Serious Discussion Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview builds [Mega-Thread]

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1245 and Build 22623.1245 (KB5022358) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22623.1245 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1245 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22623.xxx).

Screen recording in Snipping Tool​

We are beginning to roll out screen recording in Snipping Tool to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel (version 11.2212.24.0). And as part of the most recent Snipping Tool update, we have also added the ability to pause while recording and you should notice improved performance and reliability.

Fixes in Build 22623.1245​

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• Fixed a high hitting ShellExperienceHost crash related to interacting with Quick Settings.

[Task Manager]​

• Fixed a few issues causing Task Manager crashes.
• 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.

Fixes for BOTH Build 22621.1245 & Build 22623.1245​

• New! This update changed the experience for preview .NET Framework updates. After you installed this update, all future preview (optional) .NET Framework updates would be displayed on the Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates On that page, you could control which optional updates you wanted to install.
• We fixed an issue that affected the ReFS. The issue caused high nonpaged pool usage, which depleted system memory.
• We fixed an issue that affected copying from a network to a local drive. Copying was slower than expected for some users.
• We fixed an issue that caused Windows Server 2022 domain controllers (DC) to stop responding. This occurred when they processed Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) requests.
• We fixed an issue that affected a Group Policy for Expanded Toasts.
• We fixed an issue that might have occurred when the Input Method Editor (IME) was active. Applications might have stopped responding when you used the mouse and keyboard at the same time.
• We fixed an issue that affected conhost.exe. It stopped responding.
• We fixed a resource conflict issue between two or more threads (known as a deadlock). This deadlock affected COM+ applications.
• We fixed an issue that affected devices that are subject to Microsoft Exploit Protection Export Address Filtering (EAF). Some applications stopped responding or did not open. These included Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader.
• We fixed an issue that stopped you from searching for a file based on the file’s contents.
• We fixed an issue that affected searchindexer.exe. It randomly stopped you from signing in or signing out.
• We fixed an issue that might have occurred when you converted or reconverted Japanese Kanji using a multibyte character set (MBCS) app. The cursor might have moved to the wrong location when you typed.
• We changed how you enabled the Windows diagnostic data processor configuration in preparation for EU Data Boundary To learn more, see Enable Windows diagnostic data processor configuration.
• We fixed an issue that affected mstsc.exe. It stopped responding while connecting to a RemoteApp and Desktop Connection.
• We fixed an issue that might have affected FindWindow() or FindWindowEx(). They might have returned the wrong window handle.
• We fixed an issue that affected picture files you found using search on the taskbar. This issue stopped you from opening those pictures.
• We fixed an issue that might have affected applications that used Microsoft Edge WebView2 to display content. Applications that used WebView2 included Microsoft Office and the Widgets app. The content might have appeared blank or greyed out.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel will be the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1245 and 22623.1245

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25290 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR​

• This build is available for Arm64 devices as the known issue that resulted in not releasing Build 25284 to Arm64 last week has been fixed.
• We have more new widgets for Insiders in the Dev Channel to try!
• This build includes a set of general improvements and fixes.

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.[/caption] 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.

Different treatments of badging on the Start menu.

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.

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]​

• [NEW] The Update history page under Settings > Windows Update > Update history is blank for some users after installing Build 25290. This will be fixed via a newer Update Stack Package delivered via Windows Update when available.
• [NEW[ Investigating reports that some Insiders are experiencing repeated bugchecks after upgrading to Build 25284.
• [NEW] Launching Group Policy Editor may show an error about a displayName attribute not being found.
• Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. A workaround for this is to use the Hello PIN path.
• Some users are experiencing longer than expected update times installing recent builds. We are actively investigating this issue.

[Widgets]​

• [NEW] The link for “Find more widgets” in the widgets picker currently is broken. This will be fixed and linked to the Store collection here in a future update.
• Third-party widgets may occasionally disappear from the widgets board. They can be re-added by clicking refresh or by re-pinning them from the widgets picker.
• Third-party widgets may occasionally get unpinned when the Microsoft account is used to sign-in multiple Windows 11 devices.
• The undo button on the widget pinned/unpinned toast notification sometimes doesn’t work.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• [NEW] App icons on the taskbar may appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.
• The taskbar is sometimes cropped in half when using the tablet-optimized taskbar. You may also see this issue on secondary monitors.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

The following known issues 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:

• There is an issue where you will be unable to change taskbar search box to show as icon only via taskbar settings in some cases. To work around this issue, first change to a different option and then after, you should be able to choose to show as icon only.

[Windows Spotlight]​

The following known issues only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments of Windows Spotlight that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:

• Clicking on a secondary monitor does not dismiss the full screen experience.
• Spotlight wallpaper doesn’t show the correct resolution on multiple / mixed resolution monitors.

For developers​

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. 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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel​

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight. Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently. ALSO: Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25290

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1250 and Build 22623.1250 (KB5023008) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22623.1250 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1250 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22623.xxx).

Changes and Improvements in 22621.1250 & 22623.1250​

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• We are adding a new policy for IT administrators to manage how the search box on the taskbar appears in their organizations. See this blog post for details.

Fixes in Build 22623.1250​

[Task Manager]​

• Typing F in the search box should work again now.
• Fixed an issue where Narrator wasn’t reading out some of the text in dialogs.
• Dragging the window using the search box area should work now (like other areas of the title bar).
• If you do a search and then press the down arrow, keyboard focus should now move from the search box into the results.
• 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.
• Fixed an issue where focus might not get set properly to search, leading to Narrator not saying that focus was on the search box.
• 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.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• 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.
• If you have the taskbar set to auto-hide and press the Windows key and start typing, the taskbar should no longer unexpectedly hide.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel will be the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1250 and 22623.1250

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25295 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR​

• This build includes a new commercial policy and a good set of improvements and fixes.

What’s new​

New commercial policy: Enable features introduced via servicing that are off by default ​

This new policy enables commercial customers to enable features introduced via servicing (outside of the annual feature update) that are off by default for devices that have their Windows updates managed. Windows update managed devices are those that have their Windows updates managed via policy; whether via the cloud using Windows Update for Business or on-premises with Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). While this policy is available for Insider Preview builds in the Dev Channel, there aren’t any features currently in Dev Channel behind the policy. However, we expect to make this policy available in the Beta Channel shortly where there are features behind the policy. Learn more about this new policy here.

Changes and Improvements​

[General]​

• Users will now see a copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts from apps installed on the PC or from phones linked to the PC. We make a best effort to determine if a notification toast has an authentication code but please send us feedback if we got it wrong or if we failed to detect the code in a notification toast.

New copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• The new search on the taskbar experience that began rolling out with Build 25252 is now available for all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Insiders can change the treatment of search on taskbar in settings under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar Items.

New search box experience on the taskbar.

Fixes​

[General]​

• The issue causing repeated bugchecks for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25284+ should be fixed now.
• Made another fix for an issue causing Insiders to experience freezes in recent flights (specifically in this case where apps might freeze if you tried to use them while also trying to play games).
• Fixed an issue where the Update history page under Settings > Windows Update > Update history was blank for some users after installing Build 25290.
• Fixed an issue where some users experienced longer than expected update times installing recent builds. If you experience this issue again, please submit a new feedback item with logs in Feedback Hub.

[File Explorer]​

• Fixed an issue where the add and close tab buttons weren’t working in File Explorer if File Explorer was maximized, and you were using an Arabic or Hebrew display language.

[Input]​

• Fixed an issue which could lead to app windows becoming unresponsive after using multi-finger on screen touch gestures.
• Fixed an underlying issue which was causing your mouse to appear like pointer trails was enabled when sharing your screen.

