Windows 11 Changelog

What's new in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23565 Dev

Oct 11, 2023

Copilot in Windows now shows the new icon on the taskbar.
We are trying out Windows Spotlight on desktop on by default as the default background for upgrades where Insiders are using one of the inbox default desktop backgrounds. We are trying this experience out with a limited number of Insiders at first.
Fixed a few issues impacting File Explorer reliability.
Fixed an underlying issue which could cause File Explorer windows to hang for OneDrive users.
If there are a lot of images to load in Gallery, it will now show a loading state rather than implying Gallery is empty while it loads.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview 22631 Release (Sep 27, 2023)

Chat is now Microsoft Teams (free). Microsoft Teams (free) is pinned by default to the taskbar and can be unpinned like other apps on the taskbar. Windows Insiders who click to launch Microsoft Teams (free) will discover a mini communications experience making it possible to chat, call, and meet with their people within just a click or two. Not only does its compact size make it easy to place the window anywhere on desktop, but you can passively keep tabs on your conversations with the ability to have it visible as you browse the web or connect with your communities. With Microsoft Teams (free) we’re also introducing these new experiences:
Users will also be able to access the new Phone Link integration with Microsoft Teams (free). They can link their Android phone to send, receive SMS messages and share meeting links using their regular phone number.
A new People experience finds you relevant people easily on Teams and makes it possible to access and connect with contacts synced by users.
And a new Play Together widget in Windows 11 Game Bar powered by Microsoft Teams (free) lets you see your friends’ videos overlaid directly on top of your game. Friends can join from any device for free to connect, chat, and more while playing Starfield along with many of your favorite games on this new widget. Hit WIN + G to start playing.
Commercial* customers can get the Windows 11, version 23H2 feature update through Windows Update for Business (WUfB), Windows Server Update Service (WSUS), and/or via Azure Marketplace. You can learn more about deploying pre-release feature updates using these deployment methods here. Should any issues arise, IT admins in organizations deploying Release Preview payloads can request free Microsoft Support. This support offer is intended to help resolve issues with commercial-specific scenarios and is limited to commercial customers. UPDATE: ISOs are now available for Windows 11, version 23H2 Build 22631 via the Windows Insider ISO download page.
We are also making Windows 11, version 23H2 available to any Windows Insider in the Release Preview Channel via our “seeker” experience in Windows Update. This means Insiders currently in the Release Preview Channel that meet the Windows 11 hardware requirements can go to Settings and Windows Update and choose to download and install Windows 11, version 23H2 Build 22631 if they want. Once an Insider updates their PC to Windows 11, version 23H2, they will continue to automatically receive new servicing updates through Windows Update (the typical monthly update process). For instructions on how to join the Windows Insider Program and join your PC to the Release Preview Channel, click here.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23541 Dev (Sep 9, 2023)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25921 Dev (Aug 5, 2023)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23516 Dev (Aug 2, 2023)

Changes and Improvements:
Windows Copilot:
REMINDER] As of Build 23511, Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel who login and are managed by AAD (soon to be Microsoft Entra ID) will notice that the Windows Copilot Preview is no longer available in this build. This is just a temporary issue. You may enable it temporarily via this policy located here in Group Policy Editor: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Copilot. Please note that this policy name will change in an upcoming flight. The Windows Copilot Preview will be defaulted on in a future flight including support for Bing Chat for Enterprise.
Taskbar & System Tray:
As mentioned here with Build 23481, Microsoft Teams (free) is now pre-pinned to the taskbar in Windows 11. This change continues to roll out so not all Insiders will see it right away. Windows Insiders who click to launch Teams will discover a mini communications experience making it possible to chat, call, and meet with their people within just a click or two. Not only does its compact size make it easy to place the window anywhere on desktop, but you can passively keep tabs on your conversations with the ability to have it visible as they browse the web or connect with your communities. Phone Link integration is also coming soon to Microsoft Teams (free) as well.
New mini communications experience in Microsoft Teams (free).
New mini communications experience in Microsoft Teams (free).
File Explorer:
Added more fields to show in the Details pane, including image dimensions for pictures, number of pages for .docx, space used and free information for drives, and many others.
Fixes:
General:
After updating to Build 23511, some Insiders may have seen the Photos app pinned to the taskbar. This issue only occurred with that build and should no longer occur. We apologize for the issue.
File Explorer:
Fixed an issue where the icons displayed in the tabs in File Explorer could become out of sync with the current folder after navigating.
Fixed a memory leak in File Explorer with the latest updates which could cause explorer.exe crashes and other issues over prolonged usage.
Fixed an underlying issue causing desktop icons to all go blank in the last few flights.
Fixed an issue which was causing File Explorer to show “Working on it” in an empty folder.
Fixed an issue where the text box for naming newly created files or folders on the desktop was showing in the wrong position (far away or way too close) relative to the thumbnail.
Fixed an issue where opening the context menu in the previous flight was crashing explorer.exe for some Insiders.
Fixed an issue where right clicking items in the navigation pane wouldn’t open a context menu after you changed folders.
Fixed an issue where ALT + P and Shift + Alt + P keyboard shortcuts weren’t working when focus was set to one of the images in Gallery.
Fixed an issue where Home and Gallery could get stuck in the wrong colors if they were open when changing between light and dark mode.
Fixed an issue where thumbnails in Gallery might not load after changing the view to a smaller icon size (for example, medium to small).
Fixed an issue where after refreshing Home, actions to pin and unpin favorite files might not work.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders with the modernized details pane in File Explorer:
Fixed an issue where the design of the details pane was displaying from left to right instead of right to left when using Hebrew or Arabic display languages.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer address bar that began rolling out with Build 23475:
The ALT + D, CTRL + L, and F4 keyboard shortcuts should work now to set focus to the address bar.
Fixed an issue where typing drive letters, %localappdata%, and certain other things in the address bar wasn’t causing suggested paths to appear in a dropdown.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer Home that began rolling out with Build 23475:
Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening Home.
Fixed an issue where the tooltip would get stuck on the screen when you scrolled Home with touch.
Fixed an issue where collapsing and expanding the sections of Home didn’t always work.
Made some small adjustments to the size of elements, including reducing the size of the text.
Fixed an issue where mouse wheel scrolling wasn’t working if your mouse was hovered over the recommended section of Home.
Taskbar & System Tray:
Fixed multiple explorer.exe crashes impacting taskbar reliability.
Input:
Fixed an issue which was causing certain mouse actions (including resizing windows with mouse) to not work over remote desktop.
Dynamic Lighting:
Fixed an issue where switching user accounts could turn off device LEDs.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23511 Dev (Jul 28, 2023)

More improvements for Windows Spotlight:
After trying out different treatments for how Windows Spotlight looks, we’re now rolling out a single Windows Spotlight experience for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel that includes previewing images at full screen, multiple opportunities to learn more about each image and a minimized experience. To open the Windows Spotlight experience, right-click on the Spotlight icon on the desktop. You can also double click on the icon to directly launch a Bing landing page for more info on each image.
To enable Windows Spotlight on your PC today, right-click on your desktop and choose “Personalize” and then choose the new Spotlight theme. Alternatively, you can directly enable Windows Spotlight by going to Settings > Personalization > Background and choosing the option under the “Personalize your background” dropdown.
Changes and Improvements:
[General]:
If a camera streaming issue is detected such as a camera failing to start or a closed camera shutter, a pop-up dialog will appear with the recommendation to launch the automated Get Help troubleshooter to resolve the issue.
[Windows Copilot]:
Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel who login and are managed by AAD (soon to be Microsoft Entra ID) will notice that the Windows Copilot Preview is no longer available in this build. This is just a temporary issue. You may enable it temporarily via this policy located here in Group Policy Editor: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Copilot. Please note that this policy name will change in an upcoming flight. The Windows Copilot Preview will be defaulted on in a future flight including support for Bing Chat for Enterprise.
[Start menu]:
For people logged into an Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise editions with an AAD account (soon to be Microsoft Entra ID), we are providing a richer preview when hovering over files such as Word documents under Recommended on the Start menu. For this initial release, thumbnails will not be available for all files and a later update will enable the experience for more files and for MSA users. Additionally, when right-clicking on cloud file recommendations, there is now an option to quickly share these files.
Under All apps in the Start menu, Windows 11 system components will now show a “system” label. This change is beginning to roll out and so not all Insiders in the Dev Channel will see it right away.
[Taskbar & System Tray]:
Notifications will now show as a bell in the system tray and when new notifications come through, the bell will colorize based on your system accent color. When there are no notifications and the clock is visible, the bell will be empty. Notification counts are no longer shown.
[File Explorer]:
Made some changes which should noticeably help improve the performance of the “calculating” phase when sending a large number of files at once in File Explorer to the recycle bin.
[Snap Layouts]:
We have fixed the bugs that were causing some crashes that resulted in us turning off suggestions in Snap Layouts and are beginning to roll this out again to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Suggestions in Snap Layoutsthat help you instantly snap multiple app windows together. When hovering over the Minimize or Maximize button on an app (or WIN + Z) to launch the layout box, you will see app icons displayed in various layout options to help recommend the best layout option that works best. This experience is beginning to roll out (again) so not all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel will see it right away.
[Settings]:
We have fixed the bug that could cause some instability which resulted in us disabling the new Settings homepage with Build 23506 last week. We have begun rolling the new Settings homepage out again to Insiders in the Dev Channel.
We are beginning to roll out a new option under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Phone Link to disable Phone Link all together in Windows 11. This setting will prevent Phone Link from communicating with your mobile devices.
Fixes:
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue where copying files out of large archives or using “Extract All” might have been slower than expected for “solid” .7Z or .rar archives.
Fixed an issue where when decompressing some of the newly supported archive format types, the folder names might become gibberish.
Fixed an underlying issue where in some cases the context menu background in File Explorer was appearing transparent.
[Notifications]:
Fixed an issue that was preventing apps from opening when you selected inside a notification popup for that app.
Fixed an issue causing Insiders to unexpectedly see a notification suggesting you turn off notifications for an app named NotifyiconGeneratedAumid_*.
[Taskbar & System Tray]:
Fixed multiple explorer.exe crashes that were impacting taskbar reliability.
Fixed an issue that was causing quick settings not to open when selecting the network, volume, and battery icons in the system tray.
[Task View & Desktops]:
Adjusted the desktops switching animation to ease into the animation a little more.
[Search on the Taskbar]:
Fixed an issue where search was not actually hiding when set to hide in taskbar settings.
[Windows Ink]:
Fixed an issue where writing in the address box in Microsoft Edge might not work correctly. Make sure Microsoft Edge is up to date with the latest version.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23506 Dev (Jul 21, 2023)

Passwordless experience with Windows Hello for Business:
With Windows Hello for Business (WHFB), Windows provides organizations with a strong, phish-resistant credential, helping customers move to a passwordless future. Enterprise customers can now set the EnablePasswordlessExperience policy that promotes a user experience on AAD joined machines for core authentication scenarios without requiring a password. This new experience hides passwords from certain Windows authentication scenarios and leverages passwordless recovery mechanisms, such as WHFB PIN reset, if necessary.
Once the policy is set, it removes passwords from the user experience, both for device logon as well as in-session auth scenarios like password managers in a web browser, “Run as” admin or as a different user scenarios, and User Account Control (UAC). Users will navigate through their core authentication scenarios using WHFB in place of passwords. If the user fails to sign in, recovery mechanisms such as PIN reset or web sign-in can be used to help the user recover their credentials without IT helpdesk engagement.
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Windows Hello PIN.
Unsafe password copy and paste warnings:
Starting in Windows 11, version 22H2, Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen helps protect Microsoft school or work passwords against phishing and unsafe usage on sites and apps. We are trying out a change starting with this build where users who have enabled warning options for Windows Security under App & browser control > Reputation-based protection > Phishing protection will see a UI warning on unsafe password copy and paste, just as they currently see when they type in their password.
Local File Sharing Improvements:
We have made some improvements to the built-in Windows share window and nearby sharing for sharing local files from your PC.
Those improvements include:
We have redesigned the Windows share window to better match the Windows 11 design principles.
Everyone will now be able to email their files through Outlook directly within the Windows share window. Just click on the Outlook icon under the “Share using” section of the Windows share window.
The Windows share window now has a search box so you can now search for contacts across Outlook to share a file and the Windows share window will now display 8-10 suggested contacts to quickly share to – including emailing yourself a file.
Instead of a dropdown, you will see a button to turn on nearby sharing.
For nearby sharing, you will find your own PCs at the top of discovered devices under “Nearby Share”.
Files will share faster from one PC to another using Wi-Fi Direct.
And we’ve added “Share” to the context menu in File Explorer in addition to having the share icon at the top of the context menu.
The New Outlook for Windows is now an inbox app:
Starting with this build, the new Outlook for Windows Preview is now an inbox app. With the new Outlook for Windows, you can connect work and personal emails, calendars, and contacts in one secure place. Learn about the new Outlook for Windows here and the most recent set of updates for Insiders here. You can click here to learn more about the future of Mail and Calendar in Windows.
Post-OOBE Experiences:
We are trying out several new experiences for after completing OOBE (“out of box experience”) starting with this build. You may see one of these three experiences launched automatically on your device after completing OOBE.
These experiences will help you learn about new features in Windows 11 and help you complete your device setup. These experiences will only be available to a small subset of Insiders in the Dev Channel at first and you may see different variations of these experiences.
[ADDED] Auto Color Management (ACM) Expansion:
Last fall, we launched Auto Color Management (hardware accelerated system level color management) on select qualifying and specially provisioned SDR displays. Now, Insiders in the Dev Channel will be able to turn ACM on for their SDR displays and have all colors across all Windows apps, whether or not they are color-managed, appear accurately and consistently on every supported display.
To turn ACM on, go to Settings > Display > Advanced display, select correct display and turn on Automatically manage color for apps.
Changes and Improvements:
[Windows Copilot]:
The Windows Copilot Preview, which began rolling out with Build 23493, is now available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Insiders may need to reboot to have it show up.
[Emoji]:
With the update of our color font format to COLRv1, Windows is now able to display richer emoji with a 3D like appearance with support coming soon to some apps and browsers. These emoji use gradients to bring the design style that our customers have been asking for. The new emoji will bring more expression to your communications.
[Voice Access]:
Voice access is now available via the accessibility flyout on the Lock screen.
[Backup and Restore]:
In addition to the new Windows Backup app, now you can configure your backup preferences in second-chance out of box experience (SCOOBE), so your apps, settings, creds, and files are backed up in the cloud just the way you want them. You’ll have peace of mind knowing the data you care about is protected and ready for you to restore from any PC.
[Settings]:
We have temporarily disabled the new Settings homepage that began rolling out with Build 23493 due to a bug that could cause some instability on Insider’s PCs. We plan to re-enable and roll this back out once that bug is fixed in a future flight.
We’ve added 2 additional energy recommendations under Settings > System > Power & battery > Energy recommendations for turning on dark mode and adjusting refresh rate to conserve energy.
Fixes:
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue where explorer.exe might crash when dragging tabs.
Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening Gallery.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer address bar that began rolling out with Build 23475:
Fixed an issue which was causing explorer.exe to crash when trying to access an FTP address.
Fixed an issue where selecting the dropdown arrows in the address bar was opening a blank menu in the last flight.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer Home that began rolling out with Build 23475:
Fixed an issue where File Type icons are displayed in place of file thumbnails for ‘Recommended’ section (applicable to Enterprise users).
Fixed an issue where Insiders signed in with an AAD account who tried to navigate the Recommended section on File Explorer Home with the tab key on the keyboard may have experienced an explorer.exe crash.
Fixed an issue where if you navigated from another group to the Recommended section using a keyboard, focus will not appear on the group header or files appropriately.
Fixed an issue where opening Home was crashing for some Insiders.
We fixed the following issue with commands on recommended files in File Explorer that began rolling out with Build 23403:
Fixed an issue where if you clicked on the Share command, it would bring up the Windows share sheet instead of the OneDrive share experience.
Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of certain apps hanging when trying to use the open file dialog.
[Notifications]:
Fixed an issue where the copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts was not working as expected.
[Taskbar & System Tray]:
Fixed an issue where the notification badge on the widgets icon in the taskbar could get out of place.
[Search on the Taskbar]:
We fixed the issue causing text scaling to not work in the search flyout.
[Dynamic Lighting]:
Fixed an underlying ctfmon.exe crash (which could impact the ability to type) related to the Dynamic Lighting work.
Fixed an issue where all-device settings changes were not propagating to per-device settings.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23493 Dev (Jun 30, 2023)

