotation policy

that distributes work more fairly among these

favored cores, the company says. That may

help the longevity and performance of

certain CPUs.

WINDOWS 10 S NOW

SUPPORTS TRADITIONAL

WIN32 APPS VIA INTUNE

Windows 10 S was originally designed to

only download apps from the Windows

Store, not “wild” Win32 apps from any

source. Now there’s a compromise: admins

will be able to send managed Win32 apps

to Windows 10 S machines.

NOTIFICATIONS ARE BETTER

MANAGED

You’ll now see the options to turn off a

particular app’s notifications right from the

notifications. Notifications settings under

Settings > System > Notifications will now

default to sorting notification senders by most

recently shown notification, rather than the