[Settings]​

• The Add a Device dialog should no longer have an unexpectedly big border.

[Windowing]​

• Fixed an issue which could cause certain apps to move very slowly when you dragged it across the screen.
• Fixed a DWM crash in recent flights which could cause your screen to flash black.
• Fixed an issue where snapped windows might not remember their positions if you disconnected and reconnected your monitor.

[Other]​

• Fixed an underlying crash impacting the ability the ability for apps using Graphics.Capture to take screen captures in recent flights.
• Fixed an underlying issue causing crashes in certain apps when trying to print to PDFs in recent 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]​

• [NEW] Some AAD (Azure Active Directory joined users are now seeing "Getting ready for you" screens when signing into Windows after updating the latest builds. We are investigating the issue.
• [NEW] Some users are experiencing issues authenticating to enterprise websites that require windows integrated authentication. This will be addressed in a future update.
• Launching Group Policy Editor may show an error about a displayName attribute not being found.
• Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. A workaround for this is to use the Hello PIN path.
• We're working on the fix for an 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.
• While using Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) or in doing a clean install of Build 25290, users may encounter rendering issues which create difficulty in using these processes. If you need to do a clean install to your device, please obtain the latest Dev Channel ISO from Download Windows Insider Preview ISO.

[Widgets]​

• The link for “Find more widgets” in the widgets picker currently is broken. This will be fixed and linked to the Store collection here in a future update.
• Third-party widgets may occasionally disappear from the widgets board. They can be re-added by clicking refresh or by re-pinning them from the widgets picker.
• Third-party widgets may occasionally get unpinned when the Microsoft account is used to sign-in multiple Windows 11 devices.
• The undo button on the widget pinned/unpinned toast notification sometimes doesn’t work.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• App icons on the taskbar may appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• There is an issue where you will be unable to change taskbar search box to show as icon only via taskbar settings in some cases. To work around this issue, first change to a different option and then after, you should be able to choose to show as icon only.

[Windows Spotlight]​

The following known issues only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments of Windows Spotlight that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:

• Clicking on a secondary monitor does not dismiss the full screen experience.
• Spotlight wallpaper doesn’t show the correct resolution on multiple / mixed resolution monitors.

For developers​

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel​

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight. Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently. ALSO: Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25295

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1255 and Build 22623.1255 (KB5022918) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22623.1255 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1255 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22623.xxx).

Tabs in Notepad​

We are beginning to roll out tabs in Notepad to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel (version 11.2301.17.0).

Fixes in Build 22623.1255​

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• Fixed an issue where Start would open behind the taskbar when entering it while using the touch keyboard.
• Fixed an issue where the taskbar would disappear when switching from Task view to a Win32 app icon through the tablet-optimized taskbar.

[Task Manager]​

• Process names typed into the search box should no longer unexpected 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.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel will be the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1255 and 22623.1255

 

[silversurfer]

Windows 11: two-factor authentication improvements​

Windows 11 users may install authentication apps on the device to generate these one-use codes for services and apps they use, but they may also receive codes via email or connected mobile devices.

All of these methods have in common that a code is displayed to the user that needs to be entered during the authentication process to access the app, service or site. If Disney+, Netflix or Amazon Prime are installed, these may be set up to require two-factor authentication.

Depending on the way the code is delivered, it may or may not be copied by the user to improve entering it.

Microsoft developed a new feature for Windows 11 that improves the usability of the process, at least for some use cases. Available in developer build 25252 currently, Windows 11 is capable of detecting authentication codes. The operating system displays the code, e.g., if received in the default Mail app, and displays it as a notification.

That is useful already, but Microsoft implemented an option to copy the code to the Clipboard. The new feature speeds up the process significantly. Previously, Windows 11 users had to bring the Mail app or the Authenticator app to the front, locate the code and copy it. Now, all it takes is a single click or tap on the "copy to clipboard" action displayed as part of the notification.

Microsoft admits that the new feature may sometimes fail to identify two-factor authentication codes. Testers are encouraged to provide Microsoft with details on issues that they experience when using the feature.

Microsoft improves usability of two-factor authentication in Windows 11 - gHacks Tech News

Microsoft added a new usability feature to Windows 11 operating systems recently to improve two-factor authentication.

www.ghacks.net

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25300 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR​

• We are releasing ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.
• We’re introducing live captions in more languages with this build.
• This build includes a set of general changes and improvements as well as some good fixes for some known issues.

What’s new​

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.



Live captions in Japanese. 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. We look forward to you trying out live captions in more languages and would love to hear your feedback. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Live captions.

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.

Example of a snap layout treatment we’re trying with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

[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.

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 investigating an issue where some users are experiencing longer than expected update times installing recent builds. If you experienced this issue, please submit a new feedback item with logs in Feedback Hub.
• Some AAD (Azure Active Directory joined users are now seeing "Getting ready for you" screens when signing into Windows after updating the latest builds. We are investigating the issue.
• Launching Group Policy Editor may show an error about a displayName attribute not being found.
• Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. A workaround for this is to use the Hello PIN path.
• We are investigating reports that the Windows Insider Program settings page is showing that a newer build is available in Windows Update even though they are on the latest available build in the Dev Channel.
• [NEW] We’re investigating reports that the New button in Snipping Tool isn’t working for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295. If you are impacted by this, going to Settings > Apps > Default apps, and setting screen snipping as the default for ms-screenclip, it should resolve the issue.

[Widgets]​

• We're investigating an issue where under certain circumstances third-party widgets may not load as expected.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• App icons on the taskbar may appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.

[Windows Spotlight]​

The following known issues only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments of Windows Spotlight that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:

• Clicking on a secondary monitor does not dismiss the full screen experience.

[Live captions]​

• On Arm64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support will install incorrectly through the Language & Region settings page. Arm64 users who don’t have support for speech recognition with live captions in their preferred language can use this work-around: (1) Uninstall all “Speech Pack - ” app entries in Settings > Apps > Installed apps; (2) Temporarily set the first language in their preferred language list in Settings > Time & language > Language & region to an acceptable alternative language; (3) Launch live captions.
• Live captions for Chinese Traditional currently does not work on Arm64 devices.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live captions setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• The Language & Region settings page may not offer the necessary speech recognition language support for live captions for up to an hour after first login.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

For developers​

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel​

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight. Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently. ALSO: Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25300

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1325 and Build 22623.1325 (KB5022914) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22623.1325 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1325 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22623.xxx).

What’s new​

New Widgets: Messenger, Spotify, Phone Link, and Game Pass​

We are beginning to roll out support for new preview widgets for Messenger, Spotify, Phone Link, and Xbox (Game Pass) to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel. 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, Messenger, Game Pass, Phone Link, and Weather 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:

New commercial policy: Enable features introduced via servicing that are off by default​

This new policy enables commercial customers to enable features introduced via servicing (outside of the annual feature update) that are off by default for devices that have their Windows updates managed. Windows update managed devices are those that have their Windows updates managed via policy; whether via the cloud using Windows Update for Business or on-premises with Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Learn more about this new policy here.

Changes and Improvements in 22623.1325​

[Start menu]​

• For devices that are Azure Active Directory (AAD) joined, we are personalizing your experience by delivering AI-powered recommended content within your Start menu. When you open the Start menu, you will find related content to help you prepare for upcoming meetings, quickly access files you're collaborating on, and more.

AI-powered recommended content within your Start menu for AAD-joined devices.

Fixes in Build 22623.1325​

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• Fixed an issue that was causing taskbar to be cut off after resolution changes.

