Hands-on With Windows 10’s Preview Build 9926

Hot on the heels of its major Windows 10 event, Microsoft released a brand-new preview build to the public, versioned 9926. Given what we were told at the event, we knew that Cortana, a revamped Start menu, and updated Notifications pane would be featured. But is that all? As it happens, no. Not even close.

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At last week’s Windows 10 event, Microsoft told us that the next available preview build would be lacking some of the operating system’s most-anticipated features, with the biggest one being Internet Explorer’s potential killer, Spartan.

Seemingly ahead of schedule, the company released build 9926 on Friday. At the time, I didn’t feel overly compelled to give it an install, mostly because of Spartan’s absence. But, on account of Microsoft’s AI assistant Cortana making an appearance, I decided to suck it up and install it in a virtual machine. Not long after, I was compelled to install it on my main PC.

Even the first preview build of Windows 10 was stable; and this latest one only improves the situation. As I write this, I’ve spent two full days with the OS and have had not a single issue to report. That’s not to say that you won’t, but it’s been rock-solid for me, to the point where it feels like a production OS.

That alone isn’t what made me to decide to move to this preview build, though. With build 9926, there’s more than meets the eye. I loaded the OS up expecting the updated Start menu / Start Screen, improved notification center, as well as Cortana. What I discovered was much more, and while some of the items might be minor, I consider them notable for the fact that they’ve been areas of Windows that Microsoft hasn’t touched in quite some time.

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