Microsoft is rolling out a new preview build of Windows 10 to members of the Windows Insider program. It brings back some old features, like the ability to pin websites to your taskbar with the Edge web browser. And it includes improvements for things like the on-screen keyboard, Start Menu, and Action Center.
But some of the most interesting new features are for folks that use a digital pen with a tablet or notebook.
One new pen feature that’s long overdue? You can now use a pen to scroll the same way you would use a finger. There’s no need to find a scrollbar and move it with the pen as if you were using a mouse.
Using the pen to scroll is a pretty big request I’ve heard from pen users – looking forward to #WindowsInsiders getting their hands on it ? pic.twitter.com/1cQELsoz9D
— Jen Gentleman ? (@JenMsft) May 11, 2017
Microsoft has also added a “find my pen” feature. Since your pen doesn’t have GPS or location services, Windows 10 can’t actually locate your pen’s current location. But the service will tell you where your computer was the last time you were using the pen, which could at least save you some time when looking for a misplaced stylus.
Pen users can also now use a Cortana Lasso feature that lets you circle time information on a website or item in order to add an event that you want to be reminded of later.
And handwriting recognition now include a “conversion & overflow model” that gives you room to keep writing by moving finished words to the left until they slide off the screen.
There are also new gestures for strikethrough, scratch, join, and split, which you can use to do things like correct “what ever” to “whatever.” And Microsoft says palm rejection for pen users has been improved by disabling “finger inking” by default, although you can enable it if you’d like.
Other changes in Windows 10 Preview Build 1625 include a new(ish) on-screen keyboard that picks up features from the Windows 10 Mobile keyboard for phones, support for using your voice to dictate text in English or simplified Chinese, a new shortcut that makes it easier to enter emoji with a hardware keyboard, and a whole bunch of other changes.
Seriously, this is a pretty big update. You can check out the details at the Windows Blog.
Surface Pen has Bluetooth, that won’t help if you lost it outside but it should be able to track it just fine inside a house. Isn’t BT4 what all those lost item trackers used, the ones that were all the rage a year or two ago?