Windows Copilot Preview:
Back in May at the Build conference, we introduced Windows Copilot for Windows 11. In today’s flight we are offering an early look of Windows Copilot to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel via a controlled feature rollout. This first preview focuses on our integrated UI experience, with additional functionality coming down the road in future previews. To use Copilot in this flight you must have Windows Build 23493 or higher in the Dev Channel, and Microsoft Edge version 115.0.1901.150 or higher.
To get started, just click on the new button on the taskbar (or WIN + C) to launch Windows Copilot. Windows Copilot will use the same Microsoft account (MSA) or Azure Active Directory (AAD) account used to sign-in to Windows.
Windows Copilot will appear as a side bar docked to the right where it won’t overlap with your desktop content and will run unobstructed alongside your open app windows, allowing you to interact with Windows Copilot anytime you need.
In this first preview, you can ask Windows Copilot a range of questions or to take actions such as:
“Change to dark mode.”
“Turn on do not disturb.”
“Take a screenshot”
“Summarize this website” (Active tab in Microsoft Edge)
“Write a story about a dog who lives on the moon.”
“Make me a picture of a serene koi fishpond with lily pads.”
Just click the “…” icon at the top right of the side bar in Windows Copilot to submit feedback on any issues you run into. We’ll have more to come including expanding the preview to more Windows Insiders in other channels over time and adding policies to allow IT admins to manage this experience in their organizations.
Windows Copilot with Bing Chat generates responses that are contextual and improves your experience in Windows. You may see inline recommendations we think are relevant through ads in Bing. We’ll continue to learn and listen to customer feedback. Understand what Bing does with your data by visiting Microsoft Privacy Statement. Read more about our responsible AI journey, the ethical principles that guide us, and the tooling and capabilities we’ve created to assure that we develop AI technology responsibly at Microsoft’s commitment to responsible AI.
Please note that not everything shown at Build for Windows Copilot is included in this first, early preview. For example, Windows Copilot has a basic set of Windows settings plugins but no third-party plugin support yet. Over time, features will be added as we refine the Windows Copilot experience with Windows Insiders.
[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders in the Dev Channel just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
Introducing the new Settings homepage:
We’re introducing a new homepage in Settings that offers you a dynamic and personalized experience. It provides an overview of your device, quick access to key settings, and helps manage your Microsoft account.
We created interactive cards that represent various device and account related settings, grouped by commonly accessed functions. Each card is optimized to offer the most relevant information and controls at your fingertips. In this release, you’ll see up to seven cards, with more coming soon.
Here’s an overview of each card:
Recommended settings: This card adapts to your specific usage patterns, providing timely and relevant settings options. It’s designed to streamline your settings management and save you time.
Cloud storage: Gives you an overview of your cloud storage use and lets you know when you’re nearing capacity.
Account recovery: Helps keep your Microsoft account more secure by helping you add additional recovery info so you never get locked out of your account, even if you forget your password.
Personalization: Brings customization to the forefront by offering one-click access to update your background theme or change your color mode.
Microsoft 365: Provides a quick glimpse of your subscription status and benefits, along with the ability to take some key actions right in Settings instead of going to the web.
Xbox: Similar to the Microsoft 365 card, you’ll be able to view your subscription status and manage the subscription from the Settings app.
Bluetooth Devices: To simplify your Bluetooth device management experience, we’ve brought this to the forefront so you can quickly access and connect to your favorite Bluetooth-enabled devices.
You can take swift actions directly from this page with just a click, making device and account management seamless and efficient. What sets the homepage apart even further is that it’s more than just a landing page—it evolves and learns with you. As you use your device, it’ll adjust to provide the most relevant and useful information based on your usage and preferences.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23471 Dev (Jun 2, 2023)

What’s new in Build 23471:
Add Phone Photos in File Explorer Gallery:
Accessing your phone’s camera roll from your PC is an important everyday task that is now easier with File Explorer Gallery. There is a new button in the Command Bar titled “Add Phone Photos” that will help with setting up your PC to be ready to show these photos in Gallery. Clicking this button today will open a URL with a QR code that you can scan with your phone to get started.
Narrator natural voices in Spanish (Spain and Mexico):
We are introducing new natural voices in Spanish (Spain and Mexico) that allow Narrator users to comfortably browse the web, read, and write mail, and do more. Natural Narrator voices use modern, on-device text to speech and once downloaded are supported without an internet connection.
To use one of the natural voices, add it to your PC by following these steps:
Open Narrator Settings by pressing the WIN + Ctrl + N hotkey.
Under Narrator’s voice, select the Add button next to Add natural voices.
Select the voice you want to install. You can install all voices, but you must install them separately.
The new Spanish (Spain) voices are Microsoft Alvaro and Microsoft Elvira.
The new Spanish (Mexico) voices are Microsoft Jorge and Microsoft Dalia.
To start the download of the selected voice, select Install. The new voice will download and be ready for use in a few minutes, depending on your internet download speed.
When the new voice has downloaded, in Narrator settings select your preferred voice from the drop-down menu in Narrator’s voice > Choose a voice.
Note: If your display language is not set to Spanish , then in step 3 you will first need to select “Choose a different language” and then select the appropriate language followed by the specific voice.
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (Win + F) under Accessibility > Narrator.
Changes and Improvements:
Lock screen:
We have updated the network flyout on the Lock screen to align with Windows 11 design principles.
File Explorer:
We are beginning to roll out the ability to tear out and merge tabs in File Explorer. This feature is beginning to roll out, so not all Insiders in the Dev Channel will see it right away.
Gallery in File Explorer, which began rolling out with Build 23435, is now available for all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
Settings:
It is easier to control whether to use cellular when Wi-Fi is available but poor, using a new toggle which has been added to Settings > Network & Internet > Cellular.
Fixes:
File Explorer:
Fixed an issue where pressing Shift + F10 wasn’t opening the context menu in File Explorer.
Fixed an issue where access keys appeared inconsistently if no button was pressed.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer
Fixed an issue that was causing explorer.exe to crash when opening the context menu for some Insiders. This same issue is believed to be the cause of some Insiders seeing an older design instead of the updated one.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders with Gallery in File Explorer:
Fixed an explorer.exe crash in the last flight related to loading/interacting with the scrollbar in Gallery.
Fixed an issue where Gallery may require clicking twice on the node in the navigation pane for initial load.
Fixed an issue where minimizing and reopening File Explorer would lose your scroll position in Gallery.
Hovering your mouse over pictures in Gallery should now show a tooltip with information about the picture.
Live updates (including filtering) are now enabled and no longer require using the Refresh button manually.
Fixed an issue where some file types (e.g., .heic) were not rendered correctly or performantly.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders with the modernized details pane in File Explorer:
Made the background for thumbnails a little lighter in light mode so it doesn’t stand out as much.
If you have Narrator running when you open the details pane, it should now announce the file name.
If the setting to show file name extensions has been enabled, that will now be reflected in the details pane too.
Taskbar:
Fixed an issue that was causing the taskbar to get cut off when switching to and from the tablet-optimized taskbar.
Search on the Taskbar:
We have fixed the issue causing Insiders to see an empty tooltip displayed momentarily in certain cases including while the gleam is hovered if the new hover behavior for the search box and search highlight gleam is enabled.
Other:
Fixed an issue where Narrator with Braille support wasn’t reading numbered lists correctly in Microsoft 365 apps.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview 25346 Canary (Apr 21, 2023)

Changes and Improvements:
Remote Desktop:
Redesigned the connection bar for remote desktop sessions to a new refreshed light / dark mode design that aligns with our Windows 11 design principles.
When sharing a local file in File Explorer to Outlook contacts – you will now see the option to quickly email the file to yourself. In addition, we’ve made improvements in loading your contacts from Outlook. This capability is not available for files stored in OneDrive folders as OneDrive has its own share experience.
Taskbar & System Tray:
ADDED: When right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray, we’ve added the option to diagnose network problems.
Settings:
We are introducing new presence sensor privacy settings and APIs. If you have a device with compatible presence sensors, you can now manage your privacy and block/allow certain apps from accessing these sensors. No images or metadata is collected by Microsoft and all processing is done locally on the device hardware to maximize privacy. You will find these settings under Settings > Privacy & security > Presence sensing here if your device supports it. App developers with devices with compatible presence sensors can target apps to request and read user presence information after requesting a human presence capability. Learn more about the API here.
Windows Security:
After fixing some issues based off Insider feedback, we are re-introducing the updated Windows Security (firewall) notification dialogs that match the Windows 11 visuals.
Narrator:
Narrator users who interact with Traditional Chinese characters are now able to do this with confidence while using Narrator and the IME candidate window in Windows. This was accomplished by creating a Traditional Chinese dictionary for detail reading. Narrator now consumes the dictionary to disambiguate each Traditional Chinese word. Users should be aware that Narrator detailed reading is only supported for the Taiwan language pack. The Hong-Kong language pack is not supported with Narrator.
Graphics:
It’s now easier to configure the state of HDR when running on battery! Simply go to Settings > System > Display > HDR and choose whether you want HDR (or HDR video streaming) to remain turned on when your PC is running on battery.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview 25324 Canary (Mar 24, 2023)

Evolved Widgets Board:
We are beginning to preview a revamp of the widgets board experience with a larger canvas (3-columns if supported by the device) and dedicated sections for widgets and feed content with a clear separation between them. This will provide users with quick access to glanceable content from their apps and services as well as enable users to take a high-value break with personalized news content.
[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders in the Canary Channel just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Widgets.
USB4 Settings Page:
We are adding a USB4 hubs and devices Settings page for users under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > USB > USB4 Hubs and Devices. USB4 enables new productivity scenarios for docking, high performance peripherals, displays and charging. The USB4 settings page provides information about the system’s USB4 capabilities and attached peripherals on a USB4 capable system. These insights are meant to assist with troubleshooting in case users need support from their device manufacturer (OEM) or system administrator. The features provided by this page are:
View the tree of connected USB4 hubs and devices.
View attributes and capabilities associated with the USB4 domain.
Copy the details into the clipboard so it can be shared with customer support or system administrators for troubleshooting.
If the system does not support USB4 with the Microsoft USB4 Connection Manager, this page will not be displayed.
To confirm whether your system is USB4 capable or not, check for “USB4 Host Router” populating in the Device Manager.
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Buses.
Unsafe password copy and paste warnings:
Starting in Windows 11, version 22H2, Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen helps protect Microsoft school or work passwords against phishing and unsafe usage on sites and apps. We are trying out a change starting with this build where users who have enabled warning options for Windows Security under App & browser control > Reputation-based protection > Phishing protection will see a UI warning on unsafe password copy and paste, just as they currently see when they type in their password.
[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders in the Canary Channel just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.
Introducing SHA-3 Support:
Starting with this build, we are adding support for the SHA-3 family of hash functions and SHA-3 derived functions (SHAKE, cSHAKE, KMAC). The SHA-3 family of algorithms are the latest standardized hash functions by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Support for these functions has been enabled through the Windows CNG library.
Supported SHA-3 hash functions: SHA3-256, SHA3-384, SHA3-512 (SHA3-224 is not supported)
Supported SHA-3 HMAC algorithms: HMAC-SHA3-256, HMAC-SHA3-384, HMAC-SHA3-512
Supported SHA-3 derived algorithms: extendable-output functions (XOF) (SHAKE128, SHAKE256), customizable XOFs (cSHAKE128, cSHAKE256), and KMAC (KMAC128, KMAC256, KMACXOF128, KMACXOF256).
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Developer Platform > API Feedback.
Changes and Improvements:
[Widgets]:
We are beginning to roll out animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar. The animation triggers when you hover or click on the Widgets taskbar entry-point or when a new widget announcement is displayed on your taskbar. Currently, only a few weather and finance icons are supported.
[Search on the Taskbar]:
Once you have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will include a button that opens the Bing chat experience in Edge. If you don’t have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will feature a dynamic search highlight button. We’re beginning to roll this out to Insiders, not everyone will see it right away.
[Input]:
We have updated several simplified Chinese fonts and the Microsoft Pinyin IME to support GB18030-2022. With this update, you can enter and display characters from conformance level 1 or 2 via the additions to Microsoft Yahei, Simsun and Dengxian. Unicode Extensions E and F are now supported in our Simsun Ext-B font to meet the requirements for level 3.
[Settings]:
As part of the deprecation of Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) and MSDT Troubleshooters, we have begun redirecting some of the troubleshooters found under Settings > System > Troubleshoot and in other areas of the OS to the new Get Help troubleshooting platform.
If you have multiple cameras that support Windows Hello, you can now select your preferred camera under Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options.
[File Explorer]:
Made some changes which should noticeably help improve the performance of the “calculating” phase when sending a large number of files at once in File Explorer to the recycle bin.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25300 Dev (Feb 16, 2023)