Fixes for BOTH Build 22621.1325 & Build 22623.1325​

• We fixed compatibility issues that affected some printers. Those printers used Windows Graphical Device Interface (GDI) printer drivers. Those drivers did not completely adhere to GDI specifications.
• We fixed a reliability issue that occurred when you used Task View.
• We fixed an issue that affected copying from a network to a local drive. Copying was slower than expected for some users.
• We provided support for the United Mexican States’ daylight-saving time change order for 2023.
• We fixed a date information issue. It affected the format of dates sent between Windows and some versions of the Heimdal Kerberos library.
• We fixed an issue that affected provisioning packages. They failed to apply in certain circumstances when elevation was required.
• We fixed an issue that affected which folders appeared in the Browse for Folder picker.
• We fixed an issue that affected File Explorer. When you used Shift + Tab or Shift + F6, the input focus did not move.
• We fixed an issue that affected the user interface (UI). The volume up and volume down commands from a Bluetooth keyboard did not display.
• We improved the reliability of Windows after you installed an update.
• We fixed an issue that might have affected lsass.exe. It might have stopped responding when it sent a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) query to a domain controller that had a very large LDAP filter.
• We fixed an issue that affected Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Using a provisioning package for bulk provisioning failed.
• We fixed an issue that affected the software keyboard. It did not appear in the Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) after a Push-button reset (factory reset). This type of reset required an external keyboard to be attached to provide credentials.
• We fixed an issue that affected AppV. It stopped file names from having the correct letter case (uppercase or lowercase).
• We fixed an issue that affected Universal Print's Configuration Service Provider (CSP). A command prompt window appeared when you installed a printer.
• We fixed an issue that might have affected the touch keyboard and the PIN entry keyboard. You might not have been able to use them to enter text when you signed in to your device.
• We fixed an issue that displayed a blue screen during video playback. This occurred after you set high dynamic range (HDR) on your display.
• We fixed an issue that affected parity virtual disks. Using Server Manager to create them failed
• We fixed an issue that affected IE mode. The text on the status bar was not always visible.
• We fixed an issue that affected the Color filters setting. When you selected Inverted, the system set it to Grayscale instead.
• We fixed an issue that affected Microsoft Edge. The issue removed conflicting policies for Microsoft Edge. This occurred when you set the MDMWinsOverGPFlag in a Microsoft Intune tenant and Intune detected a policy conflict.
• We fixed an issue that affected the Appx State Repository. When you removed a user profile, the cleanup was incomplete. Because of that, its database grew as time passes. This growth might have caused delays when users signed in to multi-user environments like FSLogix.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel will be the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1325 and 22623.1325

 

[silversurfer]

It appears that Microsoft is preparing to give users more taskbar customization features. Newly found strings in Windows 11 build 25300 (the latest Dev release) point to the option responsible for toggling on and off the taskbar clock and date:

• Hide taskbar clock
• Hide time and date in the System tray
• Turn this on to hide your time and date information in the corner of your taskbar

It is worth noting that the existence of those strings does not mean Microsoft will implement the ability to disable the taskbar clock.

Windows 11 might soon let you disable even more parts of the taskbar, including clock

The latest Windows 11 preview build from the Dev Channel contains interesting strings that point to a potential new feature for toggling on or off more parts of the taskbar, such as date and time.

www.neowin.net

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR​

• With this build, we’re beginning to roll out a new enhanced volume mixer in Quick Settings. We’re also re-introducing an update for the touch keyboard settings, some changes to File Explorer, graphics, and input. And we have some voice access improvements.
• As always, this build also includes a good set of fixes too.

What’s new​

New volume mixer experience in Quick Settings​

We’re introducing a new enhanced volume mixer into Quick Settings! The updated audio quick settings experience brings a modern volume mixer that allows for quick customization of audio on a per-app basis, with additional control to swap devices on the fly. We’ve also added a new keyboard shortcut (WIN + CTRL + V) to bring you directly to the volume mixer for faster control of the experience. With this change, you can now tailor your audio experience better with more control and fewer clicks to
better manage your favorite apps.



New volume mixer experience in quick settings. In addition, we’ve made it easier for users to enable their Windows Sonic experience with a quick access list of installed spatial sound technology. You can visit the Microsoft Store to find additional spatial sound technology to choose from such as Dolby and DTS. [We are beginning to roll this feature out, so it 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.] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Quick Settings.

Updated Touch Keyboard Settings​

After making some fixes, we are re-introducing the new touch keyboard setting we originally introduced with Build 25188 (and disabled with Build 25217) that replaces the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” checkbox under Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard with a new dropdown menu with 3 options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard:

• “Never” suppresses the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
• “When no keyboard attached” will show the touch keyboard only when the device is used as a tablet without the hardware keyboard.
• “Always” will show the touch keyboard even when the hardware keyboard is attached.

New touch keyboard settings. 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.] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Input and Language > Touch keyboard.

Auto Color Management (ACM) Expansion​

Back in October, 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.



Auto Color Management setting in the Advanced display settings page. Note: ACM enablement has the following requirements:

• WDDM driver version 3.0 or greater
• Supported GPU:
  • AMD:
    • AMD RX 400 Series or later
    • AMD Ryzen processors with Radeon Graphics
  • Intel
    • Integrated: Intel 12th Gen (Alder Lake) or later
    • Discrete: Intel DG1 or later
  • NVIDIA:
    • NVIDIA GTX 10xx or later (Pascal+)
  • There are no hard requirements on the display or connection – ACM can provide benefits even on 8-bit sRGB panels. However, we strongly recommend ACM devices to have panels with a wider-than-sRGB gamut, and optionally 10-bits per color channel or greater.

[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.] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Display and Graphics > Windows HD Color.

Voice access improvements​

Redesigned in-app command help page: We have completely renovated the in-app command help page in voice access to make it simpler to use and comprehend. The search bar allows users to quickly find commands and the different categories provide further guidance. Every command now has a description and examples of its variations, making it easier to understand and use. You can access the command help page from Help > View all commands on the voice access bar or use the voice command “what can I say”.



Redesigned in-app help page in voice access. Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice - Microsoft Support. Voice access is available in English dialects: We have extended voice access to support other English dialects such as English -UK, English – India, English – New Zealand, English – Canada, English – Australia. When voice access is turned on for the first time, you will be prompted to download a speech model to enable on-device recognition of voice data. In case voice access does not find a speech model matching your display language, you can still choose to proceed ahead to use voice access in English – US. You can always switch to a different language by navigating to Settings > Language on the voice access bar.



Language on the voice access bar. New text selection & editing commands: We have added some more useful commands to make text selection and editing easier with voice access.

To do this	Say this
Select a range of text in the text box	“Select from [text 1] to [text 2]”, e.g., “Select from have to voice access”
Delete all the text in a text box	“Delete all”
Apply bold/underline/italicize formatting on the selected text or last dictated text	“Bold that”, “Underline that”, “Italicize that”
Remove all whitespaces from selected text or last dictated text For example, you dictated “Peyton Davis @outlook.com” in the last utterance and you want to remove all spaces to get output as PeytonDavis@outlook.com	“no space that”
Insert “text" at the cursor and capitalize first letter of each word. For example, you want to insert “Hello World ” at the text cursor	“Caps [text]” ,e.g., “Caps hello world”
Inserts "text" at the cursor without any whitespace before "text". For example, the text “Peyton” is entered in the text box and now you want to insert “Davis” but do not want a space to be added before Davis. (output: PeytonDavis)	“No space [text]” e.g., “No space Davis””

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Voice Access.

