[German]It looks like the Explorer in the Windows 10 November 2019 Update (Version 1909) is becoming a 'problem child' due to bugs. There are also more bugs and annoyances in Windows 10 version 1909. Here is a short summary of what I just noticed.
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I had already mentioned in the blog post Windows 10 V1909: Explorer Bugs and a Wakeup Flaw at the end of December 2019 that users of this Windows 10 version don't really enjoy Explorer. There are simply too many bugs in the shell or in the search, which are caused by the Explorer.
Discussions about Explorer bugs on Twitter
When Rafael Rivera mentioned an issue with Explorer in Windows 10 version 1909 to Brandon LeBlank on Twitter, I had added a link to the English version of my blog post. So I get to see the discussion of people held around this tweet. Brandon LeBlanc gave me the feedback that the right people at Microsoft were aware of the issues. When asked, he could not give a date for a fix.
Cosmetic issues?
Actually, the story would have ended if Microsoft employee Larry Ostermann hadn't interfered (see the following tweet).
Not in Windows, and no direct knowledge of this issue, but it's important to remember that the bar for servicing is extremely high. Without quantifiable business impact, cosmetic stuff like this often has to wait for the next release.
— Larry Osterman (@osterman) January 6, 2020
This of course provoked counter-reactions and Rafael Rivera asked if a non-functioning Explorer search was a cosmetic issue. Then he was asked by Larry Ostermann (Microsoft) whether this only affected individual people or all users.
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Weird, I use search all the time with no issues on 1909 and haven't noticed. But my original comment still stands, thee bar for servicing is quite high.
— Larry Osterman (@osterman) January 6, 2020
More bugs reported by Rivera and others
Rafael Rivera and other users then immediately followed suit – I was not yet familiar with these subtleties. In the following tweet Rivera posts new error details:
BUG: Narrator experience is poor, reads out "search complete" then "searching" and never says another peep.
BUG: Search box buttons cannot be focused via keyboard, do not have mouse hover states
BUG: Search box, after minimal use, becomes unfocusable, can turn completely gray pic.twitter.com/qrvZdFfLzr
— Rafael Rivera (@WithinRafael) January 6, 2020
Rafael Rivera reinstalled Windows 10 V1909 in a virtual machine. Within minutes the Windows 10 search was broken, as he writes in the above tweet.
In addition, there is still the problem I already mentioned in the blog post Windows 10 V1909: Explorer Bugs and a Wakeup Flaw, that the context menu does not work when right-clicking in the search box. This makes it impossible to paste search terms from the clipboard via the context menu. People are currently using the Ctrl+V shortcut.
Narrator issues and more Bugs
In an addiditional tweet Rafael Rivera points out additional issues in the Explorer search and in the narrator).
- The screen reader reads "search completed" and then "search" and doesn't say a word.
- Search box buttons cannot be focused via keyboard, have no mouse hover status.
- The search box becomes unfocusable after only minimal use and can become completely gray.
When Ostermann writes that he has no issues and that real bugs are fixed quickly, Rivera remarks that he can't wait 6 to 24 months until Microsoft is comfortable that bugs in core features are fixed.
— Amir Dream (@fromamirr) January 6, 2020
User Amir Dream then posted the screenshot from the above tweet. There the reliability history shows that the Explorer crashes cyclically and does not work anymore. And in my German blog there is this comment in which a user complains that the chosen sorting of a folder is only preserved for a short time.
At askwoody.com there is an explanation from aboddi86 why the bugs appear: Basically, in 1909, the upper bar of File Explorer (address + seach box) no longer belong to Win32 platform, it's hybride WinRT (UWP) feature divered from Settings app or Cortana.
More issues
German blog reader Karl has made me aware via Twitter of several issues with Windows 10 version 1909.
Apparently Storage Sense deletes data in the OneDrive instead of just locally. Probably nobody noticed because:
– Feature deactivated by default
– if activated by default to only clean up if little disk space or onedrive is not used or the time to clean up is not configuredErgo, the problem rarely occurs.
The problem with the network drives [can't be mapped after Windows start] is back. I think it was fixed in Nov. 2018.
Karl also writes: Standby on PCs doesn't seem to work in general, unless you do it manually. Therefore he sent me the following instructions on Twitter some time ago for testing:
If you have time, try the following in 1909 / 1903: Energy settings standby at, say, 1 minute.
Result for me and some other PCs (not laptops) Screen turns off but not the device.
If you select standby manually it works. Is it the same for you? MS Clean Boot, deactivating everything from the autostart does not help
According to him, this occurs on many PCs in the 1903 and 1909 versions. On laptops, it is not completely clean but it works.
Another list of bugs from blog reader Bolko can be found in this German comment.
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