Introducing live captions in more languages:
Live captions helps everyone and people who are deaf or hard of hearing read live captions in their native language. The first release of live captions in the Windows 11 2022 Update provided captions in English, with a focus on English (United States). In this build, live captions gains the ability to also provide captions in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish and other English dialects. We will add more languages as they become available.
To get started, live captions can be turned on with the WIN + Ctrl + L keyboard shortcut, or from the quick settings accessibility flyout via Quick Settings. When turned on for the first time, live captions will prompt for download of the required speech recognition support to enable on-device captioning. If speech recognition support is not available in your preferred Windows language or you want support in other languages, you will be able to download speech recognition support for live captions under Settings > Time & Language > Language & region.
Changes and Improvements:
[Snap layouts]:
We are trying out different treatments for snap layouts with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. We are investigating ways to improve the discoverability and usage of the snap layouts such as decreasing the hover time required to invoke the flyout when you mouse over the maximum/restore button in an app’s title bar. In addition to a few other tweaks, you’ll notice some treatments will also pull in the icon of the app window you are working in and adding a descriptive title. If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think. As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.
[Voice typing]:
The change to sync voice typing settings, Automatic punctuation and Voice typing launcher, across all devices signed in using the same Microsoft account that began rolling out with Build 25227 is now available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. You can toggle this feature via Settings > Accounts > Windows backup > Remember my preferences > Accessibility This currently only works with Microsoft accounts today with AAD support coming later.
[Settings]:
Updated Settings > Apps > Startup to make it easier to access more information about the apps listed.
Right-clicking on a Win32 app in Start, or searching for the app, and choosing “Uninstall” will now take you to the Settings to uninstall the app.
[WSL]:
Improved the upgrade experience to the new Windows Subsystem for Linux Store app (mentioned in Build 25272), so it now prompts for installation if wsl.exe is invoked.
Fixes:
[General]:
We fixed the underlying issue related to combase.dll, causing crashes with multiple apps using GetKnownFolder APIs after upgrading to Build 25290, including Notepad and Windows Terminal for IME users. This issue is also believed to be the root cause of some Insiders finding that certain actions in File Explorer were taking minutes to complete in these builds.
We fixed the issue causing rendering issues and difficulty using Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).
Fixed an issue where some users experienced issues authenticating into enterprise websites that require windows integrated authentication.
[Taskbar & System Tray]:
The ability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray, first introduced with Build 25247, should return after updating to Build 25300 if it had disappeared for you after updating to Build 25295 last week.
Fixed an issue that was causing taskbar to be cut off after resolution changes.
We fixed an issue where when hovering over app icons on the taskbar could switch window focus unexpectedly.
[Widgets]:
As a result of fixing the issue causing third-party widgets to get unpinned when signed in with a Microsoft account across multiple Windows 11 devices, the most recent Widgets update in the Dev Channel will unpin third-party widgets. Insiders will need to go back to their widgets board and re-pin these widgets again. If you still see issues where widgets are being unpinned unexpectedly – please file feedback.
The link for “Find more widgets” in the widgets picker currently is no longer broke and will point to the Store collection here.
[Input]:
We are beginning to roll out a fix for an issue where the IME candidate window and IME toolbar weren’t shown or cropped sometimes.
[File Explorer]:
Drag and dropping files and folders across tabs should work again.
[Task Manager]:
Process names typed into the search box should no longer unexpectedly get spellchecked.
Fixed a couple of issues with how Narrator was reading out content in Task Manager.
Fixed an issue where the dropdowns in settings might not match your currently selected theme.
When using search on the App History page, results should no longer suddenly disappear.
If you open the Default Start Page dropdown in settings, clicking the Task Manager window should make the dropdown disappear now.
Dragging the window using the search box area should work now (like other areas of the title bar).
Fixed an issue where ending processes in the Details tab wasn’t showing a confirmation dialog.
Increasing the text scaling should no longer result in a “see more” button appearing with no contents.
If you do a search and then press the down arrow, keyboard focus should now move from the search box into the results.
If you have a contrast theme enabled and select one of the rows in the Processes page, that row should now show that it’s selected.
Fixed an issue where focus might not get set properly to search, leading to Narrator not saying that focus was on the search box.
[Other]:
Fixed an issue where Narrator’s focus wasn’t going back to the Quick Settings’ window correctly when using the back button in the Cast page.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25290 Dev (Feb 2, 2023)

What’s new:
New Widgets: Spotify and Phone Link:
Last week, we promoted a preview of the widget for the Messenger app. Spotify and Phone Link are now rolling out preview versions of their widgets as well. To give them a try, go to the widgets collection in the Microsoft Store and update to the latest version of the apps. Then open the widgets board and navigate to the widgets picker by clicking the “+” button at the top-right of the board to pin your widgets.
The Spotify and Phone Link widgets on the widgets board.
As you give these and other new widgets a try, please let us know what you think through the Widgets feedback link in the widgets picker. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and release widgets for their apps.
With the release of Windows App SDK 1.2 developers are now able to create widgets for their apps. Users can access these experiences on their Windows 11 widgets board in current Dev Channel Insider Preview builds. If you’re interested in developing a widget, watch our latest tutorial video
Changes and Improvements:
[Start menu:
Back in October with Build 25227, we started trying out a small change to the Start menu where some Insiders saw badging on their user profile notifying them that certain actions need to be taken. We concluded that initial exploration in November. Starting today, we are starting a new exploration of badging on the Start menu with two new treatments that some Insiders in the Dev Channel will see. If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think. As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.
Fixes:
[General:
We fixed the issue causing Arm64 devices to fail to resume from sleep/hibernate when running Build 25281 and getting stuck at the OS boot logo.
Fixed an issue where some Insiders may have issues accessing websites and other resources via VPN connections. If you used the workaround documented in this forum post, please reverse those changes once you have this new build installed.
Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to experience freezes when using the browser and certain other apps in recent Dev Channel builds.
[Taskbar & System Tray:
Fixed an explorer.exe crash which could cause the taskbar not to load for some Insiders.
[Search on the Taskbar:
The fixes only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments for how search looks on the taskbar that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25252:
Fixed an issue where the search box would randomly disappear sometimes when you clicked it (leaving a blank space on the taskbar).
Fixed an issue where the search box was shifting to the side slightly when you clicked it.
[Task Manager:
Fixed an issue where the data content area of the Processes page might flash once when theme changes were applied in the Task Manager Settings page.
Fixed an issue where some dialogs did not render in the correct theme when applied from Task Manager Settings page.
Fixed an issue where properties in the Memory section of the Performance page were getting truncated even though there was space to display them.
Reduced the transparency of graph colors in the Performance page, and adjusted the borders, to help make them stand out more.
Fixed a few issues causing Task Manager crashes.
Typing F in the search box should work again now.
You now shouldn’t have to make Task Manager be as wide before the navigation pane appears.
If text scaling has been increased, the search box shouldn’t overlap with the title bar text anymore.
Made some tweaks to address cases where text in dialogs was getting cut off when text scaling was increased.
Fixes an issue where certain parts of the title bar couldn’t be used to drag the window.
[Windows Spotlight:
The following fixes only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments of Windows Spotlight that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:
We fixed the issue causing some people to not get a consistent refresh of images on a daily basis.
[Settings:
Fixed an issue where the preview for Sans Serif Collection in Personalization > Fonts was displaying broken glyphs.
[Other:
Fixed an issue that was preventing Narrator from announcing dropdown lists in Excel.
Fixed an underlying issue which could cause Snipping Tool screenshots to become stretched out and distorted in the last few builds if you had multiple monitors.
Fixed an issue which could cause a bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION.
Fixed an issue which could make the Open With dialog crash on launch.
Fixed an issue where the Open File dialog would hang if you clicked it while using an IME after having selected “Choose an app on your PC” from the Open With dialog.
Fixed an issue which could cause Group Policy Editor to unexpectedly show “An error has occurred in the script on this page” with an invalid character error when editing a group policy.
If you have OpenSSH Server set to start at boot (instead of manual), that preference should be remembered across OS upgrades now. Please note, you need to be on a build with this fix before it will take effect with your next upgrade.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25284 Dev (Jan 26, 2023)

New Widget:
With the release of Windows App SDK 1.2 developers are now able to create widgets for their apps. Users can access these experiences on their Windows 11 widgets board in current Dev Channel Insider Preview builds.
Ready to try out a new widget? The Messenger app now has a preview version of its widget available. To give it a try, go to the Microsoft Store and update to the latest version of Messenger. Then open the widgets board and navigate to the widgets picker by clicking the “+” button at the top-right of the board to pin your widget.
The Messenger widget on the widgets board.
The Messenger widget on the widgets board.
As you give this widget a try, please let us know what you think through the Widgets feedback link in the widgets picker. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and release widgets for their apps.
Fixes
Taskbar & System Tray:
Fixed an issue where right clicking on certain icons in the hidden icons flyout would make the flyout dismiss rather than bringing up the context menu for that icon.
Search on the Taskbar:
The fixes only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments for how search looks on the taskbar that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25252:
Fixed an explorer.exe crash which was impacting some Insiders, related to the search box in the taskbar.
Input:
When search suggestions are triggered while using the Pinyin IME, keyboard focus will now stay on the current candidate. To move focus to the search suggestions, press Tab.
Windowing
Fixed an issue for PCs with touch, where when using certain apps in full screen mode it wasn’t possible to swipe down from the top of the screen to make the title bar appear.
Other:
Fixed an issue which was causing certain apps to hang or crash when saving files as PDF in the last few builds.
Fixed an issue where using the cast option in an app may unexpectedly not show any devices in recent builds.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25262 Dev (Dec 10, 2022)

December 2022 Bug Bash: Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels will have seen quests light up in the Feedback Hub covering various scenarios we’re looking for feedback on. Take the opportunity to try out some new features and let us know how things are going! The Bug Bash will be running from now through to 11:59pm PST December 12th. Insiders who participate (by filing feedback or completing quests on the latest builds for their channel) will receive a badge in the Feedback Hub once the Bug Bash is over.
This build has a change for Widgets and a good set of bug fixes for Insiders.
We’ve released an update to Media Player with a small improvement for video folders.
You can watch our latest Windows Insider Webcast featuring the search team on-demand here!
REMINDER: We’ve begun rolling out screen recording in Snipping Tool to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel – see this blog post for all the details.
Changes and Improvements:
Widgets:
In the most recent update for Widgets, we are removing the sign-in requirement for the widgets board and making it available for all users. Now, you can now get weather updates on the taskbar, pin widgets from your favorite apps or access personalized dynamic feed without an account.
The widgets board without being signed into an account.
The widgets board without being signed into an account.
Settings:
Added a link to Quick Assist at the bottom of Settings > System > Troubleshooters, to help if you’re having issues with your PC.
Fixes:
General:
Fixed an issue where if the Widgets app package was missing on your PC, explorer.exe would crash in a loop after upgrading to Build 25252. This issue is also believed to be the cause of Windows Sandbox not working in this build.
Fixed an issue that caused secondary drives or other PCI devices to not be viewable for certain Insiders.
Taskbar & System Tray:
Fixed an issue where, with the system tray design updates, auto-hiding the taskbar would stop working after you had interacted with the hidden icons flyout.
Fixed an issue that was causing a gap between full screen windows and the taskbar on secondary monitors.
The system tray area should no longer shift as the numbers change in the clock.
Fixed an issue causing the top half of the media controls in Quick Settings to be missing sometimes.
Search on the Taskbar:
We fixed the issue where you needed to press backspace after typing before you will see results for certain files ending with .cmd, .exe or .bat.
Improved the performance of launching the search window in certain cases.
The fixes only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments for how search looks on the taskbar that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25252:
Fixed an issue where the search box would not show up on multiple monitors as expected when clicking on either one.
Fixed an issue when clicking the search box on taskbar, the search box would momentarily flash before the Search flyout displayed.
Input:
Fixed an issue where when dragging a window to a monitor with lower DPI your mouse might appear to jump away from the window it was holding.
File Explorer:
Fixed an issue causing explorer.exe to crash when opening certain items from the Recent section in File Explorer.
Settings:
The Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings should no longer unexpectedly sometimes say network venue on certain entries.
Task Manager:
Fixed an issue where the graphs on the performance page in Task Manager might not update (even though the real time update speed setting wasn’t paused).
Other:
The Microsoft Account sign in window should no longer unexpectedly sometimes have a black title bar when using light mode.
Adjusted the text when using the Wireless Display feature if you haven’t enabled input yet, so it guides you to the correct place to do that.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25217 Dev (Oct 6, 2022)

New features:
Developers with packaged Win32 apps will be able to create and test 3rd party widgets locally if their machine is running in Developer Mode under Settings > Privacy & security > For developers. Developers will also need to be on the latest Insider Preview build from the Dev Channel to get the necessary update for the Widgets Board (version 521.20060.1205.0 or higher). For more information on widgets including pre-requisites please see Widget Design Docs and Widget Dev Docs.
Known limitations:
3rd party widgets can only be tested locally on the latest Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel for this preview release. Once WinAppSDK 1.2 GA is out, users on released versions of Windows 11 can begin acquiring 3rd party widgets via the Microsoft Store for shipped versions of their app.
Support for 3rd party PWA widgets will also be coming as part of a future Microsoft Edge release.
Cloud Suggestion in Simplified Chinese IME:
We are trying out some changes that will allow you to easily type fresh, hot, and popular words in Simplified Chinese. The changes include an improved cloud suggestion and integrated search suggestion. The cloud suggestion adds the most relevant word from Bing to the IME candidate window. We’ve updated the back-end logic so that we can provide better, fresh suggestions.
Changes and Improvements:
[Input]:
We began rolling out the new Tamil Anjal keyboard for the Tamil language with Build 25179 and starting today, it is now available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. To add it, make sure Tamil (Singapore), Tamil (Malaysia), Tamil (Sri Lanka), or Tamil (India) is listed under Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region, and then click the “…” next to the language, select Language Options, and add Tamil Anjal (QWERTY) to the list of keyboards.
We have disabled the new touch keyboard setting that first began rolling out to Windows Insiders in Build 25188 for now. We hope to bring this feature back in the future after further refinement of the design. As we’ve mentioned previously, features we try out in the Dev or Beta Channels may not always ship.
Fixes
[Tablet-optimized taskbar]:
NOTE: These fixes will only show if tablet-optimized taskbar (documented here) is enabled on your device. Tablet-optimized taskbar is still rolling out to Windows Insiders and not yet available for everyone.
We fixed the issue causing the taskbar to sometimes collapse when it should be expanded if there are no running windows on the desktop.
We fixed an issue that would occur when using the left or right edge gestures resulting in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
Fixed an issue that was causing the tablet-optimized taskbar to crash explorer.exe while switching apps.
Fixed an issue that was causing the tablet-optimized taskbar to crash explorer.exe if you entered the overflow flyout.
[Windowing]:
Fixed an issue where the close button for window preview thumbnails in Task View was drawing slightly outside the bounds of the thumbnail.
Fixed an issue where when switching between windows in recent builds you might see the entire window flash black for a frame while rendering.
Fixed an issue causing Miracast video quality to be very slow and stuttering in recent flights despite having a solid internet connection.
[System Tray Updates]:
These fixes will only show if System Tray Updates (documented here) is enabled on your device. Tablet-optimized taskbar is still rolling out to Windows Insiders and not yet available for everyone.
Fixed an issue so that Quick Settings items can now be rearranged with touch again.
[Settings]:
Fixed an issue under Network and Internet > Advanced Network Settings, where certain networks were displaying the wrong link speed.
[Other]:
Fixed an issue where remote desktop on ARM64 PCs was unexpectedly not using UDP and only TCP.
Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.
Known issues
[General]:
We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
We’re investigating reports that various UI elements in apps appear to be disappearing and reappearing sometimes in recent builds.
[Tablet-optimized taskbar]:
The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
[Widgets]:
In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 Dev (Oct 4, 2022)