Changes and Improvements​

[General]​

• Starting with Build 25290, we started a new exploration of badging on the Start menu with two new treatments that some Insiders in the Dev Channel will see. Starting today, we're trying out different text variants within these treatments. 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.

Different treatments of badging on the Start menu with different text variants.

• We’re trying out a more personalized second-chance out of box experience (SCOOBE) with a small subset of Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

Example treatment of a personalized second-chance out of box experience (SCOOBE) screen.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode. Specifically, when the Windows 11 mode is set to dark, and the app mode is set to light under Settings > Personalization > Colors you will see a lighter search box on taskbar.

The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode.

[File Explorer]​

• Windows Insiders will begin noticing a “pizza” icon on the command bar in File Explorer. This icon denotes that an Insider is previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer. Functionality in File Explorer remains unchanged, it just switches from using WinUI 2 to using WinUI 3.

Pizza icon in File Explorer’s command bar to denote previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer.

[Snap layouts]​

• After pausing this with Build 25300, we are un-pausing this with this build - 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.

Example of a snap layout treatment we’re trying with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

[Windows Spotlight]​

• Starting today, we are disabling the different treatments we’ve been trying out for Windows Spotlight that began with Build 25281 due to an issue impacting the experience Insiders will have on these treatments. We plan to re-introduce an updated Windows Spotlight experience for Insiders in a future flight based on the feedback from Insiders from using these different treatments. As part of disabling these treatments, Insiders may need to go to Settings > Personalization and re-enable Windows Spotlight.

[Input]​

• We have updated the Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition engine to be faster and more accurate as well as supported characters defined in GB18030-2022. Currently you can write characters in GB18030-2022 Level 2 and some of characters in GB18030-2022 Level 1 in the handwriting panel or directly into the text field when it's supported. Please try it and let us know what you think.

The Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition engine is faster and more accurate and now supports characters defined in GB18030-202.

[Widgets]​

• We are beginning to roll out theme-aware icons for Widgets on the taskbar so that based on the user’s Windows theme (dark or light), the Widgets icons will display a theme-aware icon that will have a higher contrast ratio which will make information on the taskbar clearer for users, particularly for those with low-sight.

Examples of updated theme-aware icons for Widgets on the taskbar with a higher contrast ratio.

[Settings]​

• Settings > Power & Battery has been updated to include settings for choosing what happens when interacting with your PC's physical power controls.

Fixes​

[General]​

• Fixed an issue causing USB devices (including keyboard and mouse) to not work for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295+.
• Fixed an issue for some Insiders where if you’d uninstalled the previous flight, it would cause your Start menu and taskbar to cyclically crash.
• Fixed an issue where when using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition, it may not have worked on Arm64 PCs.
• Fixed an issue with the Windows Insider Program settings page showing a newer build was available in Windows Update even though you were on the latest available build in the Dev Channel.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• Fixed multiple Explorer.exe crashes impacting taskbar and system tray.
• Fixed a display issue that could result in the taskbar appearing duplicated when making resolution changes.
• Fixed an issue which was causing app icons on the taskbar to appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.

[Widgets]​

• We fixed an issue where under certain circumstances third-party widgets were not loading as expected.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• Fixed rendering issues when using the touch keyboard with the search box on taskbar.
• Fixed an issue when double clicking the search highlight glyph in the search box makes it disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search box would randomly disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search icon flips incorrectly for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
• Fixed on issue where you might have seen some text flicker in the search box when you click into it.
• Fixed an issue where the search box might disappear on one monitor if you are using multiple monitors.
• Made some accessibility fixes to the settings for search under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.

[File Explorer]​

• Fixed an issue which caused Insiders with custom desktop icon arrangements / sizes to get set back to default in the previous build.
• Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of File Explorer unexpectedly jumping into the foreground sometimes.
• The “Open in new tab” context menu option and middle clicking folders will now open the tab in the background rather than switching focus.
• Fixed an issue where the close button could get stuck in a highlighted state when you moved your mouse across it.

[Input]​

• Fix an issue where when using the French-Canadian layout for the touch keyboard, the letters output when typing didn’t always match what was displayed on the keys.
• When using the Korean IME, CTRL + F10 should no longer open the IME context menu.

[Settings]​

• Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the root cause of why some Insiders saw their startup app settings get reset with the previous build.
• Going to Privacy & Security > Phone Calls should no longer crash Settings.

[Windowing]​

• Fixed a high hitting DWM.exe crash in the last couple flights.

[Other]​

• Fixed multiple issues that were preventing some of the new live captions language models from downloading correctly.
• Fixed an underlying issue causing Insiders on Arm64 PCs to not be able to activate M365, with it citing a network issue.
• Fixed a search indexer crash.
• Fixed an underlying issue that could cause UWP apps to appear in English after upgrading although that wasn’t your display language.
• Fixed an issue which was causing .appinstaller packages to fail to install with an error message that says “The parameter is incorrect” (even though it wasn’t).
• Fixed an underlying issue causing certain cameras to not work in apps with the last flight.
• Fixed an underlying issue which was leading to Microsoft Edge crashes for some Insiders in the last few 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 investigating an issue where some users are experiencing longer than expected update times installing recent builds. If you experienced this issue, please submit a new feedback item with logs in Feedback Hub.
• Some AAD (Azure Active Directory joined users are now seeing "Getting ready for you" screens when signing into Windows after updating the latest builds. We are investigating the issue.
• Launching Group Policy Editor may show an error about a displayName attribute not being found.

[Snipping Tool]​

• We’re working on the fix for an issue causing the New button in Snipping Tool to not work for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295. If you are impacted by this, going to Settings > Apps > Default apps, and setting screen snipping as the default for ms-screenclip, it should resolve the issue.

[Live captions]​

• On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live caption setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• The Language & Region settings page may not offer the necessary speech recognition language support for live captions for up to an hour after first login.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

[Voice access]​

• [NEW] Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice - Microsoft Support.

For developers​

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel​

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight. Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently. ALSO: Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1391 and Build 22624.1391 (KB5023011) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22624.1391 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1391 = New features off by default.

UPDATED: Insiders who were previously on Build 22623 will automatically get moved to Build 22624 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22624.xxxx). Off-ramp for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel: Insiders in the Beta Channel who chose the option to unenroll their device under “Stop getting preview builds” under Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program and are currently on Build 22621.1325 or 22623.1325 will NOT receive this update. These Insiders are part of the off-ramp out of the Beta Channel running until March 8th, 2023 as described here in this blog post.

What’s new in Build 22624.1391​

Voice access improvements​

Redesigned in-app command help page: We have completely renovated the in-app command help page in voice access to make it simpler to use and comprehend. The search bar allows users to quickly find commands and the different categories provide further guidance. Every command now has a description and examples of its variations, making it easier to understand and use. You can access the command help page from Help > View all commands on the voice access bar or use the voice command “what can I say”.



Redesigned in-app help page in voice access. Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice - Microsoft Support. Voice access is available in English dialects: We have extended voice access to support other English dialects such as English -UK, English – India, English – New Zealand, English – Canada, English – Australia. When voice access is turned on for the first time, you will be prompted to download a speech model to enable on-device recognition of voice data. In case voice access does not find a speech model matching your display language, you can still choose to proceed ahead to use voice access in English – US. You can always switch to a different language by navigating to Settings > Language on the voice access bar.



Language on the voice access bar. New text selection & editing commands: We have added some more useful commands to make text selection and editing easier with voice access.

