Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Build 16226 Adds Integrated GPU Performance Tracking

The Windows 10 Task Manager has been updated to include GPU resource tracking. Not only will you be able to monitor the utilization of the 3D pipe, but also video decode/encode engines. You can even keep tabs on dedicated and shared memory usage for your GPUs. Given that we are still very early in the development process for the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft warns that there are likely some performance issues and bugs with this new feature.

Build 16226 also includes a huge number of new features and updates, which is somewhat surprising given that Microsoft already dropped a truckload of new functionality with Build 16215 just two weeks ago. Microsoft Edge is still having trouble battling Google Chrome when it comes to browser market share, but that isn’t stopping Redmond engineers from upping the feature count. There is now more granular control over closing tabs, and Microsoft is making it easier to import your cookie and settings from Chrome to Edge (for obvious reasons). There is now improved integration Cortana with EPUB books viewed within Edge and the Favorites experience has been enhanced.

For those of you that love using emojis, Microsoft has added support for the newest Unicode update. Emoji 5.0 brings “new snacks, actions, dinosaurs, and even fantasy characters like genies, fairies and zombies” and Microsoft has also taken steps to tweak “some of our original emoji designs based on your feedback and to improve consistency with how the emoji is displayed on other platforms (while maintaining our Windows style).”

Microsoft has also made a small tweak to the newly released OneDrive Files On-Demand functionality, which is in essence an extension of the old OneDrive Placeholders feature:

We wanted to make sure that our customers are in control of all file downloads from the cloud. When they use OneDrive Files On-Demand (or another cloud provider), and an app (like a photo editor) tries to download files that the customer has stored only in the cloud, we’ll show a message displaying: what’s being downloaded, which app is requesting the download, and options to dismiss the message, cancel the download, or block the app from downloading.

There are tons of other tweaks sprinkled through the operating system them, but there are too many to list here. Check out Microsoft’s blog post announcing Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Build 16226 to get the full rundown on all the changes, improvements, fixes and known issues with this latest Insider Preview build.