[Taskbar]:
Based on your feedback, we’ve added Task Manager to the context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar. Let us know what you think!
Context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar shows link to Task Manager.
Context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar shows Task Manager.
[System Tray]:
This build includes preliminary support to rearrange System Tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with Build 25197. Further improvements for this experience are coming soon. As a reminder, these System Tray updates are still rolling out and are not available to all Insiders just yet. If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before.
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue where the top part of File Explorer (with the search and address box) couldn’t be interacted with when File Explorer was in full screen mode (F11).
[Settings]:
For the time being, you will no longer be able to uninstall apps with interdependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam) or repair Win32 apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps. You will still be able to modify and uninstall Win32 apps without interdependencies.
Fixes:
[General]:
We are beginning to roll out a server-side fix for the issue causing a “date, time and time zone settings are incorrect” message to be improperly displayed, which was also preventing the installation of the latest Insider Preview builds from proceeding.
[File Explorer]:
Fixed the issue where the command bar items like copy, paste, and empty Recycle Bin were unexpectedly not be enabled sometimes when they have been.
Fixed an issue which was causing unexpected black bars on the sides of horizontal scroll bars when using dark mode.
[Start]:
When you have Start set to show more pinned items, the animation for opening folders lower on the page will now appear from the right place.
[Taskbar]:
Fixed a high hitting Shell Experience Host crash in recent Dev Channel builds, impacting Quick Settings launch reliability.
[Input]:
The gripper for moving the emoji panel and touch keyboard should now update color correctly when you switch between dark and light mode.
Fixed a memory leak when repeatedly invoking the input switcher.
[Settings]:
Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when changing your mobile hotspot name.
Updated the examples used in the Short time selection under Time & Language > Language & Region > Regional Format, to make the 12 hour options (vs 24 hour) a little more obvious by showing morning and afternoon times.
[Task Manager]:
Tweaked the graphs in the Performance page to use a bit more transparency so it’s easier to see the grid lines underneath.
Made another fix to improve Task Manager reliability.
Fixed a black flash while might be seen when launching Task Manager in light mode.
Fixed a few issues where the font color of certain elements wasn’t correct / readable when using a contrast theme.
[Other]:
Fixed an issue where Narrator would read out the details of the calendar that opens from selecting the date and time from the taskbar when it was collapsed.
Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing repeatedly in Windows Sandbox for Insiders with the tablet optimized taskbar and updated system tray.
Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when opening the Open File Dialog.
Fixed an issue which was making the screen go black for some Insiders when enabling HDR recently.
Fixed an issue where after using the Open With dialog, the process might stay running even if it wasn’t in use anymore.
Fixed an issue which was leading to increased CPU usage for WSL2 users on ARM64 PCs even when WSL was idle.
Fixed an issue where closing the print dialog could lead to an app crash in the last couple flights.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 Dev (Sep 30, 2022)

[Taskbar]:
Based on your feedback, we’ve added Task Manager to the context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar. Let us know what you think!
Context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar shows link to Task Manager.
Context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar shows Task Manager.
[System Tray]:
This build includes preliminary support to rearrange System Tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with Build 25197. Further improvements for this experience are coming soon. As a reminder, these System Tray updates are still rolling out and are not available to all Insiders just yet. If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before.
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue where the top part of File Explorer (with the search and address box) couldn’t be interacted with when File Explorer was in full screen mode (F11).
[Settings]:
For the time being, you will no longer be able to uninstall apps with interdependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam) or repair Win32 apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps. You will still be able to modify and uninstall Win32 apps without interdependencies.
Fixes:
[General]:
We are beginning to roll out a server-side fix for the issue causing a “date, time and time zone settings are incorrect” message to be improperly displayed, which was also preventing the installation of the latest Insider Preview builds from proceeding.
[File Explorer]:
Fixed the issue where the command bar items like copy, paste, and empty Recycle Bin were unexpectedly not be enabled sometimes when they have been.
Fixed an issue which was causing unexpected black bars on the sides of horizontal scroll bars when using dark mode.
[Start]:
When you have Start set to show more pinned items, the animation for opening folders lower on the page will now appear from the right place.
[Taskbar]:
Fixed a high hitting Shell Experience Host crash in recent Dev Channel builds, impacting Quick Settings launch reliability.
[Input]:
The gripper for moving the emoji panel and touch keyboard should now update color correctly when you switch between dark and light mode.
Fixed a memory leak when repeatedly invoking the input switcher.
[Settings]:
Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when changing your mobile hotspot name.
Updated the examples used in the Short time selection under Time & Language > Language & Region > Regional Format, to make the 12 hour options (vs 24 hour) a little more obvious by showing morning and afternoon times.
[Task Manager]:
Tweaked the graphs in the Performance page to use a bit more transparency so it’s easier to see the grid lines underneath.
Made another fix to improve Task Manager reliability.
Fixed a black flash while might be seen when launching Task Manager in light mode.
Fixed a few issues where the font color of certain elements wasn’t correct / readable when using a contrast theme.
[Other]:
Fixed an issue where Narrator would read out the details of the calendar that opens from selecting the date and time from the taskbar when it was collapsed.
Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing repeatedly in Windows Sandbox for Insiders with the tablet optimized taskbar and updated system tray.
Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when opening the Open File Dialog.
Fixed an issue which was making the screen go black for some Insiders when enabling HDR recently.
Fixed an issue where after using the Open With dialog, the process might stay running even if it wasn’t in use anymore.
Fixed an issue which was leading to increased CPU usage for WSL2 users on ARM64 PCs even when WSL was idle.
Fixed an issue where closing the print dialog could lead to an app crash in the last couple flights.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.
Known issues:
[General]:
We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
[NEW] We’re investigating reports that various UI elements in apps appear to be disappearing and reappearing sometimes in recent builds.
[Tablet-optimized taskbar]:
The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.
[Widgets]:
In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25206 Dev (Sep 21, 2022)

SMB authentication rate limiter behavior changes:
The SMB authentication rate limiter in Insider Preview builds has added an additional protection mechanism to the SMB server service: it implements a delay between each failed NTLM authentication. This means if an attacker previously sent 300 brute force attempts per second from a client for 5 minutes (90,000 passwords), the same number of attempts would now take at least 50 hours. The goal here is to make a Windows client an unattractive target either when in a workgroup or for its local accounts when joined to a domain. Even though the SMB server runs by default in all versions of Windows, it’s not accessible by default unless you intentionally open the firewall or create a customer SMB share that opens the firewall.
Starting in Build 25206, it is on by default and set to 2000ms (2 seconds). Any bad usernames or passwords sent to SMB will now cause a 2 second delay by default in all editions of Windows Insiders. When first released to Windows Insiders, this protection mechanism was off by default. This behavior change was not made to Windows Server Insiders, it still defaults to 0.
Changes and Improvements:
[General]:
The updated “Open with” dialog box is now available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.
[Graphics]:
Windows Insiders can now save power by using Dynamic Refresh Rate (DRR) on external displays! To enable this setting, you must have a 120+Hz monitor with VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support, as well as a WDDM 3.1 driver installed. To select a dynamic refresh rate, go to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display and make your selection under Refresh rate.
Note: To get the latest GPU drivers available for Windows Insiders, check for Windows updates by going to Settings > Windows Update, then select “Check for updates”. To find out what WDDM driver you have, go to Start > dxdiag > Display and look at the Driver Model under Drivers.
[File Explorer]:
Search from File Explorer Home will show recent file activity for cloud files in Details View.
[Input]:
We’re beginning to roll out a change to suppose the use of clipboard history (WIN + V) on password fields. We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet.
Fixes:
[General]:
OneDrive setup should no longer unexpectedly ask for permission to set up every time your PC reboots.
Fixed a high hitting explorer.exe which was impacting some Insiders.
[Settings]:
Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when searching and selecting certain Narrator related settings.
[Search]:
Fixed a high hitting search crash which was impacting some Insiders in the last few flights.
[Other]:
The Windows Sandbox window should now resize correctly if you snap it to the side of the screen.
Fixed an issue which could lead to a memory leak in Windows Error Reporting after certain crashes.
If focus is on the desktop, then pressing ALT + F4 and Enter should now shutdown your PC, rather than having to move keyboard focus first (as was needed in the last few flights).
The computer icon is now showing again in the Shut Down Windows dialog.
NOTE:
Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25197 Dev (Sep 8, 2022)

What’s new:
Tablet-optimized taskbar
We’re re-introducing the touch-optimized taskbar that’s designed to make you feel more confident and comfortable using your device as a tablet. Your taskbar will automatically transition to this optimized version when you disconnect or fold back the keyboard on your 2-in-1 device. This feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets. It does not work on laptops or desktop PCs.
As a reminder, there are two states of this taskbar: collapsed and expanded. In the collapsed state, the taskbar gets out your way, gives you more screen space, and prevents you from accidentally invoking the taskbar when you’re holding your tablet. In the expanded state, the taskbar is optimized to be easier to use with touch. You can easily switch between the two states by swiping up and down on the bottom of your device.
Tablet-optimized taskbar in both collapsed and expanded states.
Tablet-optimized taskbar in both collapsed and expanded states.
If this feature is available, you will see a new setting at Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors called “Optimize taskbar for touch interactions when this device is used as a tablet” that will be set to on by default.
[We are beginning to roll this feature out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Taskbar.
System Tray Updates
This update introduces updates to the System Tray that affect all device types — not just 2-in-1 devices. With this change, users will see a rounded focus and hover treatment on all icons in the lower right, due to the continued modernization of this experience.
You may also notice that it is not possible to drag and drop or rearrange your system tray icons with this change. We heard your feedback on this change earlier this year and are working to address this in a future Insider Preview build.
[We are beginning to roll this feature out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > System Tray.
Changes and Improvements
[Settings]
We are beginning to roll out animated icons and illustrations in the Settings app. With the animated icons in the navigation bar, we continue growing our motion design principles to transform these familiar interactions from something purely functional to something that is also delightful.
Delightful new animated icons in the navigation bar of the Settings app.
Delightful new animated icons in the navigation bar of the Settings app.
[Input]
We are making the small tweak that began rolling out with Build 25179 to improve the key repeat rate for the traditional touch keyboard layout, as well as the default touch keyboard layout, so it feels more responsive available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Now it has the rate of 20 keys per second (for example, when holding down the delete key).
Fixes:
[System Tray Updates]
NOTE: These fixes will only show if tablet-optimized taskbar with System Tray updates is enabled on your device. Please see above for details on the tablet-optimized taskbar and System Tray updates, which is beginning to roll out to Windows Insiders and not yet available for everyone.
The taskbar should no longer flash because of changes in the system tray in non-tablet-optimized scenarios.
Fixed an issue that was causing parts of the taskbar or its icons like search to get stuck in the wrong theme’s colors when switching between light and dark themes.
Date and time should no longer get stuck cutting off on the side of the screen from system tray changes.
[Start]:
Fixed a crash that users were seeing when using Start’s recommended section.
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue leading to a small set of Insiders with “launch folder windows in a separate process” not being able to launch File Explorer in the last two flights due to an explorer.exe crash.
Did some work to help improve the performance of deleting files via File Explorer (when emptying the recycle bin or using Shift + Delete) in the case where there are a large number of files being deleted at once.
[Input]:
Fixed an issue causing ctfmon.exe crashes for some Insiders in recent flights when words were added to your spelling dictionary.
Dragging the voice typing window to another monitor which has a different scaling than the originating monitor should work now instead of bouncing back.
Fixed a sporadic crash in recent builds when using the input switcher.
Fixed an issue which could lead to voice typing and other input features hanging on initialization.
Fixed an issue with displaying certain Sinhala words, where they were unexpectedly overlapping.
[Settings]:
Updated the design of the lists displayed Apps > Startup Apps and Apps > Advanced App Settings > App Execution Alias pages to be more consistent with other Settings pages.
Fixed an issue which could lead to Settings crashing when removing devices.
Updated the Personal Dictionary section under Privacy & Security > Inking & Typing Personalization to now say “Custom word list”.
[Widgets]:
Fixed an issue which was making the weather icon in the taskbar draw too high and with no text in recent flights.
[Windowing]:
Clicking the title bar portion of a preview thumbnail in Task View should now actually switch to that app, instead of just closing Task View.
Fixed a sporadic explorer.exe crash which could happen when using ALT + Tab or Task View.
[Task Manager]:
Fixed an issue impacting Task Manager reliability.
If graphs have been hidden on the Performance page, the circles used to identify each of the different sections should be less blurry now.
[Other]:
Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when attempting to print if an IPP printer took too long to respond to the print request.
Fixed an issue where EnumPrinters wasn’t always returning the correct size for pcbNeeded, which could lead to hangs in certain programs.
Fixed a typo in the dialog displayed when Smart App Control blocked an app.
Fixed an issue where certain characters were missing in the boot environment when using the Chinese (Simplified) or Korean display languages, leading to square boxes in the text.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25193 Dev (Sep 1, 2022)