To do this	Say this
Select a range of text in the text box	“Select from [text 1] to [text 2]”, e.g., “Select from have to voice access”
Delete all the text in a text box	“Delete all”
Apply bold/underline/italicize formatting on the selected text or last dictated text	“Bold that”, “Underline that”, “Italicize that”
Remove all whitespaces from selected text or last dictated text For example, you dictated “Peyton Davis @outlook.com” in the last utterance and you want to remove all spaces to get output as PeytonDavis@outlook.com	“no space that”
Insert “text" at the cursor and capitalize first letter of each word. For example, you want to insert “Hello World ” at the text cursor	“Caps [text]” ,e.g., “Caps hello world”
Inserts "text" at the cursor without any whitespace before "text". For example, the text “Peyton” is entered in the text box and now you want to insert “Davis” but do not want a space to be added before Davis. (output: PeytonDavis)	“No space [text]” e.g., “No space Davis””

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Voice Access.

Fixes for BOTH Build 22621.1391 & Build 22624.1391​

• This update improves the reliability of Windows after you install an update.
• Fixed an issue from the last Beta Channel flight which was causing Notification Center, Quick Settings, and taskbar jump lists to not work for some Insiders.

Known issues​

[Voice access]​

• Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice - Microsoft Support.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel will be the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1391 and 22624.1391

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23403 to the Dev Channel. As a reminder, we have rebooted the Dev Channel to begin flighting 23000 series builds as announced earlier this week Note: Windows Insiders who were previously in the Dev Channel on 25000 series builds are being moved to the new Canary Channel. If you are on Build 25309 and haven’t been moved to the Canary Channel yet, you will not receive this build as it has a lower build number than the build you are already on. However, the migration continues to happen in the background and once complete you will receive the latest build available. Can’t wait? If you want the latest builds immediately, you can move yourself to the Canary Channel on your own via Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program. Or follow these instructions to do a clean installation of Windows 11 and then re-join the Dev Channel to receive 23000 series builds going forward. Insiders in the Beta Channel can move to Dev Channel via the settings as well and receive this build without additional steps. Since we have rebooted the Dev Channel for flighting 23000 series builds, we’re also rebooting the content in the blog posts for Dev Channel flights – including known issues below.

What’s new in Build 23403​

Introducing live captions in more languages​

Live captions help 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. [caption id="attachment_176066" align="alignnone" width="733"] Live captions in Japanese.[/caption] 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. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Live captions.

Access Keys in File Explorer​

We are adding access key shortcuts into the XAML context menu in File Explorer. An access key is a one keystroke shortcut that allows a keyboard user to quickly execute a command in context menu. Each access key will correspond with a letter in the display name. It's part of our effort to make File Explorer more accessible. To try this out, you can click on a file in File Explorer and press the menu key on your keyboard. [caption id="attachment_176116" align="alignnone" width="397"] Access keys in the XAML context menu in File Explorer.[/caption] [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.] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

File Recommendations in File Explorer​

File Recommendations are coming to File Explorer Home to bring users the most relevant file content right to their fingertips. This feature (as pictured below) will be available to users signed into Windows with an Azure Active Directory (AAD) account. Files that are recommended will be cloud files associated with that account, either owned by the user, or shared with the user. [caption id="attachment_176117" align="alignnone" width="732"] File recommendations in File Explorer for users signed in with an AAD account.[/caption] [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.] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

Voice access improvements​

Redesigned in-app command help page: We have completely renovated the in-app command help page in voice access to make it simpler to use and comprehend. The search bar allows users to quickly find commands and the various categories provide further guidance. Every command now has a description and examples of its variations, making it easier to understand and use. You can access the command help page from Help > View all commands on the voice access bar or use the voice command “what can I say”. [caption id="attachment_176096" align="alignnone" width="732"] Redesigned in-app help page in voice access.[/caption] Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice - Microsoft Support. Voice access is available in English dialects: We have extended voice access to support other English dialects such as English -UK, English – India, English – New Zealand, English – Canada, English – Australia. When voice access is turned on for the first time, you will be prompted to download a speech model to enable on-device recognition of voice data. In case voice access does not find a speech model matching your display language, you can still choose to proceed ahead to use voice access in English – US. You can always switch to a different language by navigating to Settings > Language on the voice access bar. [caption id="attachment_176097" align="alignnone" width="732"] Language on the voice access bar.[/caption] New text selection & editing commands: We have added some more useful commands to make text selection and editing easier with voice access.

To do this	Say this
Select a range of text in the text box	“Select from [text 1] to [text 2]”, e.g., “Select from have to voice access”
Delete all the text in a text box	“Delete all”
Apply bold/underline/italicize formatting on the selected text or last dictated text	“Bold that”, “Underline that”, “Italicize that”
Remove all whitespaces from selected text or last dictated text For example, you dictated “Peyton Davis @outlook.com” in the last utterance and you want to remove all spaces to get output as PeytonDavis@outlook.com	“no space that”
Insert “text" at the cursor and capitalize first letter of each word. For example, you want to insert “Hello World ” at the text cursor	“Caps [text]” ,e.g., “Caps hello world”
Inserts "text" at the cursor without any whitespace before "text". For example, the text “Peyton” is entered in the text box and now you want to insert “Davis” but do not want a space to be added before Davis. (output: PeytonDavis)	“No space [text]” e.g., “No space Davis””

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Voice Access.

Updated Touch Keyboard Settings​

We are introducing updates for the new touch keyboard setting that replaces the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” checkbox under Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard with a new dropdown menu with 3 options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard:

• “Never” suppresses the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
• “When no keyboard attached” will show the touch keyboard only when the device is used as a tablet without the hardware keyboard.
• “Always” will show the touch keyboard even when the hardware keyboard is attached.

[caption id="attachment_175823" align="alignnone" width="697"] New touch keyboard settings.[/caption]

Narrator Outlook Support​

Narrator will now retrieve updates to its Outlook support when Narrator is started. You can learn more about the work we did for Outlook in Chapter 5 of the Narrator User Guide. We have not added any additional functionality to our Outlook support, but this work will allow updates to the Outlook experience to be made through the Microsoft Store. You will receive a notification after the download is completed to inform you that the update has been retrieved. With this change, Narrator’s Outlook support is limited to U.S. English only. Other languages will be supported in a future flight. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Narrator.

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.

Multi-app kiosk mode is ideal for scenarios in which multiple people need to use the same device. This can include frontline workers and retail scenarios, education and test taking. Currently, multi-app kiosk mode can be enabled using PowerShell and WMI Bridge, with support for Intune/MDM and provisioning package configuration coming soon. To configure using WMI, follow these instructions. Using the Windows 10 sample XML will enable the feature, but will result in an empty Start menu. To populate the Start menu with your apps, follow these instructions to generate the list of pinned apps, then add it to your XML file after closing the StartLayout section, like the below:
<win11:StartPins><![CDATA[ <em>Your JSON here </em>]]></win11:StartPins>
Don’t forget to update the namespace by replacing the AssignedAccessConfiguration tag with the below:
<AssignedAccessConfiguration xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/AssignedAccess/2017/config” xmlns:win11=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/AssignedAccess/2022/config”>
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Device Lockdown

Changes and Improvements​

[General]​

• Users will now see a copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts from apps installed on the PC or from phones linked to the PC. We make a best effort to determine if a notification toast has an authentication code but please send us feedback if we got it wrong or if we failed to detect the code in a notification toast. This change is beginning to roll out, so not all Insiders in the Dev Channel will see it right away.

[caption id="attachment_176057" align="alignnone" width="328"] New copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts.[/caption]

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• We have added a glanceable VPN status into the system tray when connected to a recognized VPN profile. The VPN icon, a small shield, will be overlayed in over the active network connection. Currently, the overlayed VPN icon does not use your system accent color but will do so in a future build.

