Microsoft prepares to release Windows 10 Mobile to consumers with its latest Insider build

Microsoft has started rolling out Windows 10 Mobile build 10586 to testers that are part of its Windows Insider Program.

With less than a week before the Lumia 950 and 950 XL go on sale, this is likely the version of Windows 10 Mobile that will ship with those two smartphones. In addition, it’s probably the version of the operating system that Microsoft will provide to third-party OEMs and push to existing Windows Phone devices.

On a more historical note, it’s a significant milestone for the company because it means Microsoft has finally unified its entire lineup of devices under the Windows 10 banner.

In terms of what the build brings to the table, there are no new major feature additions here; instead, as expected with an operating system that is set to ship to consumers in the near future, this version of Windows 10 Mobile brings with it a variety bug fixes and performance improvements. Per Microsoft’s changelog:

What’s fixed:

• Microsoft has fixed the issue that caused the Start experience to become corrupted (garbled) after upgrading and restoring a backup from a phone that had a different resolution.
• You should now be able to set your default save locations via Settings > System > Storage and it will correctly reflect the current storage settings. Your SD card should no longer show up as a garbled name in Storage settings either.
• Moving apps to a SD card should no longer cause those apps to crash.
• Microsoft made improvements to the Messaging + Skype app – through both app updates via the Store and also on the server side.
• This should be seeing less resuming/loading text when switching apps.
• The physical camera button should be working again if it wasn’t working for you before.
• Apps and games should download from the Store more reliably.

Known issues:

• After Microsoft released Build 10581 to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring, we discovered a bug in the build that will cause the filesystem to become partially corrupted after doing a factory reset. For those of you who did a factory reset of your phone, you most likely did not notice this issue on Build 10581. Due to this bug however, upgrading to Build 10586 will cause your phone to go into a reboot loop after the upgrade completes – rebooting at the Windows or operator logo. To recover your phone, you can use the hardware key combination to reset your phone which will then put it at the OOBE experience on Build 10586. Microsoft recommends that you do a backup your phone *before* upgrading to Build 10586 due to this bug. Additionally, you can also recover your phone by using the Windows Device Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 and then upgrade to Build 10586.
• Deploying Silverlight apps through Visual Studio to your phone still won’t work in this build. This issue will be fixed with the release of Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 on Nov. 30th. You can deploy UWP apps to your phone without any issues.
• There is a known issue where the tile for Insider Hub still remains under All apps but doesn’t open. Insider Hub isn’t included in this build. There isn’t a way to get it back unfortunately. However, it’ll return in a future flight! In the meantime, use Insider Hub on the PC as a workaround.

[source]Microsoft[/source][via]Thurrott[/via]