What’s new:
Introducing Xbox subscription management in Settings:
With this build, we are introducing a new Xbox subscription management experience within Windows 11 Settings app. If you are a member of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass for Console or Xbox Live Gold, you will now be able to see your subscription details via Settings > Accounts.
Like the Microsoft 365 subscription management experience, you will be able to view your billing recurrence, payment method and the games and benefits associated with your Xbox subscription.
In addition, you will also be able to manage and upgrade your subscription, redeem gift card tokens and be up to date on any actions required to continue your subscriptions without any disruptions.
Xbox subscription management in Settings.
If you don’t own any Xbox subscriptions, you can learn more about the games and benefits associated with Xbox subscriptions, by clicking the Learn more link on the card.
[We are beginning to roll this feature out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Settings > User Profile Account Settings.
Support for new Braille displays in Narrator:
We are excited to announce support for new Braille displays and new Braille input and output languages in Narrator. Some of the new braille displays we support include: the APH Chameleon, the APH Mantis Q40, the NLS eReader and many more. Refer to the detailed documentation to learn more about the new displays and languages that we support.
General:
As a result of feedback from Windows Insiders, we have disabled the ability to share a local file directly to OneDrive using the built-in Windows share window that first began rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel with Build 25163. We hope to bring this feature back in the future after further refinement of the experience. As we’ve mentioned previously, features we try out in the Dev or Beta Channels may not always ship.
Fixes:
General:
Fixed an issue causing enabling .NET Framework 3.5 from the Windows Features dialog to not work in the previous build.
Taskbar:
Made a fix so the taskbar overflow will now use the same accent color as your taskbar.
Fixed a couple of issues which were leading to sporadic explorer.exe crashes related to the taskbar overflow.
Fixed an issue related to the widgets entry in the taskbar which was causing the taskbar icons to appear to drift around sometimes in the previous flight.
Fixed an issue for Insiders with at least two monitors, where if the monitors had different DPI, the taskbar overflow could appear before it was needed or end up overlapped with the date and time on the secondary monitor.
Fixed an issue where the taskbar overflow flyout might appear floating away from the taskbar if you opened it after a display scaling change.
Start:
Fixed an issue that was causing unexpected characters to show instead of an apostrophe in the tooltip for the Sleep option in the Power menu.
Fixed an issue which could lead to Start menu crashing on launch for some people when Search Highlights was enabled.
File Explorer:
If the taskbar is set to auto-hide and File Explorer is maximized, hovering your mouse on the bottom of the screen to invoke the taskbar should work now.
Fixed an issue when dragging and dropping a folder to pin it to the navigation pane, that the line indicating where it would be inserted didn’t have enough contrast in dark mode.
We fixed an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode (for example dark in light mode).
Fixed an issue where File Explorer would appear to open, close, and re-open before it finished drawing after being launched from certain places (for example when opening the location of a downloaded file from Microsoft Edge).
Fixed an issue where certain files couldn’t be unpinned from the Favorites section of Home after you’d pinned them.
Made another fix to help address UI issues when switching between dark and light mode if the File Explorer window was open when you switch.
Fixed a GDI objects leak when resizing the navigation pane in File Explorer, which could potentially lead to content in File Explorer not rendering correctly over time for Insiders who resized the navigation pane frequently.
Made some improvements to help the performance of loading Home when using a cloud storage provider, like OneDrive, to back up your files in File Explorer.
Settings:
Fixed an issue causing the Storage page in Settings as well as Disk Cleanup to crash in the scan phase for some people.
Fixed an issue where URIs to open pages under the Accounts section of Settings weren’t working for some people – Settings would open, but not navigate to the correct page. This impacted the link to open Sign-in Options in the Start menu.
Fixed an issue leading to app icons not displaying correctly under Privacy & Security > Voice activation.
Fixed a Settings crash when uninstalling apps using Apps > Installed apps.
Other]
Fixed an issue which could sometimes cause a ShellExperienceHost.exe crash when you stopped casting to another display or switched to duplicate your display.
Added a warning to findstr if Unicode input is detected, to make it more clear if that’s why results aren’t returned for certain files.
Fixed an issue in recent flights causing lines to not be included when printing tables from certain apps.
Fixed an issue in recent flights which could lead to hangs in certain apps.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25179 Dev (Aug 11, 2022)

Changes and Improvements:
General:
The spelling dictionary will now use a language-neutral word list and we are trying out syncing this across all devices that use the same Windows account. Users can toggle this feature via Settings > Accounts > Windows backup > Remember my preferences > Language preferences. This currently only works with Microsoft accounts today with AAD support coming later.
File Explorer:
File Explorer tabs and navigation updates (which began rolling out to the Dev Channel with Build 25136) are now rolling out to everyone in the Dev Channel. If you don’t see these features right away, please try rebooting. If that doesn’t work, please file feedback in Feedback Hub.
We’re trying out different experiences in File Explorer to show search results.
Input:
We’re adding the Tamil Anjal keyboard for the Tamil language. It’s a popular keyboard for inputting Tamil characters, so if you speak this language, please try it out! This keyboard is currently rolling out to a subset of Insiders while we evaluate the quality. To add it (once it’s available to you), make sure Tamil (India) is listed under Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region, and then click the “…” next to the language, select Language Options, and add it to the list of keyboards.
We are rolling out a small tweak to improve the key repeat rate for the traditional touch keyboard layout, as well as the default touch keyboard layout, so it feels more responsive. Now it has the rate of 20 keys per second (for example, when holding down the delete key).
Other:
Updated the default duration captured by powercfg -sleepstudy from 3 to 7 days.
Fixes:
General:
Fixed an issue causing hangs and crashes in apps (like Excel) when attempting to print in the last couple flights.
Fixed a few issues impacting explorer.exe reliability.
File Explorer:
The Mount option when right clicking things like ISO files should now show an icon in the context menu.
Fixed an issue where the min / max / close button might not be visible in File Explorer when using a contrast theme.
Widgets:
We have fixed the issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.
Taskbar:
Fixed an issue which could lead to the taskbar overflow flyout unexpectedly appearing on the opposite side of the screen.
Input:
Fixed a sporadic crash impacting reliability of the input switcher.
Fixed an issue where when Suggested Actions was enabled, if you copied multiple items in a row to your clipboard history, some of the items might not display after you pressed WIN + V.
Settings:
Fixed an issue which was causing Settings to crash on launch sometimes.
Improved alignment of the “Scan for phone” button displayed on Accounts > Sign-In Options under Dynamic Lock when your phone failed to connect.
Your preferred state for the Suggested Actions setting under System > Clipboard should persist upgrade going forward from this build.
Windowing:
Fixed an issue where when resizing certain app windows near the edge of the screen when using mixed DPI monitors might unexpectedly cause the window to jump and shrink.
Other:
We made a change so that the media controls in Quick Settings will more reliably not load old media you’re no longer using.
Fixed an issue causing one of the characters in the bugcheck text to not display correctly (as a box) when the display language was set to Chinese.
Fixed an issue causing app install failures with error 0x80080204 in the last few flights.
Improved date / time recognition for existing supported locales when using Suggested Actions.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25174 Dev (Aug 4, 2022)

Introducing the new Game Pass Widget:
PC Game Pass and Windows are a fantastic combination for gaming; with PC Game Pass, you have access to hundreds of high-quality games for your PC. For the past couple of months, we’ve been working with our friends on the Xbox team to make Windows and PC Game Pass an even better combination; today we’re announcing something new for gaming and our widgets experience: the Game Pass widget preview.
This widget is a window to the extensive PC Game Pass library – it will show the latest additions, games leaving soon, and others from highlighted categories and then take you to the Xbox app where you can install them, see reviews, and go all in.
We’re still hard at work on some exciting functionality coming soon that will let you sign-into your Xbox profile and easily jump back into recently played games as well as see personalized recommendations of games we believe you’ll love.
The Game Pass widget preview is available in the widgets board alongside other widgets that bring weather, sports, and other great content closer to you. The widgets board is shown by clicking the left corner of your taskbar or by pressing Win + W. To pin the Game Pass widget, select the ‘+’ button in the top right corner of the widgets board.
Here is how to get started:
Open the widgets board.
Click on the + icon net to your user profile.
Click on the + icon besides the Game Pass
Close the Widget settings window.
The Game Pass widget should now appear in your widgets board.
We are looking forward to getting feedback on the Game Pass widget from Windows Insiders who are PC gamers. Tell us what you’d love to see in the widget, or if you see anything that is strange or unepected on the widget itself or on the widgets eperience.
[We are beginning to roll this out, so the eperience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
Changes and Improvements:
File Eplorer:
Middle clicking a folder in the navigation pane of File Eplorer will now open it in a new tab, like clicking a folder in the body of File Eplorer already does. Please note that this requires tabbed File Eplorer, which hasn’t rolled out to everyone in the Dev Channel yet.
Fies:
File Eplorer:
Fied an issue which could cause eplorer.ee to crash when opening new File Eplorer windows.
Fied an issue where launching File Eplorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for eample, from the command line) was showing the body of File Eplorer unepectedly in light mode.
Fied an issue where the left/right arrows in File Eplorer were in light mode when you were using dark mode, causing them to not have enough contrast to show when they were enabled.
Fied an issue where the dividers in the navigation pane were overlapping / drawing too close to tet sometimes.
Fied an issue where if you drag and drop a folder into the navigation pane was sometimes unepectedly putting the folder at the bottom of the list rather than where you’d dropped it.
Fied an issue causing UI issues in File Eplorer when using F11 to put File Eplorer in full screen mode.
Taskbar:
Fied an issue leading to various system tray elements being unepectedly missing for some Insiders on the previous build.
Settings:
Fied a crash on some PCs were eperiencing when going to System > Storage > Disks & Volumes.
Other:
Fied an issue which was leading to mouse and keyboard input not working correctly in certain games in the last 2 flights.
Fied an issue believed to be leading to SQL Server Management Studio failing to launch for some Insiders.
Fied an issue where Memory Integrity in Windows Security might show a warning saying it couldn’t be enabled due to incompatible drivers, but the incompatible drivers list would be blank.
Fied an issue which was causing some apps to unepectedly not launch in the last few flights when core isolation was enabled in Windows Security.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25169 Dev (Jul 28, 2022)

What’s new:
Multi-App Kiosk Mode:
Multi-app kiosk mode is a lockdown feature for Windows 11 that allows an IT administrator to select a set of allowable apps to run on the device, while all other functionalities are blocked. This enables you to create multiple different apps and access configurations for different user types, all on a single device.
Some lockdown customizations include:
Limiting access to Settings, except selected pages (e.g., Wi-Fi and screen brightness)
Lock down the Start menu to show only allowed apps.
Block toasts and pop-ups that lead to unwanted UI.
Changes and Improvements:
[General]:
The changes noted here in this previous blog post on changes to how IT admins enroll devices in the Windows diagnostic data processor configuration option are now included in this build (Build 25169 and higher). A reminder that if the documented changes are not acceptable, it is recommended to pause flighting.
[Windows Spotlight]:
You can now enable Windows Spotlight on the desktop via a brand-new Windows Spotlight theme now included in the latest builds in the Dev Channel under Settings > Personalization and Settings > Personalization > Themes. Additionally, you can make your own custom themes with Windows Spotlight’s rotating images as well.
The brand-new Windows Spotlight theme.
The brand-new Windows Spotlight theme.
[Input]:
We have updated the U.S. English (EN-US) handwriting model to be faster and more accurate. Use the updated Handwriting Panel for ink-to-text and let us know what you think.
[Settings]:
Settings now supports managing apps which were earlier only supported from Control Panel. This includes uninstallation of apps which have inter-dependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam), repair and modifying of Win32 apps.
[Windows Security]:
The Windows Security app version is now displayed in Windows Security settings under About.
Fixes:
[File Explorer]:
Fixed an issue leading to the Azure Information Protection context menu entry unexpectedly showing with the name Microsoft.Azip.RightClick after an upgrade.
[Taskbar]:
Fixed an explorer.exe crash that was preventing taskbar from loading when launching Microsoft Teams meetings sometimes.
Fixed a couple explorer.exe crashes some Insiders were experiencing related to taskbar overflow.
[Start]:
Fixed an issue that was removing the “More” button in Start’s Recommended section.
[Settings]:
Fixed an issue where after using the reveal password button in the Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings, the text field might unexpectedly lose focus.
[Input]:
We made a small tweak to improve the key repeat rate for the traditional touch keyboard layout, as well as the default touch keyboard layout, so it feels more responsive. Now it has the rate of 20 keys per second (for example, when holding down the delete key).
[Other]:
Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of some Insiders experiencing bug checks when opening and copying files from network locations recently.
Fixed an issue which could cause desynced audio when recording game play with the Xbox Game Bar.
Fixed an issue leading to error code 0x80004005 when using the network troubleshooter.
Made some adjustments to fix an issue where the scrollbar in certain places (like File Explorer) was unexpectedly wide when using high DPI scaling.
Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of Windows Security saying standard hardware security wasn’t supported on devices where it was actually supported, as well as showing a warning in the taskbar but not showing any issues when Windows Security was launched. Please note, due to timing of the payload, these issues may come back after the next Windows Security update. It will go away again after a future Windows Security update.
Known issues:
[General]:
We’re investigating reports that SQL Server Management Studio is failing to launch for some Insiders.
Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
[File Explorer]:
The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
We’re working on a fix to address reports that launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) is showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
[Widgets]:
Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25163 Dev (Jul 21, 2022)

Taskbar Overflow:
We’re reintroducing taskbar overflow, with a newly designed experience for Windows 11. This taskbar experience has been thoughtfully crafted to offer you a more productive switching and launching experience when space is constrained. Your taskbar will automatically transition into this new overflow state when it has hit its maximum capacity. In this state, taskbar will offer an entry point to an overflow menu that allows you to view all your overflowed apps in one space.
Taskbar will offer an entry point to an overflow menu that allows you to view all your overflowed apps in one space.
The overflow menu will contain many of the current taskbar behaviors users are familiar with, such as supporting pinned apps, jump list, and extended UI. After invoking overflow, the menu will quietly dismiss once you click outside of it or navigate to an application.
Improved nearby sharing:
The discovery of devices under nearby share when sharing a local file from the desktop, File Explorer, Photos, Snipping Tool, Xbox, and other apps that use the built-in Windows share window has been enhanced by using UDP (Network needs to be set to private) along with Bluetooth to discover nearby devices. You will now be able to discover and share to more devices including desktop PCs.
You can now discover and share to more devices with nearby sharing via the built-in Windows share window.
Share local files to OneDrive:
When sharing a local file from the desktop, File Explorer, Photos, Snipping Tool, Xbox, and other apps that use the built-in Windows share window, you can choose OneDrive as a target to directly upload the file to OneDrive and share it further along with access control options. All this can be done right from sharing local files in File Explorer without any context switches or opening the OneDrive app.
You can choose OneDrive as a target to directly upload the file to OneDrive via the built-in Windows share window.
Fixes:
File Explorer:
Fixed an explorer.exe crash when dragging tabs around.
Did some work to fix a memory leak when using tabs with File Explorer.
Fixed an issue where the preview thumbnail for File Explorer in the taskbar, ALT + Tab, and Task View might show the title of an adjacent tab and not the currently selected one.
If “Show all folders” is enabled, the dividers in File Explorer’s navigation pane should no longer show. With this change, it should also address the issues where dividers were unexpectedly showing in some other folder pickers.
Fixed an issue where Narrator wasn’t reading out the titles of tabs as focus moved through them.
Fixed an issue where a closed tab might appear again in File Explorer after you dragged File Explorer across your monitors.
Fixed an issue where the tab row might unexpectedly expand vertically, covering the command bar contents.
Removable drives should no longer unexpectedly be displayed in a section by themselves in the navigation pane, which was breaking up the section with This PC and Network.
Fixed an issue where the add new tab button wasn’t clearly visible when using Aquatic or Desert contrast themes.
The add new tab button shouldn’t overlap with the minimize button in the title bar when using text scaling with a lot of tabs open anymore.
Taskbar:
Fixed a rare explorer.exe crash that could happen while on a Microsoft Teams call, related to sharing windows from the taskbar.
Settings:
Made a change to help fix an issue where using Windows Spotlight on the desktop might revert to a solid color background.
Improved the padding around the uninstall button when using Apps > Installed Apps in grid view.
Fixed a couple issues that could lead to Quick Settings crashing on launch.
Input:
Fixed an issue which was leading to certain apps freezing after a copy action if Suggested Actions was enabled.
Other:
Fixed a high hitting crash impacting suggested actions reliability.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158 Dev (Jul 15, 2022)