[caption id="attachment_176118" align="alignnone" width="267"] A glanceable VPN status into the system tray.[/caption]

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode. Specifically, when the Windows 11 mode is set to dark, and the app mode is set to light under Settings > Personalization > Colors you will see a lighter search box on taskbar.

[caption id="attachment_176101" align="alignnone" width="548"] The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode.[/caption]

[Input]​

• We have updated the Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition engine to be faster and more accurate as well as supported characters defined in GB18030-2022. Currently you can write characters in GB18030-2022 Level 2 and some of characters in GB18030-2022 Level 1 in the handwriting panel or directly into the text field when it’s supported. Please try it and let us know what you think.

[caption id="attachment_176103" align="alignnone" width="586"] The Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition engine is faster and more accurate and now supports characters defined in GB18030-202.[/caption]

[Settings]​

• 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.

Fixes​

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• Fixed rendering issues when using the touch keyboard with the search box on taskbar.
• Fixed an issue when double clicking the search highlight glyph in the search box makes it disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search box would randomly disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search icon flips incorrectly for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
• Fixed on issue where you might have seen some text flicker in the search box when you click into it.
• Fixed an issue where the search box might disappear on one monitor if you are using multiple monitors.
• Made some accessibility fixes to the settings for search under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.

[File Explorer]​

• Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of File Explorer unexpectedly jumping into the foreground sometimes.

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​

[File Explorer]​

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer:

• Access keys will appear inconsistently if no button is pressed. Pressing a button will cause them to reappear.

Insiders will have issues with the following commands on recommended files in File Explorer:

• Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).
• Clicking on the “Open File Location” command will pop an error dialog that can easily be dismissed.
• Clicking on the ‘Remove from list’ command will result in no actions.

[Live captions]​

• On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
• Live captions for Chinese Traditional currently does not work on Arm64 devices.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live caption setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

[Voice access]​

• Please note that the redesigned in-app help page in voice access may not include all commands and the supplementary information may be inaccurate. We plan to update this in future builds. If you want an exhaustive list of Voice Access commands and extra information about them, we recommend you refer Use voice access to control your PC & author text with your voice – Microsoft Support.

For developers​

UPDATED: Please note that the SDK is not yet available for the builds in the Dev Channel. You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines. SDK flights are now published for both the Canary and Dev Channels, so be sure to choose the right version for your Insider Channel. Remember to use adaptive code when targeting new APIs to make sure your app runs on all customer machines, particularly when building against the Dev Channel SDK. Feature detection is recommended over OS version checks, as OS version checks are unreliable and will not work as expected in all cases.

About the Dev Channel​

REMINDER: The Dev Channel has been rebooted. Windows Insiders who were in the Dev Channel on 25000 series builds are being moved to the new Canary Channel. Going forward, the Dev Channel will receive 23000 series builds. Insiders who were moved to the Canary Channel and want to move back to the Dev Channel can follow these instructions to do a clean installation of Windows 11 and then re-join the Dev Channel to receive 23000 series builds. The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. In some cases, features and experiences may go out to the Canary Channel first before going out to the Dev Channel however the Dev Channel will provide better platform stability. As we get closer to shipping, some features and experiences will also make their way to the Beta Channel when they are ready. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23403

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25314 to the Canary Channel. As a reminder, Windows Insiders who were previously in the Dev Channel on 25000 series builds are being moved to the new Canary Channel. This migration continues to happen in the background, but if you are on Build 25309 and haven’t been moved to the Canary Channel yet, you can either wait to be moved or move yourself to the Canary Channel on your own via Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program to receive Build 25314 today. If you would like to move back to the Dev Channel, you can follow these instructions to do a clean installation of Windows 11 and then re-join the Dev Channel to receive 23000 series builds in this channel going forward. As builds released to the Canary Channel are “hot off the presses,” we will offer limited documentation for builds flighted to the Canary Channel (no known issues for example), but we will not publish a blog post for every flight – only when new features are available in a build.

What’s new in Build 25314​

Access Keys in File Explorer​

We are adding access key shortcuts into the XAML context menu in File Explorer. An access key is a one keystroke shortcut that allows a keyboard user to quickly execute a command in context menu. Each access key will correspond with a letter in the display name. It's part of our effort to make File Explorer more accessible. To try this out, you can click on a file in File Explorer and press the menu key on your keyboard. NOTE: If you see the “pizza” icon on the command bar in File Explorer that denotes you are previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer, you will not see this feature yet. [caption id="attachment_176116" align="alignnone" width="427"] Access keys in the XAML context menu in File Explorer.[/caption] [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 Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

File Recommendations in File Explorer​

File Recommendations are coming to File Explorer Home to bring users the most relevant file content right to their fingertips. This feature (as pictured below) will be available to users signed into Windows with an Azure Active Directory (AAD) account. Files that are recommended will be cloud files associated with that account, either owned by the user, or shared with the user. [caption id="attachment_176117" align="alignnone" width="732"] File recommendations in File Explorer for users signed in with an AAD account.[/caption] [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 Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

Introducing LSA Protection Enablement on Upgrade​

Local Security Authority (LSA) protection helps protect against theft of secrets and credentials used for logon by preventing unauthorized code from running in the LSA process and by preventing dumping of process memory. Starting with on upgrade, we will audit for a period of time to check for incompatibilities with LSA protection. If we do not detect any incompatibilities, we will automatically turn on LSA Protection. You can check and change the enablement state of LSA protection in the Windows Security application under the Device Security > Core Isolation page. [caption id="attachment_176121" align="alignnone" width="668"] Local Security Authority (LSA) protection in Windows Security.[/caption] LSA protection records whether programs are blocked from loading into LSA in the event log. If you would like to check if something has been blocked, information on the logs recorded is available here. Feedback: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN+F) under Security and Privacy > Logging Into Your PC.

Narrator Outlook Support​

Narrator will now retrieve updates to its Outlook support when Narrator is started. You can learn more about the work we did for Outlook in Chapter 5 of the Narrator User Guide. We have not added any additional functionality to our Outlook support, but this work will allow updates to the Outlook experience to be made through the Microsoft Store. You will receive a notification after the download is completed to inform you that the update has been retrieved. With this change, Narrator’s Outlook support is limited to U.S. English only. Other languages will be supported in a future flight. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Narrator.

Changes and Improvements​

[General]​

To increase security in Windows 11, starting with this build and later we are disabling the Remote Mailslot Protocol by default. The legacy Remote Mailslot Protocol is a simple, unreliable, insecure, and unidirectional inter-process communications protocol between a client and server and was introduced in Windows NT 3.1 and will be deprecated in a future Windows release. If an application attempts to open a Remote Mailslot session over the SMB protocol, you may see one or more of the following errors:

• 3025 ERROR_REMOTE_MAILSLOTS_DEPRECATED
• “The requested operation failed. Remote mailslots have been deprecated.”

If your application still uses Remote Mailslot, contact your vendor about updating their software. The legacy Remote Mailslot is not secure and should not be used under any circumstances. If you need to temporarily enable Remote Mailslot, run the following command in an elevated PowerShell console:
PS C:\> Set-SmbClientConfiguration -EnableMailslots $true

About the Canary Channel​

The Canary Channel is the place to preview platform changes that require longer-lead time before getting released to customers. Some examples of this include major changes to the Windows kernel, new APIs, etc. Builds that we release to the Canary Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and some of the changes we try out in the Canary Channel will never ship, and others could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready. The builds that will be flighted to the Canary Channel will be “hot off the presses,” flighting very soon after they are built, which means very little validation and documentation will be done before they are offered to Insiders. These builds could include major issues that could result in not being able to use your PC correctly or even in some rare cases require you to reinstall Windows. We will offer limited documentation for the Canary Channel, but we will not publish a blog post for every flight – only when new features are available in a build. Our Canary Channel won’t receive daily builds; however, we may ramp up releasing builds more frequently in the future. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25314

 

[piquiteco]

@Bot What is the current build of Windows 11?

