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AMD fans forced to sit out latest Windows 10 Insiders build due to 'bug impacting overall usability of these PCs'

Calm down, Intel. It'll be fixed

Microsoft teased a future that Intel could only dream of as it unleashed a new Dev Channel build of Windows 10 that was deemed unsuitable for AMD CPU-equipped PCs.

Build 20170 followed 20161, which featured exciting user interface tweaks (for some Insiders)... and some processor borkage. Microsoft was tight-lipped on what it had managed to break, saying only that AMD-powered PCs would be left alone "due to a bug impacting overall usability of these PCs."

Someone less kind than us might suggest that the tinkering done by Microsoft over the years to its flagship operating system has done far more harm to usability than inadvertently breaking support for the chips lurking in some of its own Surface Laptop 3 lines.

Broken AMD support aside (which will get fixed in the next flight), the paucity of toys for testers this time around was accentuated by improvements in sound settings to permit the selection of default devices and, er, a new Settings icon.

Other tweaks include an experimental implementation of Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 enabled by default and Notepad shorn of its ability to persist open windows across restarts and updates while the gang "work on improving reliability."

Those nostalgic for times past will be happy to note a return of anti-cheat issues in this build for players of games from the Microsoft Store. Other issues include the lingering HYPERVISOR_ERROR bugcheck and 0.00GHz CPU usage in the performance tab of the task manager for some users.

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While 20170 may never see life outside the Dev Channel, Microsoft also dropped an update this week for Beta Channel testers prodding Windows 10 20H2, due for release at some point before the end of the year.

Build 19042.388 arrived replete with the updates that formed Microsoft's epic patch Tuesday. The cumulative update contained what the software giant delicately referred to as "Quality Improvements."

The usual swathe of updates aside, Beta Channel testers received fixes including one dealing with the printer borkage introduced by the 9 June update and another to resolve problems with the OneDrive app that had left some users of legacy file filters unable to download new files or open those previously synced or downloaded. ®

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