Notification badging for Widgets:
We’re beginning to roll out even more dynamic Widgets content to your taskbar with notification badging for Widgets. Below is an example of a notification badge for Widgets.
When you open the Widgets board a banner will appear at the top of the board providing more information on what triggered the notification badge.
Changes and Improvements:
General:
Thank you to all the Insiders who gave us feedback on our first exploration of lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop! Starting with this week’s flight, we are concluding this initial exploration, so if you received this experience, it will be removed on your next reboot.
As described in our in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts. Starting with this build, some devices will receive different visual treatments for search on the taskbar. We are excited to learn from your feedback on this, so please use the Feedback Hub to provide feedback if you receive this experiment. NOTE: A reboot is required after updating to this build to trigger this experience but please note that not all Windows Insiders will have this experience enabled even after reboot.
DNS over TLS:
DNS over TLS testing is now available for Windows DNS client query protection. DoT is another protocol in addition to DNS over HTTPS (DoH) which is already supported in Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. For setup instructions, see this Windows Networking blog post. The setup requires command line use and is recommended for advanced networking users.
Input:
The Nyala font has been updated to support syllables for the Gurage language orthography from the Ethiopic Extended-B Unicode range. Also revised and replaced Ethiopic kerning to fix gaps and errors in earlier implementation improving the overall texture of text in Ethiopic languages.
Fixes:
General:
Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to experience bugchecks with error message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in NetAdapterCx.sys in recent flights.
Fixed an issue which was leading some PCs hanging at black screen when resuming from a low power state in recent flights.
Fixed an issue believed to generally be impacting performance across Windows shell experiences in the last few flights.
Fixed an issue where the Mica material and Acrylic blur effect was rendering incorrectly in OS surfaces like the Start menu, Notification Center and other areas sometimes in recent flights.
File Explorer:
Fixed an issue where closing command bar flyouts could in some rare cases crash explorer.exe.
Fixed an issue which could lead to explorer.exe crashing when navigating through File Explorer with OneDrive enabled.
CTRL + F4 should work to close the current tab now. We updated the tooltip when hovering over a tab to suggest using CTRL + W to close the tab (rather than CTRL + F4, which didn’t work).
Opening a zipped folder in a new tab should no longer have a blank tab name.
If focus is on the tab row, CTRL + W will no longer unexpectedly close two tabs instead of just the tab in focus.
Fixed an issue where CTRL + Tab wouldn’t cycle in the correct order after rearranging tabs.
We made some adjustments so when using “Show full path in title”, the folder name is always visible in the tab at the top of File Explorer.
Taskbar:
Fixed an underlying issue which could lead to pinned app icons getting stuck on the taskbar after uninstalling the app in recent flights.
Fixed a high hitting explorer.exe crash in the last few flights related to loading Widgets.
Start:
Start shouldn’t crash anymore when using CTRL + Shift + Right Arrow to move a pinned app into a folder that’s the last item in Start.
Fixed a crash some Insiders were experiencing when opening Start.
Narrator will now read the prompt that opens when trying to uninstall an app from Start correctly.
Search:
Fixed an issue when using IRowsetPriorititization where setting the scope priority for a query rowset did not properly alter the indexing speed of the rowset, resulting in slower indexing overall.
Searching for “power mode” should now return an entry for power modes in Settings.
Settings:
Updated the “System” entry under Network & Internet > Advanced network settings > Data Usage, to now be called “System and Windows Update” to help make it more clear.
Made another fix to address an issue where the “Listen to this device” option for audio devices would stop working after a reboot.
Fixed a crash some Insiders were seeing when navigating Bluetooth & Devices > Printers & Scanners.
Fixed an issue where the “Allow Bluetooth devices to find this PC” checkbox under Bluetooth & Devices > Devices > More Bluetooth Settings wouldn’t display the correct state sometimes.
Fixed an issue which was causing Quick Settings to crash for ARM64 PCs when attempting to use the Cast section to cast to certain devices.
Fixed an issue that could cause the eye icon beside the Wi-Fi password box in Quick Settings to disappear after its first use.
Input:
Fixed a crash in textinputhost.exe initialization which was happening in some cases in recent flights.
Fixed an issue where the “Sync across your devices” option under Settings > System > Clipboard wouldn’t stay enabled.
Updated the Times New Roman font family so it includes U+061D / ARABIC END OF TEXT MARK.
Windowing:
We made some improvements to help with the performance of opening Task View.
Narrator:
Made a fix so the two-finger triple tap touch gesture to dismiss context menus with Narrator is working correctly again.
Task Manager:
Fixed an issue where some services were being unexpectedly grouped under Microsoft Edge when they weren’t actually child processes.
Other:
Fixed an issue which would lead to losing network connectivity after turning on mobile hotspot.
Addressed an issue that could result in the mobile hotspot button getting unexpectedly stuck in a greyed out state in certain cases.
Fixed an underlying issue which was leading to Your Phone crashes in certain cases.
Fixed an underlying issue where Microsoft Defender Application Guard windows weren’t visible in the last few flights.
Fixed a crash that could happen when using suggested actions.
Fixed an underlying issue when recording game clips using the Xbox Game Bar, which could lead to the resulting saved video not displaying correctly when viewed later on an iOS device.
Made some improvements to help address an issue resulting in apps in the Microsoft Store failing to download with error 0x80080204.
Addressed an underlying issue leading to Microsoft Store app remediation failures with error 0x803FB004.
Did some work to address an issue where the print dialog wasn’t launching centered in the application (for example, in Notepad).

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25151 Dev (Jul 7, 2022)

Fixes:
[File Explorer]
Fixed a scaling issue which could result in the tabs being unexpectedly large.
Right clicking a tab and then clicking somewhere else in File Explorer should dismiss the context menu more reliably now.
[Other]
We believe an underlying fix in Build 25145 addressed the recent issue where shutting down via the Start menu wasn’t working for some Insiders (unexpectedly rebooting instead), and as such are removing this from the known issues list. If you are continuing to encounter this issue with the latest updates, please report it in the Feedback Hub.
Fixed a high hitting Windows Security app crash.
Updated the Exclusions page in the Windows Security app so that file paths now make better use of the available space rather than truncating when space is still available.
Fixed an underlying issue which was causing a crash when trying to delete ports in printui /s.
Fixed an issue causing printing to not work from UWP apps for some Insiders in the last 2 flights.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.
Known issues:
[General]
We are working on a fix to address reports that the Mica material and Acrylic blur effect is not rendering correct in OS surfaces like the Start menu, Notification Center and other areas.
Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
[NEW]
We’re investigating reports that some Insiders are experiencing bugchecks with error message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in NetAdapterCx.sys starting with Build 25145.
[File Explorer]
The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
We’re investigating reports that launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) is showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
[Widgets]
We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.
[Live captions]
Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25136 Dev (Jun 9, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25120 Dev (May 19, 2022)

General:
As described in our in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts. Starting with this preview build, some Insiders will see one of these conceptual features as we begin to explore exposing lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop. Today, Windows exposes this type of content in the Widgets board. To begin assessing this general idea and interaction model, the first exploration in this area adds a search box displayed on the desktop that enables you to search the web.
If you would like to remove this search box, you can right-click on the desktop, choose “Show more options,” and toggle the “Show search” option.
We are excited to learn your feedback on this interaction model, so please use the Feedback Hub to provide feedback if you receive this experiment.
NOTE: A reboot is required after updating to this build to trigger this experience but please note that not all Windows Insiders will have this experience enabled even after reboot.
Fixes:
Suggested Actions:
Suggested actions should appear for more date and time formats now.
Addressed some issues with certain formats when copying a date and/or time.
Improved overall performance and reliability of the feature.
Settings:
Fixed an issue that could crash Settings when opening and looking at the battery usage graph.
Improved performance of displaying Wi-Fi networks after enabling Wi-Fi from the Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings.
Task Manager:
Addressed an issue leading to some unreadable text in the Performance page when a contrast theme was enabled.
Other:
Fixed an issue which could cause Windows Update to stall and roll back updates for WSA users.
Did some work to address a stutter in the progress wheel animation when upgrading to a new build.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.
Known issues:
General:
Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
Live captions:
Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621 Dev (May 11, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22598 Dev (Apr 14, 2022)

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS:
General:
We are now offering new builds to Windows Insiders in China on Lenovo PCs starting with Build 22598. These users should connect to the internet for a minimum of 15 minutes to allow the Lenovo PC Manager to auto update to the latest version (version 5.0.0.3292 or later) to receive an important fix with the app.
We are trying out auto-launching of the Get Started app with some Windows Insiders after upgrade to help people get started with their PC.
[REMINDER] As described in our in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that may never get released. In this build, a limited set of Insiders will see the first of these experimental features as we explore additional ways to help people discover and get quick access to content they care about on the web with the Windows search box. If you see some of these concepts, be sure to let us know what you think via Feedback Hub (Win + F) and choose category Desktop Environment > Search.
Windows Spotlight:
We are trying out Windows Spotlight on desktop is on by as the default background for new devices (clean installs using the ISO) and for upgrades where the background the Windows 11 default. We are trying this experience out with a limited number of Windows Insiders at first.
We are also trying out displaying 4K desktop backgrounds in Windows Spotlight. We are also trying this experience out with a limited number of Windows Insiders at first.
Taskbar:
Updated the tooltip on the volume icon to tell you when you’re using spatial sound.
FIXES:
General:
Devices using Windows Information Protection (formerly EDP) policies can now access controlled data via protected apps such as Outlook, Word, Microsoft Edge, etc. as expected.
Taskbar:
We fixed an issue where if you used keyboard focus on taskbar, hovers like previews would stay up during all taskbar interactions.
Fixed an issue that was causing taskbar badges to come back after explorer.exe crashes even if you had them turned off in Settings.
Made a fix for an issue where some mouse move events weren’t being passed to apps for icons in the system tray.
Fixed an issue where hovering over some app icons in the system tray wasn’t showing previews or tooltips.
App icons in the system tray should now be showing more reliably when opened again in this build.
Fixed an issue that was delaying or preventing the show hidden icons flyout from opening.
Fixed an issue where Chinese characters weren’t displaying in the taskbar calendar when the Lunar calendar was turned on.
Addressed an issue where the visual indicator around an app icon when sharing a window might not go away once you’d stopped sharing.
Start menu:
We fixed a crash when selecting the More button in Start’s Recommended section.
Addressed an underlying issue which could lead to Start crashing on launch when invoked with a gesture.
Fixed an issue that was causing the buttons and labels in Start to be the wrong colors while using contrast themes.
Addressed an issue where if you swiped to scroll the contents of a folder in the pinned section of Start, it would unexpectedly close Start.
[File Explorer]
Addressed an issue which was causing the context menu to not render completely sometimes and be transparent.
Input:
Improved the performance of launching the touch keyboard on the login screen.
Fixed an issue where if you had selected text with touch in certain apps like Settings, the backspace key in the touch keyboard would have to be tapped twice for it to delete.
Voice typing should no longer stop responding if you repeatedly press WIN + H.
Fixed an issue for people with a large number of input methods, where the currently selected one might not be in view when you opened the input switcher.
Fixed the link at the bottom of the Chinese (Simplified) IME appearance settings so it points to Settings > Personalization > Text Input.
Addressed an issue where the emoji panel’s background image and color might not be rendered correctly after using options in Settings > Personalization > Text Input.
Settings:
Fixed an issue where high DPI options in the Compatibility tab of the properties for an executable weren’t working.
Narrator should now read the view options we added in Settings > Apps > Installed apps
Windowing:
Returned the missing animation when pressing WIN + D or clicking the Show Desktop button.
We addressed an issue when using snap layouts with touch which could result in an acrylic sheet getting stuck on top of the window.
The thumbnails in Task View should no longer be inverted when using Hebrew or Arabic display languages.
Fixed an explorer.exe crash when invoking Task View.
If you have a lot of windows open, they should no longer become superimposed on top of Desktops in Task View.
Fixed an issue when using ALT + Tab with a screen reader, where if you ALT + Tabbed back to certain app windows, focus would be set to a pane within the window rather than the whole window.
Fixed an underlying issue where accented colored title bars (when enabled) for certain apps and File Explorer were only displaying when the windows were maximized.
Mitigated a rare issue that could lead to the system hanging when changing the resolution sometimes in certain games.
Addressed an issue causing white pixels in the corners of some apps when using dark mode.
Did some work to address an issue where certain app windows wouldn’t move to the expected area after selecting them using snap assist.
Fixed a glitch in the animation when using snap layouts at the top of the screen to snap windows.
Live captions:
Fixed an issue where the very top of maximized apps (e.g., title bar window management buttons) couldn’t be reached with touch while live captions were positioned at the top.
Live captions will now tell you when it’s done downloading and ready to caption.
Task Manager:
Mitigated an issue causing the Performance page CPU graph to be colored as if Show Kernel Times was enabled even though it wasn’t.
Did some work to further improve Task Manager reliability.
Added access key support for Run New Task (ALT + N), End Task (ALT + E), Efficiency Mode (ALT + V), and other buttons on each page. If you press ALT, the letters will display next to the button.
With a process selected, pressing the Delete key will now end the process like it used to.
CTRL + Tab and CTRL + Shift + Tab will now cycle through the pages in Task Manager.
Fixed an issue where the memory composition graph was blank instead of filed in with the appropriate color.
Mitigated an issue leading to the GPU graph on the performance tab not being displayed in some cases.
The icons in the status column of the Processes page are no longer touching the side of the column.
Fixed an issue where “Efficiency mode” was missing status column of the Users page.
WSL:
Fixed an issue that would prevent WSL2 from mounting the host file system on ARM64.
Other:
Fixed an issue from the previous flight where the acrylic might not extend across the entire login screen.
Fixed an issue that was causing the volume and brightness keys that appear when your use your hardware keys to be cut off in the middle.
Running powercfg /query should work now when launched from syswow64 or from a 32-bit process.
Fixed an apostrophe that wasn’t rendering correctly in the text when doing an offline scan from the Windows Security app.
Removed an extra “be” in the text describing Smart Account Control in the Windows Security app.
Fixed an issue for certain language which could lead to question marks being displayed in the place of some of the text when upgrading to a new build.
If you have increased the text size under Settings > Accessibility > Text Size and launch setup from a Windows ISO while booted into your currently installed OS, the text displayed in the setup window will now be increased to match your preferences.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th, 2021.
KNOWN ISSUES:
General:
Windows Insiders running Windows 10 who join the Dev or Beta Channels to get the latest builds may encounter a download error code 0xc8000402 while trying to download the latest build. As a workaround, please join the Release Preview Channel first, install Windows 11 from there (Build 22000.xxxx), and then switch to the Dev or Beta Channel to receive the latest Insider Preview build. This issue is understood and will be fixed in an upcoming build.
We’re investigating reports that a few Insiders have been experiencing an issue where explorer.exe is crashing repeatedly in a loop in the latest builds and unable to successfully load. This build includes another fix that may help some Insiders who were experiencing this.
When opening Group Policy editor, an Administrative Template error will pop up. Click “Ok” to dismiss and continue using Group Policy editor normally.
Taskbar:
The taskbar doesn’t always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
Some areas of the OS are not yet tracking the height of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices so you may see overlapping components.
File Explorer:
Using context menu options in File Explorer or on the desktop for rename, copy, paste, and delete may cause explorer.exe to crash when the context menu dismisses. As a workaround if you are impacted you will need to use other methods for the desired action, for example, pressing F2 to rename a selected file or folder.
The option to “Add to Favorites” does not show when right-clicking on a file on Home. As a workaround, this option can be accessed by choosing “Show more options”.
Widgets:
The widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen. If you are impacted, please tap the Widgets icon in the taskbar for now instead.
Network:
We’re investigating reports from Insiders about internet connectivity issues when certain VPNs are connected.
Live captions:
Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.
FOR DEVELOPERS:
SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:
NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at ms/windowsinsidersdk
C++ packages for Win32 headers and libs per architecture
BuildTools package when you just need tools like MakeAppx.exe, MakePri.exe, and SignTool.exe
MEDIA PLAYER:
Improved library experience and new video playback enhancements:
Today, we are starting to roll out a new update to Media Player for Windows 11 (Version 11.2203.30.0) to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.
You can now switch between two different views on the artist page when browsing your collection. One view shows you all the albums in a grid; the other shows all the songs, grouped by album. We’ve also added quick actions to albums, artists, videos, and playlists when you hover over them for quick selection and playback.
There’s also now a handy context menu available if you right-click on the now playing screen. From here you can open new files without navigating to another page. You can also quickly access the album page and the artist page for your current song. We’ve added a new “video enhancements” feature as well, which allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your video.
In addition to these new features, we are continuing to work on improving the performance of Media Player for those of you with very large music libraries.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22593 Dev (Apr 6, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22581 Dev (Mar 24, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22579 Dev (Mar 20, 2022)