 

[Bot]

@Bot What is the current build of Windows 11?

As an AI language model, I do not have real-time access to the latest information about the build of Windows 11. However, as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, the latest build of Windows 11 was Build 22000.194, which was released on September 28, 2021. It is possible that newer builds have been released since then, so you may want to check the official Microsoft website or other reliable sources for the most up-to-date information.

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1465 and Build 22624.1465 (KB5023775) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22624.1465 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1465 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22623 will automatically get moved to Build 22624 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22624.xxxx).

What’s new in Build 22624.1465​

Introducing live captions in more languages​

Live captions help 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.



Live captions in Japanese. 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. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Live captions.

Updated Touch Keyboard Settings​

We are introducing updates for the new touch keyboard setting that replaces the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” checkbox under Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard with a new dropdown menu with 3 options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard:

• “Never” suppresses the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
• “When no keyboard attached” will show the touch keyboard only when the device is used as a tablet without the hardware keyboard.
• “Always” will show the touch keyboard even when the hardware keyboard is attached.

New touch keyboard settings. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Input and Language > Touch keyboard.

Cloud Suggestion in Simplified Chinese IME​

We are trying out some changes that will allow you to easily type 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.



Simplified Chinese IME candidate window with a word suggestion from Bing at the second place. The integrated search suggestion gives you additional suggestions that are similar to what you see in Bing search page. You can either insert a suggestion as text or search it directly in Bing.



Bing search suggestions expanded from IME candidate window. To turn on these features, select a chevron button at the right end of the IME candidate window. You’ll find Turn on button.



IME candidate window with a balloon tip that points to the chevron button. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Input and Language > Text Input.

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.

Multi-app kiosk mode is ideal for scenarios in which multiple people need to use the same device. This can include frontline workers and retail scenarios, education and test taking. Currently, multi-app kiosk mode can be enabled using PowerShell and WMI Bridge, with support for Intune/MDM and provisioning package configuration coming soon. To configure using WMI, follow these instructions. Using the Windows 10 sample XML will enable the feature, but will result in an empty Start menu. To populate the Start menu with your apps, follow these instructions to generate the list of pinned apps, then add it to your XML file after closing the StartLayout section, like the below:
<win11:StartPins><![CDATA[ <em>Your JSON here </em>]]></win11:StartPins>
Don’t forget to update the namespace by replacing the AssignedAccessConfiguration tag with the below:
<AssignedAccessConfiguration xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/AssignedAccess/2017/config” xmlns:win11=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/AssignedAccess/2022/config”>
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Device Lockdown.

Changes and Improvements in 22624.1465​

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• We have added a glanceable VPN status into the system tray when connected to a recognized VPN profile. The VPN icon, a small shield, will be overlayed in your system accent color over the active network connection.

Glanceable VPN status in the system tray using system accent color.

[Voice access]​

• The redesigned in-app help page in voice access introduced with Build 22624.1391 now includes all commands and the supplementary information accurately.

Redesigned in-app help page in voice access.

Fixes for BOTH Build 22621.1465 & Build 22624.1465​

• This update implements phase three of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) hardening. See KB5004442. After you install this update, you cannot turn off the changes using the registry key.
• This update addresses an issue that affects a computer account and Active Directory. When you reuse an existing computer account to join an Active Directory domain, joining fails. This occurs on devices that have installed Windows updates dated October 11, 2022 or later. The error message is, “Error 0xaac (2732): NERR_AccountReuseBlockedByPolicy: ‘An account with the same name exists in Active Directory. Re-using the account was blocked by security policy.’” For more information, see KB5020276.

Known issues​

[Live captions]​

• On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
• Live captions for Chinese Traditional currently does not work on Arm64 devices.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live caption setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel is the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1465 and 22624.1465

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23419 to the Dev Channel. We are releasing ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.

What’s new in Build 23419​

Create live kernel memory dumps in Task Manager​

We are introducing a set of new developer-focused features in Task Manager to aid the collection of live kernel memory dumps (LKDs). This is in addition to the existing “Memory dump” for user mode processes. The goal of kernel live dump is to gather data to troubleshoot an abnormal situation but allow the OS to continue operation. This reduces downtime when compared to a bug check for “non-fatal” but high-impact failures and hangs. Click here for more info on live kernel dumps. To capture a live kernel memory dump (LKD), go to the Details page in Task Manager, right-click on the System process and the context menu should light up to show “Create live kernel memory dump file” to capture a Full live kernel or Kernel stack memory dumps. The dumps will be written to a fixed location: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\TaskManager\LiveKernelDumps [caption id="attachment_176014" align="alignnone" width="693"] Choose the new “Create live kernel memory dump file” option when right-clicking on a process on the details page in Task Manager.[/caption] You can also go to the Task Manager Settings page to view/edit the settings for live kernel memory dumps. [caption id="attachment_176015" align="alignnone" width="591"] Configure live kernel dumps options in Task Manager settings.[/caption] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Task Manager.

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.

[caption id="attachment_176142" align="alignnone" width="519"] USB4 Settings page with details shown.[/caption] 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. [caption id="attachment_176143" align="alignnone" width="246"] USB4 Host Router as shown in Device Manager.[/caption] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Buses.

Cloud Suggestion in Simplified Chinese IME​

We are trying out some changes that will allow you to easily type 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. [caption id="attachment_175884" align="alignnone" width="725"] Simplified Chinese IME candidate window with a word suggestion from Bing at the second place.[/caption] The integrated search suggestion gives you additional suggestions that are similar to what you see in Bing search page. You can either insert a suggestion as text or search it directly in Bing. [caption id="attachment_175885" align="alignnone" width="510"] Bing search suggestions expanded from IME candidate window.[/caption] To turn on these features, select a chevron button at the right end of the IME candidate window. You’ll find Turn on button. [caption id="attachment_175886" align="alignnone" width="595"] IME candidate window with a balloon tip that points to the chevron button.[/caption] FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Input and Language > Text Input.

Changes and Improvements​

[General]​

• The new features for app defaults in Windows 11 as mentioned here in this blog post are included in this build. The features for app pinning are coming in a future flight.

[Start menu]​

• We are trying out a small change with some Windows Insiders where the “Recommended” section of the Start menu is changed to “For you”. Let us know what you think in Feedback Hub if you see this change.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• The glanceable VPN status show overlayed over an active network connection into the system tray when connected to a recognized VPN profile now displays in your system accent color.

[caption id="attachment_176126" align="alignnone" width="358"] Glanceable VPN status in the system tray using system accent color.[/caption]

• In response to user feedback, we are introducing the capability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray. This feature can be enabled by toggling the option listed under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar in the Taskbar behavior section. You can also right-click on taskbar to quickly get to taskbar settings. We are beginning to roll this change out so not all Windows Insiders will see this change right away, but we hope to make it available to everyone soon.

[caption id="attachment_176146" align="alignnone" width="662"] Option to show seconds in the system tray clock.[/caption]

[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.

[Voice access]​

• The redesigned in-app help page in voice access introduced with Build 23403 now includes all commands and the supplementary information accurately.

