After a false start earlier this month, Microsoft is ready to let you test a new version of the Edge web browser that can stop videos from automatically playing when you load a web page.

That’s just one of the many new features included in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17704.

If you really don’t mind auto-playing video, you can choose to let sites play media. In fact, there are three options:

  • Allow all videos to play starting when a tab is open in the foreground.
  • Limit will only allow videos to play if the sound is muted.
  • Block will stop all media from autoplaying unless you interact with it.

Allow is the default option, but you can change the settings, and Microsoft is asking testers to report any websites that don’t work as expected with the Limit or Block features.

Edge is also picking up some new design elements, a new settings menu, and a new beta logo. And there’s a new PF icon too, which makes it slightly easier to distinguish PDF files from HTML shortcuts (even though both can be opened in the Edge browser.

Other new features in Build 17704 include:

  • Updated version of Skype with a new layout, customizable themes, snapshot support, and new features for group calls and screensharing
  • Users without admin accounts can now install fonts
  • Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer is available from the Microsoft Store
  • Use ambient light sensor to automatically brighten video brightness when watching outdoors or in other bright settings
  • View typing insights to see how Windows 10’s AI helps you while using the software keyboard
  • Power usage info in the task manager

Sets is also being removed temporarily from this build, so Microsoft can work on adding new features and addressing feedback. It’ll be back in a future build… but it’s possible the feature won’t be available for the next major release of Windows 10, coming this fall.

There are also updates affecting security, Windows Mixed Reality, Ease of Access and Narrator, and a reminder that the Windows Snipping Tool’s days are numbered: it will be removed in a future update.

You can find more details in Microsoft’s blog post announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17704.

 

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2 replies on “Windows 10 Preview 17704 brings auto-play restrictions to Edge”

  1. What will Microsoft break this time with Build 17704? Many of these new Builds add more bugs than features. Microsoft killed my Wifi adapter with Build 16299, for example.

  2. I don’t miss Sets. It’s nothing more than a way to try to trick you into using Edge. It needs to be so that you can tab together WIndows applications, and not only Edge.

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