Exclude USB removable drives from encryption:
We are introducing a new policy so that IT administrators can exclude USB removable drives from BitLocker encryption. This will solve the problem of automatic or accidental encryption of storage built into specialized devices like video cameras, voice recorders, conferencing systems, medical devices and many more. When this policy is enabled, you will not be able to encrypt storage that is on the exclusion list, and you will not be prompted for encryption if you connect such storage to a device while “Deny write access to removable drives not protected by BitLocker” policy is enabled on it. This policy so far can only be configured via MDM custom OMA-URI.
Changes and Improvements:
General:
As some Insiders noticed, along with our updated Print Queue experience, we have also made an update so that win32 apps which use CPrintDialog to display the print dialog will now show our modern print dialog. In addition, the modern print dialog discovers local network printers automatically. If you choose a new printer, it will be installed without you needing to go into Settings. Please file feedback about your printing experiences under Devices and Drivers > Print in the Feedback Hub.
We are reverting the Open With dialog box redesign that began rolling out with Build 22567 to the previous design. We plan to bring this back in the future after addressing some performance issues identified by Windows Insiders. Thank you for your feedback!
To ensure users are still able to quickly access the console if Windows Terminal has been uninstalled, we are updating the WIN + X menu to point to Windows PowerShell. If you have Windows Terminal installed and would like Windows PowerShell to open in Windows Terminal, we recommend going to Settings > Privacy & Security > For Developers, and setting Windows Terminal as your default terminal app.
Magnifier and the on-screen keyboard now have new Fluent-style icons.
Start menu:
You can now name your folders of apps in Start. To name a folder, simply create a folder (which will have the default name of “Folder”), open it, click on “Edit name”, and type your folder name. Alternatively, use keyboard focus to open the folder then select the text box and start typing.
Get Started app:
We have added pinned site suggestions to the Get Started app so you can conveniently pin websites to your taskbar. To find this new feature, launch the Get Started app and navigate to the “Apps and sites we think you’ll love” page. Click on any of the sites suggested on the page to pin it to your taskbar so you can access the sites you care about in one-click. Please file feedback in the Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Apps > Get Started.
Windowing:
Continuing our effort to update multi-finger touch gestures to include responsive and delightful animations that follow your finger, try using three fingers to swipe left and right and switch between recently used windows.
Task Manager:
Based on feedback, the Run New Task button is now available on all pages of Task Manager.
Updated the icon for Run New Task.
Input:
To help improve discoverability, emoji that can be personalized (such as the family emoji) now display a small accent colored dot in the bottom corner of their entries in the emoji panel.
Removed the Keyboard Layout section from Quick Settings.
FIXES:
General:
Addressed an issue which was causing Gaming Services to not work in the previous flight, leading to issues launching and installing some games.
Fixed a few high hitting explorer.exe crashes impacting recent flights during general usage of Windows.
Fixed a bug for Windows Insiders trying to upgrade directly from Windows 10 to recent Windows 11 Dev Channel builds.
Tablet-optimized taskbar:
NOTE: These fixes will only show if tablet-optimized taskbar is enabled on your device, which is beginning to roll out to Windows Insiders and not yet available for everyone.
It’s no longer necessary to swipe twice from the tablet-optimized taskbar to show Start or Quick Settings – once the taskbar is fully expanded, these will display with a continued swipe upwards.
Addressed an issue where using the swipe gesture to invoke the Start menu might bring it up on the wrong screen if an external monitor was connected.
Notifications will no longer overlap with the tablet-optimized taskbar.
Fixed an issue where if you invoked Task View the Desktops area might not render completely.
Middle clicking an app icon to launch a new instance of that app should work again now.
Start menu:
Fixed an issue where Start’s folders were still showing animations even if you had animation effects disabled.
Mitigated an issue that was causing Start’s pinned and folders layouts to get reset to default after explorer.exe restarts.
Addressed an underlying issue leading to a transparent line along the side of the Start menu when changing your display’s scale.
Focus:
You’ll now see the same breaks in focus sessions over 30 minutes started from the Notification Center as you would in sessions started from the Clock app.
If Do not disturb is turned on prior to starting a focus session, stopping the focus session will no longer turn off Do not disturb.
If you turn on a focus session, it will not be reset if you have to log out or reboot now.
Fixed an issue causing your keyboard focus to unexpectedly move to the top of Notification Center when ending a focus session below the calendar.
Fixed an issue that was preventing you from adding apps to the Settings > System > Notifications > Set priority notifications
Input:
Fixed an issue where the enraged face emoji wasn’t searchable in Turkish using the word angry (kızgın). Please continue giving feedback about the emoji search results under Input and Language > Emoji Panel in the Feedback Hub!
Addressed an issue where the Japanese IME was unexpectedly switching to Katakana mode when focus was set to the UAC dialog.
Mitigated an issue recently where if you removed a third party IME from that language in Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region and didn’t uninstall it, it might still show in the input switcher.
Fixed an issue which was causing the mouse to be invisible in fields of certain apps, as well as some unexpected cursor related app crashes in recent flights.
Addressed an issue where the gesture for bringing in the Notification Center from the side of the screen wasn’t working for the Arabic or Hebrew display languages.
[Settings]
Fixed an issue for the header at the top of Network & Internet, where the chevron was backwards for Arabic and Hebrew display languages.
Windowing:
If transparency is off under Settings > Personalization > Colors, the background of ALT + Tab will no longer be transparent.
If you drag a window to the top of the screen and then drag it back down, the dismiss animation for snap layouts will display more consistently now.
Made a small adjustment to fix an animation glitch when invoking snap layouts at the top of the screen.
Fixed an explorer.exe crash which was happening when dragging certain windows across snap layouts at the top of the screen.
Mitigated an issue which was causing Task View to appear unresponsive if you invoked Task View while snap assist was showing on screen.
Did some work to address an issue where ALT + Tab might get stuck open if you invoked it via a very quick gesture on your touchpad.
Fixed an explorer.exe crash that could happen when an app goes in and out of full screen mode.
Network:
Mitigated an issue leading to cellular connections not working on certain devices in the last few builds.
Addressed an issue leading to Wi-Fi speed degradation in the previous flight.
Voice access:
Fixed an issue that was causing the voice access banner to block the top row of desktop icons or the top of full-screen applications.
Live captions:
Live captions will now show across your Desktops.
The “floating on screen” window position will now correctly show as selected in the settings flyout if the live captions window was forced to float (for example when using a full screen app).
The maximum height of the live captions window is now capped at 40% of monitor height.
Live captions will no longer crash upon shrinking a max height live captions window.
Toggling mono audio will no longer crash live captions.
Narrator:
Fixed an issue with how Narrator read out collapsed sections in Settings > Accessibility > Narrator when navigating using Shift + Tab.
Task Manager:
Fixed a few high hitting Task Manager crashes.
Fixed an issue where if focus was inside the Details page and you started typing, focus would stop moving through the processes list after the first letter.
If you’re using the Performance page in Summary view, the title bar of Task Manager will now be hidden.
Other:
The percentage on the volume flyout that shows when using your hardware keys will now be centered in the design consistently.
Improved how keyboard focus and navigation works when moving through and closing the accessibility options on the Lock screen.
NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th, 2021.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Tablet-optimized taskbar:
The taskbar doesn’t always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
Some areas of the OS are not yet tracking the height of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices so you may see overlapping components, such as Widgets overlapping with the taskbar.
File Explorer:
Opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer’s search box may not work.
We’re working fixing issues regarding icon sizing, visual bugs, and text clipping in the flyout showing OneDrive storage.
Widgets:
Sometimes when pinning from the Feed, the pinned widget is placed at the top instead of below other pinned widgets. If this happens this will autocorrect within 30 minutes, moving the recently pinned widget to the expected default location. Or you can sign out of your Widgets board and immediately signing back in should correct the problem.
After rearranging widgets in the widgets board, some users experience problems with widgets in the pinned section rendering incorrectly. If this happens, signing out of your widgets board and immediately signing back in should correct the problem.
Focus:
The Clock app does not yet update Windows Focus state when configuring focus sessions within the app. This will be addressed in a future app update.
Narrator:
Natural voices are breaking up sporadically in the latest build. Restart Narrator to resolve the issue.
Live captions:
Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.
The very top of maximized apps (e.g., title bar window management buttons) can’t be reached with touch while live captions is positioned at the top.
Task Manager:
Some tooltips do not accurately display the preferred visual setting when Task Manager is configured for dark mode.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22572 Dev (Mar 9, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22567 Dev (Mar 2, 2022)

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22563 Dev (Feb 25, 2022)