[caption id="attachment_176096" align="alignnone" width="732"] Redesigned in-app help page in voice access.[/caption]

[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.
• Pressing the print screen key will now open Snipping Tool by default. This setting can be turned off via Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard. If you have previously modified this setting yourself, your preference will be preserved.

[Developer]​

• Virtual Memory ranges which are marked by a KbCallbackTriageDumpData BugCheck Callback Routine will now be added to kernel-generated minidumps after a bugcheck.

Fixes​

[General]​

• Improved the experience on logon after booting up by reducing the performance impact of startup apps.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• Fixed an issue that was causing Narrator to read the position before the name on system tray icons.
• Fixed an issue causing the show hidden icons flyout to open behind things like OneNote flyout and live captions.
• Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe crashes related to drag and drop.

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• Fixed a search crash from the last flight.

[File Explorer]​

• Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening Home if certain content was visible in the Recent section.
• Made some improvements to the performance of loading File Explorer in the case where there’s a disconnected network drive visible in the navigation pane.

[Start menu]​

• Fixed an issue where dragging content across an open Start menu folder could cause a crash.

[Input]​

• Fixed an issue where after using voice typing your PC might not enter modern standby.

[Live captions]​

• We fixed the issue causing live captions to not work for Chinese Traditional on Arm64 devices.

[Task Manager]​

• Fixed an issue where some of the details in the Performance page wouldn’t display properly until you resized the window or changed pages back and forth.

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​

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• There is an issue where some people may not see the search box on taskbar and/or the settings to adjust the search box experience on the taskbar after updating to Build 23403. We are aware of the issue, and we are working on a fix.

[File Explorer]​

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer:

• Access keys will appear inconsistently if no button is pressed. Pressing a button will cause them to reappear.

Insiders will have issues with the following commands on recommended files in File Explorer:

• Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).
• Clicking on the “Open File Location” command will pop an error dialog that can easily be dismissed.
• Clicking on the ‘Remove from list’ command will result in no actions.

[Live captions]​

• On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live caption setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

For developers​

Please note that the SDK is not yet available for this build in the Dev Channel. You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk. SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at aka.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

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines. SDK flights are now published for both the Canary and Dev Channels, so be sure to choose the right version for your Insider Channel. Remember to use adaptive code when targeting new APIs to make sure your app runs on all customer machines, particularly when building against the Dev Channel SDK. Feature detection is recommended over OS version checks, as OS version checks are unreliable and will not work as expected in all cases.

About the Dev Channel​

REMINDER: The Dev Channel has been rebooted. Windows Insiders who were in the Dev Channel on 25000 series builds are being moved to the new Canary Channel. Going forward, the Dev Channel will receive 23000 series builds. Insiders who were moved to the Canary Channel and want to move back to the Dev Channel can follow these instructions to do a clean installation of Windows 11 and then re-join the Dev Channel to receive 23000 series builds. The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features. In some cases, features and experiences may go out to the Canary Channel first before going out to the Dev Channel however the Dev Channel will provide better platform stability. As we get closer to shipping, some features and experiences will also make their way to the Beta Channel when they are ready. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23419

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1470 and Build 22624.1470 (KB5023780) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22624.1470 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.1470 = New features off by default.

REMINDER: Insiders who were previously on Build 22623 will automatically get moved to Build 22624 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts. Insiders who landed in the group with new features turned off by default (Build 22621.xxxx) can check for updates and choose to install the update that will have features rolling out (Build 22624.xxxx).

What’s new in Build 22624.1470​

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.

USB4 Settings page with details shown. 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.

]

USB4 Host Router as shown in Device Manager. FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Buses.

Changes and Improvements in Build 22624.1470​

[General]​

• Users will now see a copy button for quickly copying two-factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts from apps installed on the PC or from phones linked to the PC. We make a best effort to determine if a notification toast has an authentication code but please send us feedback if we got it wrong or if we failed to detect the code in a notification toast.

New copy button for quickly copying two-

factor authentication (2FA) codes in notification toasts.

[Taskbar & System Tray]​

• We have added a glanceable VPN status into the system tray when connected to a recognized VPN profile. The VPN icon, a small shield, will be overlayed in your system accent color over the active network connection.

Glanceable VPN status in the system tray using system accent color.

• In response to user feedback, we are introducing the capability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray. This feature can be enabled by toggling the option listed under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar in the Taskbar behavior section. You can also right-click on taskbar to quickly get to taskbar settings.

Option to show seconds in the system tray clock.

Changes and Improvements for BOTH Build 22621.1470 & Build 22624.1470​

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode. Specifically, when the Windows 11 mode is set to dark, and the app mode is set to light under Settings > Personalization > Colors you will see a lighter search box on taskbar.

The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode.

Fixes in Build 22624.1470​

[Live captions]​

• We fixed the issue causing live captions to not work for Chinese Traditional on Arm64 devices.

Fixes for BOTH Build 22621.1470 & Build 22624.1470​

[Search on the Taskbar]​

• Fixed rendering issues when using the touch keyboard with the search box on taskbar.
• Fixed an issue when double clicking the search highlight glyph in the search box makes it disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search box would randomly disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search icon flips incorrectly for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
• Fixed on issue where you might have seen some text flicker in the search box when you click into it.
• Fixed an issue where the search box might disappear on one monitor if you are using multiple monitors.
• Made some accessibility fixes to the settings for search under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.

Known issues​

[Live captions]​

• On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
• Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
• When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live caption setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
• Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

About the Beta Channel​

The Beta Channel is the place we preview experiences that are closer to what we will ship to our general customers. Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first. However, this does not mean every feature we try out in the Beta Channel will ship. We encourage Insiders to read this blog post that outlines the ways we’ll try things out with Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels.

Important Insider Links​

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1470 and 22624.1470

 

[Bot]

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25324 to the Canary Channel. We are releasing ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here. REMINDER: As builds released to the Canary Channel are “hot off the presses,” we will offer limited documentation for builds flighted to the Canary Channel (no known issues for example), but we will not publish a blog post for every flight – only when new features are available in a build. And like the previous Canary Channel build, this build has a few new features and changes to document.

What’s new in Build 25324​

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.



Example of updated widgets board with larger canvas and dedicated sections for widgets and feed 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.

USB4 Settings page

with details shown.[/caption] 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.



USB4 Host Router as shown in 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.



Example warning dialog on unsafe password copy and paste. [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.

Showing a new dropdown in sign-n settings for your preferred camera, saying “let Windows choose” or letting you pick the camera.

[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.

About the Canary Channel​

The Canary Channel is the place to preview platform changes that require longer-lead time before getting released to customers. Some examples of this include major changes to the Windows kernel, new APIs, etc. Builds that we release to the Canary Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and some of the changes we try out in the Canary Channel will never ship, and others could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready. The builds that will be flighted to the Canary Channel are “hot off the presses,” flighting very soon after they are built, which means very little validation and documentation will be done before they are offered to Insiders. These builds could include major issues that could result in not being able to use your PC correctly or even in some rare cases require you to reinstall Windows. We will offer limited documentation for the Canary Channel, but we will not publish a blog post for every flight – only when new features are available in a build. Our Canary Channel won’t receive daily builds; however, we may ramp up releasing builds more frequently in the future. The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links​

• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks, Amanda & Brandon

Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25324

 

[Sammo]

Latest Windows 11 Update Causing Major Problems Windows 11.
Major problems with KB5023706 which is a mandatory Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 22H2. KB5023706 installation is failing with the following error messages: 0x80070103, 0x8000ffff, 0x80073701, 0x8007007e