Hi all, last Friday Microsoft Released Windows 11 Build 29599.1000 to the Experimental (Future Platforms) Channel
Some tweaks improving this channel, smooth flights on alll my devices
Happy Flights!
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
This update includes platform changes in moving to a new active development build.
Fixed an issue which was causing some Insiders to unexpectedly see an erroneous message saying they weren’t connected to internet (when they actually were) when signing into their Microsoft account in certain apps recently.
This update improves CPU speed display on the Performance page of Task Manager for VMs, so it doesn’t show higher than unexpected numbers after resuming from hibernate.
Known issues
We have identified an issue internally causing crashes on AMD machines supporting System Guard, meaning these devices in WIP will not be offered this week’s Experimental (Future Platforms) build.
Renamed “Recommended” section to “Recent” in Start and Settings page
Section-level toggles to independently show or hide Pinned, Recommended, and All.
Choose between a small and large Start menu, in addition to “Automatic (default)” setting option that’s already available today
The option to hide your name and profile picture in Start
Redesigned Start menu settings page
Screenshot showing new start menu customization options.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Start
[Search]
Search by Substring: Files with compound names or content (e.g., MeetingNotesApril, ProjectStatusReport) are now easily discoverable by typing “april” or “status”.
[Taskbar]
Fixed a few small visual polish issues when using the taskbar in alternate positions. Thanks Insiders that have been sharing feedback so far!
You can now use a touch swipe to invoke the taskbar when using alternate taskbar positions.
Known Issues
[Reset PC]
[Fixed] Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.
Hi all, last Friday Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 26300.8497to the Experimental Channel.
intresting feature rolled out to my devices: choosing a date to pause updates:
screenshot of settings app shoeing the option to select a target date to pause updates
Happy Upgrades!
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
[Narrator]
Braille displays now connect instantly with Narrator
We’re making refreshable braille displays easier to use in Windows. Narrator now supports displays that use the HID standard — an open industry standard for braille displays. If your display supports HID, simply connect it via USB and start reading — true plug-and-play with no additional setup required. For Bluetooth, pair your HID braille display in Settings > Bluetooth & devices just like any other accessory, and you can work wirelessly without being tethered to your PC.
Compatible HID displays include models like the Orbit Reader 20, Orbit Slate 340, Freedom Scientific Focus 40, and APH Mantis Q40.
HID braille displays now work during the initial Windows setup experience (OOBE) over USB — meaning users who are deaf-blind can set up their PC independently, right from the first screen. You can customize braille input and output options anytime in Settings > Accessibility > Narrator > Braille.
[Accessibility]
New accessibility setting: Screen tint
We’re introducing screen tint, a new accessibility setting that applies a color overlay across your entire display, softening its intensity so it’s easier on your eyes throughout the day. If bright, saturated screens leave you with tired or sensitive eyes by the end of a long session, screen tint can help.
Screenshot showing UI for screen tint in Accessibility, with color presets and a strength slider.
To get started, open Settings > Accessibility (or press Win + U) and look for screen tint under the Vision section. From there you can:
Pick from six preset colors or choose a custom color of your own.
Adjust the tint strength slider from a subtle wash to full intensity.
Night light warms your display to reduce blue light that can interfere with sleep. Screen tint reduces overall screen intensity to ease eye fatigue and light sensitivity during the day. They tackle different problems and you can use both at the same time, one working on warmth and the other on intensity.
Note that turning on screen tint will disable color filters, and vice versa. If you currently rely on color filters, you may need to keep screen tint turned off.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Narrator.
[Magnifier]
Touch bars for panning in Magnifier are now off by default. Hiding them gives you a cleaner, less distracting magnified view on touchscreen devices.
If you use a touch screen device and prefer on-screen bars for navigating your magnified view, you can turn them back on anytime in Settings > Accessibility > Magnifier.
Screenshot showing UI for Magnifier settings where touch panning bars are off by default.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Accessibility > Magnifier.
[Windows Ready Print]
Last month, we introduced a change where new printer installations use IPP by default when supported to simplify setup and improve reliability (see our third-party driver deprecation timeline: End of Servicing Plan for Third-Party Printer Drivers on Windows). This month, we’re adding a new toggle in Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > Default install printers using Windows Ready Print to give you control over this behavior.
Screenshot showing the ability to toggle Windows Ready Print in Printer preferences.
