Busy is perhaps a good description for Windows 10 Preview Build 16232. It has certainly been the most widespread of all the Fall Creators Update releases so far. As always, Microsoft initially sent it to the Fast Ring of the Insider Program. Later the preview made its way to the Slow Ring. While this is standard practice to move previews through branches, it was more significant this time. That’s because Windows 10 Preview Build 16232 became the first Fall Creators Update build to reach the Slow Ring. Either way, the SDK preview is now also available. Microsoft says the release is only officially supported through Visual Studio 2017. The company also says it can be installed in a production environment. However, it is worth mentioning, users who want to submit an app to the Windows Store will need to be running Creators Update or earlier. As we reported last month, build 16232 is important because it introduces a new anti-ransomware feature. Called Controlled Folder Access, the ability is integrated into Window Defender. Using the ability, Windows 10 will designate specific directories as “protected” with some folders (like Documents) being protected by default. These folders can only be accessed by applications placed on a whitelist. Any attempt by malware to infiltrate the folder would be blocked by Windows Defender.
Known Issues
Microsoft has pointed to the following as being known issues in the SDK Preview:
Designer fails to render: When viewing the XAML in the Designer Window in Visual Studio, the controls fail to render. This can be resolved by using Visual Studio 2017.3 Preview. Compilation fails on non-Windows 10 platforms When building apps on previous platforms, you may get a build error:
C:\program files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.16232.0\x86\genxbf.dll:C:\program files (x860\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.16232.0\x86\genxbf.dll(0,0): Error WMC0621: Cannot resolve ‘GenXbf.dll’ under path ‘C:\program files (x860\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.16232.0\x86\genxbf.dll’. Please install the latest version of the Windows 10 Software Development Kit. Process ‘msbuild.exe’ exited with code ‘1’. This will occur if the minimum target platform version is set to 10.0.16225.0. To work around this, right click on your project file and choose properties or open your project file in your favorite editor, and change the version to a previous released SDK. For example: 10.0.10586.0
WRL projects fail to compile with MIDLRT error: When building my WRL project that contains a WinRT Component, the project no longer compiles. I get the following errors: midlrt : command line error MIDL1012: [msg]argument illegal for switch / [context]ns_prefix midlrt : command line error MIDL1000: [msg]missing source-file name
In its announcement (source), Microsoft also lists myriad API changes in the SDK. To download the new SDK Preview, you can get it from Microsoft’s download page.
