Last week Microsoft pushed out another preview build for Windows 10: build 14316.

For me, the most interesting aspect of build 14316 is ability to use Linux commands from the Windows 10 command line. Getting this to actually work involves a few additional steps, including installation of Visual Studio, Microsoft’s main development platform. Sadly (for me, anyway), this essentially requires at least 4 GB of RAM, and my test PC has only 2 GB.

Build 14316 also sports improvements to Cortana, more new extensions for Edge, and better control of alerts in the Action Center. You can now switch between dark and light visual modes globally. Virtual Desktops have been enhanced with multi-desktop pinnable windows. Battery settings were improved. The Feedback Hub now allows user comments.

The BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) screen that appears when Windows crashes has been improved with QR codes. This is a neat idea, because it means you no longer have to write down the error details. Just scan the code with your smartphone to find out what the error means.

A new setting in Windows Update allows you to specify a window of time during which the computer should not be restarted automatically. Unfortunately, the window can be ten hours long at the most.

With this build, Microsoft changed the status messages that appear on your screen during installation. These messages now look more like the ones you see when installing Windows updates. This change may be partly due to the unintentionally humourous nature of the original messages. My favourite was “All your files are exactly where you left them”, which was presumably meant to be reassuring, particularly as upgrades in previous Windows versions would sometimes blow away user data.