When enabled, Windows installs supported printers using IPP by default. When turned off, Windows may use other available installation methods.
This experience is part of our modern print platform, now called Windows Ready Print, designed to deliver a more consistent, reliable, and simplified printing experience.
[Voice Access]
Voice Isolation in Voice Access
We’re introducing Voice Isolation, a new option in Voice Access that helps it focus on your voice, even when others are speaking nearby. Whether you’re in a shared office, an open floor plan, or at home with family around, Voice Isolation filters out other voices and background noise so Voice Access can better understand you. All processing happens privately on your device.
Getting started Voice Access now offers three speech recognition modes under Voice Access settings > Improve speech recognition:
Voice Isolation — Filters out other speakers and background noise (one-time voice setup required).
Remove background noise only — Filters out non-speech sounds like typing or door slams. No additional setup needed.
No filtering — Default microphone input with no additional processing.
To set up Voice Isolation, select it from the menu and follow the short, guided setup where you’ll read a brief paragraph aloud so Voice Access can learn your voice. It only takes a minute, and your voice data never leaves your device.
Screenshot showing where the voice isolation setting can be found.
Screenshot showing voice isolation setup.
[Input]
Fixed an issue in the previous flight causing the IME candidate window not to display for some Insiders when typing in Japanese or Chinese.
[Other]
If you were experiencing a cyclical explorer.exe crash after the previous flight (which may have looked like the screen or taskbar blinking and repeatedly refreshing), that should be resolved after updating to this build.
Fixed issue causing the Energy Saver quick setting to show twice for some Insiders in recent flights.
Fixed issue causing Win + X / right-click on Start in Taskbar to not work for some Insiders in the previous flight.
Fixed an issue resulting in the audio volume being unexpectedly muted on certain devices in recent flights.
This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.
Improved reliability of running dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command.
Known Issues
[Reset PC]
Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.
Hi all, last Friday Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 28020.2149 to the Experimental (26H1) Channel
Easy and fast upgrades on my Experimental 26H1 channel devices, Enjoy Upgrading
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
[General]
Improved reliability of explorer.exe when closing the input switcher, and when switching between multiple desktops.
[Storage]
We’ve updated the dialog when creating a Dev Drive to now support specifying the size in GB instead of only MB. This has also been added when changing the size of volumes under Settings > System > Storage.
[Fonts]
The Times New Roman font family is updated to improve the rendering of combining diacritical marks across Greek and Cyrillic scripts. This update provides more accurate and visually consistent text by addressing mark positioning issues. As a result, readability is improved, rendering inconsistencies are reduced, and support for global language users working with Greek and Cyrillic text is strengthened.
Known Issues
[Reset PC]
[Fixed] Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.
Hi all, last night Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 26300.8493 to the Experimental Channel.
After a slight delay in release the update rolled out smoothly on all my Experimental Channel devices.
keep in mind pc reset in this build and the experimental 26h1 channel currently have a known issue with local reset, select cloud option for now (usually the fastest option)
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
[Taskbar]
Alternate Taskbar Position
You can now change the position of taskbar on your screen. In Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar Behaviors, you can select the side of the screen you want your taskbar on: bottom, top, left, or right. In these other positions, tooltips, flyouts, and animations will still come from the taskbar, and most customization settings like small taskbar and never combine taskbar icons will work with all locations.
Support for touch gestures, Search box, and Ask Copilot in alternate locations is in progress. Auto-hidden taskbar and touch optimized taskbar are not yet supported.
Screenshot of the taskbar in the left-aligned position.
Smaller Taskbar
We’re introducing a smaller taskbar for users who want to maximize screen space, especially on smaller devices. While the default taskbar remains unchanged, this setting provides a more compact experience with smaller icons and a reduced taskbar height, giving you more room for your apps. Core elements like Start, Search, and the system tray scale appropriately to stay aligned and consistent.
To change your taskbar size, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Show smaller taskbar buttons. When set to Always, both the icons and the taskbar height become smaller.
Side-by-side comparison of the standard and smaller taskbar heights on the same device and resolution, showing the additional screen space gained.
We’re also working on improving taskbar settings to make resizing easier, these enhancements are currently in progress.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Taskbar.
See the in-depth blog for more information about Taskbar improvements.