Tablet-optimized taskbar:
We’re introducing a new taskbar state that’s specifically designed to make you feel more confident and comfortable using your device as a tablet. Your taskbar will automatically transition to this optimized version when you disconnect or fold back the keyboard on your 2-in-1 device. This feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets. It does not work on laptops or desktop PCs.
There are two states of this taskbar: collapsed and expanded. In the collapsed state, the taskbar gets out your way, gives you more screen space, and prevents you from accidentally invoking the taskbar when you’re holding your tablet. In the expanded state, the taskbar is optimized to be easier to use with touch. You can easily switch between the two states by swiping up and down on the bottom of your device.
To see if this feature is available on your device, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors where a new setting called “Automatically hide the taskbar when using your device as tablet” will be shown and set to on by default.
We’re trying out some changes in Widgets to bring more dynamic content to your Widgets board, by experimenting with bringing together the widgets and news feed experiences as a dynamic blended feed containing both widgets and news content. This should make it easier for you to discover and engage with new widgets and news content through your feed. With a dynamic feed there’s less of a burden on you to curate the canvas on your own, but you’ll still be able to pin your favorite Widgets to the top if you want.
This release focuses on making widgets discoverable from the feed and over time we plan to make the feed even more personalized.
For IT Admins in education, we have a new policy built with you and your students in mind. Starting with this build, you will finally be able to turn off all Windows Update notifications that might distract your students during the school day. You will be able to provide this better experience while staying compliant as the notifications will start to show again if user action is needed and the devices reaches the deadline, though hopefully most devices are able to automatically restart overnight when the student isn’t there.
Changes and Improvements:
File Explorer:
Search from Quick Access has been expanded to include content from your OneDrive, Downloads, and any indexed location. Use Quick Access to find results fast.
Files in Quick Access without any local presence (for example, files shared to you from another OneDrive) now show thumbnails and work with OneDrive sharing.
Windowing:
We’ve made it even easier to snap the most relevant windows next to each other side by side by introducing Microsoft Edge tabs as suggested windows in snap assist. When a window is snapped, you will now see 3 of your most recent Edge tabs shown (by default) as suggestions. You can always control whether to show Microsoft Edge tabs and number of tabs shown when snapping or pressing ALT + TAB via Settings > System > Multitasking.
Input:
Starting with this build, Windows Insiders can now use 37 new emoji characters in the emoji picker as part of Emoji 14.0. Some of the new emoji include “melting face”, “troll”, “coral”, “beans”, “playground slide”, and “mirror ball”.
Skin tone variations for hands gestures and people bring the total to 112 emoji which includes the hand shake. You can now choose the skin tones between the two hands in the hand-shake emoji.
General:
Improved login performance for a specific case where someone had a very large temp folder.
Fixed a few issues impacting explorer.exe reliability.
Updated the volume flyout when using the hardware keys on your keyboard to account for cases where there is no working audio.
Taskbar:
The auto-hide taskbar will now stay expanded while you use Task View to switch Desktops.
When dragging a file or app to the taskbar, we’ve updated the message next to the mouse showing what is and is not supported to now respond to dark mode and contrast themes.
Fixed a cyclical explorer.exe crash that was happening for people using the French (Canada) display language, related to the battery icon tooltip.
Updated the mute icon in the taskbar so that the tooltip now gives a hint for the keyboard shortcut (WIN + Alt + K).
Tablet-optimized taskbar:
The top border line of taskbar now extends across the entire taskbar instead of stopping just before the system tray area.
The button styling for the hidden icons flyout is now consistent with the design of the rest of the system tray buttons.
The taskbar should no longer flicker when switching input methods or during other scenarios where system tray icons are added and removed.
Start menu:
Fixed an issue that was causing the Start menu to not open consistently with the new touch gesture where you swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
When recommended items are newly added or removed, their icons will now be animated to fade in and out.
The sleep icon in the power menu is no longer incorrectly showing as a bell.
Fixed an issue causing the apostrophe in the power button tooltip to not display correctly.
Names of apps in folders no longer appear blurred briefly when opening folders in Start.
Fixed a crash some people were encountering when trying to share an app from the All apps list.
File Explorer:
Fixed an issue where the OneDrive icon wouldn’t show up in the File Explorer command bar sometimes when it should have.
Removed a random white dot that was appearing in the context menu when right clicking on File Explorer’s title bar in dark mode.
Input:
Made some improvements to the emoji search results based on feedback, including generally putting a stronger preference in the search results to the exact name match of emoji (for example, the balloon emoji first when searching for balloon) over the various other emoji that might be returned for those keywords.
Fixed an issue causing Insiders to not see the updated Korean IME design in the previous flight.
Fixed a couple issues with the coloring in the IME candidate window.
Mitigated a crash that was happening when attempting to access the Personalization > Text Input in Settings after upgrading if you had customized your touch keyboard appearance.
Addressed an explorer.exe crash that could happen when switching input methods.
Improved the performance of launching the input switcher for the first time.
If you have “Show accent color on Start and Taskbar” enabled in Color Settings, the input switcher background color will now follow that preference.
Fixed the Typing link name in the touch keyboard settings options, so it matches the Settings page that opens.
System > Clipboard in Settings now explains why the “Sync across your devices” option could be grayed out.
Added text to the emoji panel to help explain certain scenarios where emoji search results aren’t supported.
Search:
We’ve done some more work to reduce the chance that the recent searches flyout could get stuck on the screen.
We’ve addressed an issue in recent Dev Channel builds leading to some Insiders experiencing an issue where search would open, but only show a magnifying glass in the window and not display any results. If you continue experiencing issues, please file feedback under Desktop Environment > Search with details about what exactly you are seeing.
Settings:
Addressed an issue where pop up dialogs (for example, when adding an optional feature, or when configuring your IP address) in Settings were launching left aligned instead of centered.
Addressed an issue where RSAT: DNS Server Tools would show that it was installed in Optional Features if you attempted to install it but wouldn’t actually be installed.
Fixed an issue where Display settings might not show the option to change refresh rate when your PC was in portrait mode.
Settings should no longer crash when attempting to uninstall apps via Apps > Installed apps when your User Account Control settings are set to Always Notify.
Windows Update > Update History should show history for feature updates again with this build.
Mitigated an issue related to the Windows Update page that could make Settings hang.
The link to give feedback in Settings > System > Notifications will now take you directly to notifications feedback section in the Feedback Hub.
Fixed an issue preventing you from adding Bluetooth or Cast to the Quick Settings flyout.
The media controls above Quick Settings should now show when you open media or hide when you close media more reliably.
Fixed an issue where the number in the volume popup that opens when you use your hardware keys didn’t match the volume number in Quick Settings.
Improved the positioning of the Accessibility flyout above the button on the login screen.
Fixed an issue that was occasionally causing certain Bluetooth devices to not auto-connect after powering on or resuming your PC from sleep/hibernate.
Widgets:
With the taskbar left-aligned, information such as temperature is now shown.
Fixed an issue where Widgets weather info may have shown different information across a multi-monitor setup.
Task Manager:
Did some work to help address an issue where the navigation bar in the updated Task Manager design was showing black glitches when you launched Task Manager from a minimized state.
Windowing:
Fixed an issue that was preventing you from using the minimize, maximize, and close buttons on maximized apps (and other scenarios) because Notification Center had kept focus.
Did some work to improve the smoothness of the animation when invoking Task View using the 3-finger on screen gesture.
Improved general reliability of ALT + Tab to help address scenarios where it could get stuck.
Addressed an issue that was impacting the performance when using ALT + Tab, Task View or snap assist in recent builds.
Snap group titles should appear properly when using Windows with an Arabic or Hebrew display language now.
Made some refinements to the snap layouts invocation experience when moving a window to the top of the screen.
Fixed an issue where dragging a snapped window while snap assist is active would include a thumbnail of the dragged window.
When using the down arrow to navigate through app thumbnails in snap assist, it should cycle to the top now when you’ve reached the bottom row.
Fixed two crashes that could happen when using snap layouts on a secondary monitor or a portrait mode monitor.
Made the margins for snapping to the left and right side of the screen a little bigger.
Switching desktops using the keyboard shortcuts while the Start menu is open should no longer cause your desktop to unexpectedly switch back after closing Start.
Network:
Added some text to show Disconnecting to communicate if work is in progress after you’ve clicked the Disconnect button in the VPN section of Quick Settings.
Fixed an issue where Managed VPN profiles with IPv4 routes specified might disconnect frequently.
Narrator:
Narrator will no longer jump up to the search box in Start after using the power or account menus.
After switching to the All apps section of the Start menu, Narrator will now navigate to and read you app information correctly.
Narrator in Word online will now read the new line correctly when arrowing up and down between paragraphs.
Fixed an issue that was causing Narrator to stop reading or being able to move the cursor when entering tables in Microsoft Word.
Improved how Narrator reads content in the Accessibility flyout on the login screen.
Other:
Fixed an issue that was causing the back button in the sign in window of certain apps to not to be visible when using a contrast theme.

New in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22523 Dev (Dec 16, 2021)

TL;DR:
ARM64 PCs will be offered this build.
We are providing ISOs for this build which can be downloaded here.
This will be our final flight for the holidays. See you in 2022!
Changes and Improvements:
We have rolled out snap groups in ALT + TAB and Task View just like when you hover open apps on the taskbar, and you see them there, to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
When File Explorer is open to This PC, the add media server and (if appropriate) remove media server option is now available when you click the “…” in the command bar.
As part of our ongoing effort to bring over settings from Control Panel into the Settings app:
Links to Programs & Features in Control Panel will now open to Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. EDIT: In other words, links to the page to uninstall or change programs on your PC.
We’re moving Uninstall Updates (for cumulative updates, etc.) from Control Panel to a new page in Settings under Settings > Windows Update > Update History.
Fixes:
Taskbar:
Fixed an issue related to text input initialization that could lead to the shell (for example, Start menu and search) becoming non-responsive on ARM64 PCs.
The battery icon tooltip should no longer unexpectedly show a percent above 100.
App icons should no longer overlap the date & time on secondary monitors when there are a lot of open apps.
File Explorer:
Did some work to address an issue that was leading to losing keyboard focus sometimes after pressing Enter when using F2 to rename OneDrive files.
Spotlight collection:
After enabling spotlight collection, your first image (after Whitehaven Beach) should arrive a little faster now.
Added icons to the spotlight collection context menu entries.
Input:
Improved reliability of invoking voice typing.
Fixed an issue where the border of our text input experiences (voice typing, emoji panel, etc) wasn’t drawing correctly when a contrast theme was enabled.
Mitigated an intermittent crash with the pen menu process if it was launched and then immediately closed before the launch happened.
Widgets:
We fixed the issue causing links to not open properly when opening the widgets board using hover.
Settings:
Settings content should no longer get truncated off the side of the window when making the Settings window small.
Settings should no longer sporadically crash when opening comboboxes, which was impacting certain settings such as the ability to set custom click actions for the pen.
Addressed an issue where the “Add a device” option in Bluetooth & Devices was silently crashing when trying to connect new Bluetooth devices.
Added a number of keywords to make the Voice Access feature appear in settings search results.
Other:
Fixed an issue that was causing ARM64 PCs to experience bug checks citing a memory management error in the previous flight.
Fixed an issue that was causing DWM to crash (causing the screen to flash repeatedly) when trying to use certain apps.
Mitigated an issue leading to certain apps hanging when Narrator was running.
Added some missing information when examining the details in the properties of narratorquickstart.exe.
Addressed an issue where Narrator would not respond to UIA events such as notifications, live regions or text events.

New in Windows 11 Build 22000.168 Beta / Dev (Aug 28, 2021)

Changes and Improvements:
We are delighted to announce Chat with Microsoft Teams now supports multiple languages. Starting today, you can use Chat app either with OS language setting and/or independent Teams Language setting. Chat with Microsoft Teams will support following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK), English US, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, French (Canada), Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian (Bokmal), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian Latin, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Valencian, Vietnamese, and Welsh.
We’re introducing the new Microsoft 365 Widget! This widget brings relevant documents, news and meeting recordings (with more to come!) to enterprise users. This widget will only be available if you are signed in with your AAD account on your PC running Windows 11. In a time when information overload is a major concern for most workers, this personalized list will help users stay on top of their work and find the information they need with ease. To check it out just open widgets and click the “Add Widgets” button and select the Microsoft 365 Widget. We hope you love it!
Fixes:
Search:
We’ve addressed an underlying issue in the last couple flights for pen enabled devices that was resulting in Search getting into a state where it wasn’t possible to launch apps from the results.
Settings:
We fixed an issue where typing certain phrases into the search box in Settings were crashing Settings sometimes.
Widgets:
When using the Family widget, you should no longer unexpectedly see a message saying ‘connect a device to see screen time activity’ despite there being available activity to display.
Chat from Microsoft Teams:
We fixed the issue where sometimes videos would freeze or display a black image during video calls.
We also fixed the issue where if you switched between calls, the previous call is not automatically put on hold, so audio and video streams continue with both calls.

New in Windows 11 Build 22000.160 Beta / Dev (Aug 20, 2021)

As you use these ISOs to install Windows 11, you will go through the new Windows 11 setup experience (often referred to as the “out of box experience” or OOBE for short) which is designed to build excitement for Windows 11 right from the moment you turn on a new Windows 11 PC for the very first time. Based on your feedback, we have added the ability to name your PC during the setup experience too. After running through the setup experience, the Get Started app is a new first run experience app that will help you quickly get setup on a new PC. Try these things out and let us know what you think!
Changes and Improvements:
The new Clock app for Windows 11 with Focus Sessions has begun rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. See this blog post for all the details!
We have been testing the ability to see estimates for how long a restart for updates would take in places like the power menu under Start, in restart notifications, on the Windows Update Settings page and inside the Windows Update icon that shows up at the lower right of Taskbar. We are making a small adjustment for this feature so that it only shows on PCs with SSDs. If your PC has a standard HDD, you will no longer see estimates. We hope to bring estimates back to PCs with HDDs once we iron out a few more bugs.
Fixes:
Taskbar:
We fixed an issue where the “location in use” icon was showing in the Taskbar sometimes even though the usage was blocked by your preferences.
Known issues:
[REMINDER] When upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or when installing an update to Windows 11, some features may be deprecated or removed. See details here.
We’re investigating an issue where on some devices, when going to Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program, only the “Stop getting preview builds” option is visible. This prevents Insiders from selecting a channel. We have posted a workaround on Answers.
[BETA CHANNEL] We’re investigating reports from Insiders in the Beta Channel where after upgrading to Windows 11, they are not seeing the new Taskbar and the Start menu doesn’t work. To workaround this if you are impacted, please try going to Windows Update > Update history, uninstalling the latest cumulative update for Windows, and the reinstall it by checking for updates.
We’re working on a fix for an issue that is causing some Surface Pro X devices to bug check with a WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.
Start:
In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.
System and Windows Terminal is missing when right-clicking on the Start button (WIN + X).
Taskbar:
The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
Search:
After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.
On pen enabled devices, apps may not launch from the Search panel. If you experience this issue, please log out and back in to resolve the issue.
Settings:
Certain searches using the search box in Settings may crash Settings.
Bluetooth:
We’re investigating reports from Insiders with paired Bluetooth LE devices that are experiencing an increase in Bluetooth reliability issues and bugchecks after resume from hibernate or when Bluetooth is turned off.
Widgets:
The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.
Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.
[Family widget] Some users may see a ‘connect a device to see screen time activity’ message even with screen time settings enable.
[Family widget] Location information may not be available for some users on iOS.
Store:
We are working to improve search relevance in the Store including resolving an issue where in some cases the ordering of search results is inaccurate.
The install button might not be functional yet in some limited scenarios.
Rating and reviews are not available for some apps.
Windows Sandbox
Within Windows Sandbox, the language input switcher does not launch after clicking the switcher icon on the Taskbar. As a workaround, users can switch their input language via any of the following hardware keyboard shortcuts: Alt + Shift, Ctrl + Shift, or Win + Space (the third option is available only if Sandbox is full-screened).
Within Windows Sandbox, the IME context menu does not launch after clicking the IME icon in the Taskbar. As workarounds, users can access the functionalities of the IME context menu with either of following methods:
Accessing the IME settings via Settings > Time & language > Language & region > (e.g. Japanese) three dots > Language options > (e.g. Microsoft IME) three dots > Keyboard options.
Optionally, you may also enable the IME toolbar, an alternative UI to quickly invoke specific IME functions. Continuing from above, navigate to Keyboard options > Appearance > Use IME toolbar.
Using the unique set of hardware keyboard shortcuts associated with each IME-supported language. (See: Japanese IME Shortcuts, Traditional Chinese IME Shortcuts).
Localization
There is an issue where some Insiders may be some missing translations from their user experience for a small subset of languages running the latest Insider Preview builds. To confirm if you have been impacted, please visit this Answers forum post and follow the steps for remediation.
Chat from Microsoft Teams
Experience is localized for English (US) only. Additional languages and locales forthcoming.
When you make an outgoing call, while you do not hear a ring tone, the user interface shows that the call is getting connected.
In a video call, sometimes people videos freeze or display a black image. There is a workaround to this issue, which is to pin the video that freezes and unpin it to fix the problem.
When switching between calls, the previous call is not automatically put on hold, so audio and video streams continue on both calls. Be sure to complete a call before taking another.