[Widgets]
As we continue to make Widgets feel less distracting, we’ve made a small but meaningful visual update to taskbar badging. For those that have taskbar badging on, the badge color will now match your Windows accent color instead of always appearing red, reducing the sense of urgency that something needs your immediate attention.
The Taskbar badge color will now match your Windows accent color instead of always appearing red.
We’re also testing out quieting down a user’s experience based on their level of engagement. For example, a user who highly engages with Widgets likely has their settings set to a state that works best for them, as compared to a user who barely engages with it and would benefit from having the experience quieted down with taskbar badging turned off as it is for new users who experience it as quiet by default.
Please share your feedback to let us know how these changes are working for you or if you encounter any issues with your quieter Widgets experience.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Widgets.
[Windows Search Box]
We’ve started making changes to make Windows Search Box more relevant, starting with making it easier to find your files and apps:
Files and apps more reliably appear ahead of web suggestions when your content is a stronger match
You can expect to see additional relevance improvements in upcoming releases.
[Voice access and Voice typing]
Fluid Dictation is now available in Spanish & French for Windows Insiders! It makes voice-based dictation smoother and smarter by automatically correcting grammar, punctuation, and filler words as you speak, reducing the need for manual editing. This experience is powered by on-device small language models (SLMs) to ensure fast and private processing. You can try out fluid dictation from Windows voice access or Voice typing (Win +H).
[Windows design]
We are introducing consistent solid (donut) spinners across key Windows scenarios including Boot, Logon, Restart, Shutdown, and Update. This update replaces legacy spinner visuals to deliver a more cohesive and modern experience aligned with Windows design standards. Users will now see a unified spinner behavior with corresponding status text (e.g., “Restarting”, “Working on updates”, “Welcome”) across these flows, improving perceived reliability and visual consistency.
[File Explorer]
Fixed an issue in the previous flight where Properties wasn’t invoking correctly for the Recycle bin and some other scenarios.
[Run]
Fixed an issue where the refreshed Run dialog didn’t navigate through your history if you pressed the up / down arrow keys on first launch.
[Other]
This flight contains the first of a set of optimizations to improve logon performance that we expect to flight in the Windows Insider Program over the next few months. Note that this is part of an ongoing effort – we plan to flight additional logon optimizations to WIP, measure real impact, and use that data to drive the next round of improvements.
Improved reliability when switching between multiple desktops.
This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.
Improved reliability of running dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command.
Improved reliability of PC remaining asleep if it had been asleep prior to an update
Known Issues
[Reset PC]
Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.
Hi all, last night Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 28020.2134 to the Experimental (26H1) Channel
Nice to see the New Windows Updates options roll out
Happy Upgrades!
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out*
[Windows Update]
We’re introducing new capabilities to enhance security and improve user control over the Windows update experience. This includes:
Ability to skip updates immediately during the out of box experience (OOBE)
Extend update pauses as many times as you need
Always available options to shutdown and restart with updating
More insight on available updates to make more informed installation decisions
[Other]
This update improves the reliability of Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) notifications to help prevent the service from becoming unresponsive.
Known Issues
[Reset PC]
Resetting your PC may get stuck when using “Reset this PC.” To complete the reset successfully, choose the cloud download option (Cloud PBR) instead of local.
Hi all, last night Microsoft released Windows 11 Build 29591.1000 to the Experimental (Future Platforms) Channel.
Fast and smooth upgrades on my devices, Th Wifi issue on my Surface 13 inch looks seems to be resolved since last build
[Windows Update]
We’re introducing new capabilities to enhance security and improve user control over the Windows update experience. This includes:
Ability to skip updates immediately during the out of box experience (OOBE)
Extend update pauses as many times as you need
Always available options to shutdown and restart with updating
More insight on available updates to make more informed installation decisions
[Shared audio]
Shared audio enables two people to listen to the same audio from a single Windows 11 PC at the same time. It uses Bluetooth® LE Audio broadcast technology to make sharing easy. For example, you can watch a movie while traveling or listen to music while studying together. To start sharing audio, open Quick settings from the taskbar, select Shared audio, choose two supported, paired, and connected devices, and then select Start sharing. To learn more about Shared audio, see Extending Bluetooth® LE Audio on Windows 11 with shared audio.
[Storage]
Updated Settings > System > Storage, so rather than seeing a UAC prompt immediately when you go to the page, you’ll only see it when going to view temporary files.
