Hi all, Last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25324 to the Canary Channel.
They also released ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.
On this build My Phone Link app started showing the option to link not only an android but also the option to link an iPhone.
look for Phone Link in your start menu
slightly redacted view of my Phone Link app linked to my iPhone
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.
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)
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.
Example of animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar.
[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.
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.
Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23403 to the Dev Channel.
This is the 1st build released to the new Dev Channel as these are 23xxx builds, it is not possible to get the build if your device is on 25xxx from being in the Dev Channel before.
If you are currently on 25309 you eighter have to choose to go Canary Channel to continue flighting 25314 and up, or if you want to flight in the New Dev Channel you will need to reinstall you device with a build lower than 23403.
I switched a device from the Release Preview Channel (22xxx) to the Dev Channel but ran into a snag at 64% ‘Working on updates’ the animation kept spinning left it on for 24hrs with that screen, then powered it down. (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAjxcao)
update: I looked through the logfiles & turned out it was trying to install something blocked by device guard so I turned that of & tried again. currently 66% & counting.
Happy Flighting!
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.
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.
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.
Access keys in the XAML context menu in File Explorer.
[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.
File recommendations in File Explorer for users signed in with an AAD account.
[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”.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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 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.
A glanceable VPN status into the system tray.
[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.
[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.
[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.
Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25314 to the Canary Channel, the 1st Canary Channel release.
For devices that were in de Dev Channel before, the Canary Channel is the easiest way to continue, they would have been on build 25309 where this one is the next build release now in the Canary Channel.
you do get the option to switch to Dev Channel but as they are on 23403 now, you will need to reinstall the device to a build lower than that to enable flighting.
Conclusion, the New Canary Channel is actually renamed from Dev & the Dev Channel is the real new channel if we look at the build numbers.
I flighted 3 devices in the Canary Channel, 2 that were on Dev before + 1 after clean install all upgrades went smooth.
Happy Upgrades!
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.
Access keys in the XAML context menu in File Explorer.
[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.
File recommendations in File Explorer for users signed in with an AAD account.
[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.
Local Security Authority (LSA) protection in Windows Security.
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:
Patching 3rd party apps is often forgotten eighter due to an unused app or an app that has no auto update functionally built-in. This poses a vulnerability threat to your device.
Winget is a command-line tool that allows users to discover, install, update, remove and configure applications on Windows 10 and Windows 11 computers. It is the client interface for the Windows Package Manager service. Winget is an open-source project designed by Microsoft to help users quickly and easily install their favorite packages with a single command:
winget install <package>
Winget -? showing command line options
It can update not only the apps you installed with it, but any app it recognizes on your machine & has info on in the online repository.
To list the apps that can be upgraded, run the following command:
Winget upgrade
listing of outdated apps
Here you see an app installed through the Windows store, PowerToys and 3 apps installed through Winget ready to be updated. I installed PowerShell 7 originally by downloading the setup manually from the website.
Add –all or -r to trigger the download & upgrade
winget upgrade -r
Winget started updating the appsWinget updated the outdated apps
I run Winget at least 1x a week on all my devices to keep them updated without the need to look up all 3rd party latest updates.
If you run into a Windows 10/11 that does not recognize the Winget command, add App Installer from the Windows Store,
I’m excited to see the new volume mixer include in quick settings, a very nice addition to Windows 11 features!
Happy upgrades!
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.
The snipping tool issue isn’t fixed yet, where opening the app & pressing new does not start a snip, workaround still works by pressing Windows Key + Shift + S to start a snip. Removing the app using PowerShell & reinstalling it seems to work too.
Happy Upgrades!
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 works with Microsoft accounts and AAD accounts.
[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.
[ADDED 2/16] Some users with custom desktop icon arrangements may notice they have unexpectedly been re-aligned. We are investigating this issue.
[ADDED 2/16] We’re working on the fix for an issue causing USB devices (including keyboard and mouse) to not work for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295+.
[Task Manager]
[ADDED 2/16] The status of Startup apps in Task Manager may be reset to their default state after installing this build. Users may re-apply status preferences as a workaround.
[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.
[Voice access]
[ADDED 2/17] The in-app help page in voice access, which can be accessed from the help flyout and the command “What can I say”, does not include all commands and the information given may not be accurate. If you are looking for a full list of voice access commands, we suggest you refer to Voice access command list – Microsoft Support.
[ADDED 2/16] Microsoft Store Update
Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel running version 22301.1401.1.0 of the Microsoft Store and higher will see the following improvements rolling out:
The featured products on Store’s home page has been given a complete overhaul, with a brand-new UI and animations that make it more user-friendly. The control supports any types of input (touch, pen, mouse, & trackpad), making it versatile and accommodating. Please note that this feature is being rolled out to a limited portion of Insiders as part of a phased rollout.
Overhauled featured section on the Store’s homepage.
The layout of the search result page has been improved with a simplified design, allowing you to find your desired content more quickly and efficiently.
More simplified search result page.
Discover the new and improved product cards for apps, featuring a refreshed design that brings your favorite apps to life. The new look highlights the content in a visually stunning way, and accurately reflects the branding of each app.
Refreshed design for product cards for apps.
We’ve updated the Microsoft Store’s settings page with better alignment to our Fluent Design system controls and added a touch of new animations.
FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Microsoft Store.
Having trouble with your Windows activation on an OEM device? You might be able to fix it by retrieving the key from the bios.
Run this in Powershell (Elevation should not be needed)
(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey
If your device came with a license this command will show the key (looks like this: XXXXX-XXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX)
Next you’ll want to check if Windows was installed with your key:
slmgr.vbs /dlv
This will after a few seconds return a pop-up window like this:
If the Partial Product Key is not the same as the last 5 digits of the key we retrieved in the 1st step, your operating system is not using the original device license key.
This can be fixed in multiple ways, command-line or via the gui, the 2nd one works in more cases (not all key changes are supported through cli).
Type changepk in the terminal you already have open, it will open up settings at System > Activation
The Gui Option:
Select the change button & copy in the key we retrieved earlier.
Enter your Product Key
Select Activate
All Done, select close
The Command Line Option
The steps above rolled into a script look like this:
$Key = (wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey) $ProductKey = ($Key[2]) if (!$ProductKey) { Write-Host "No key present" } else { Write-Host "Installing $ProductKey" & changepk.exe /ProductKey $ProductKey } slmgr.vbs /dlv Write-Host "If Partial Product Key (last 5 digits) is not the same as above, run changepk.exe, click change to manually input the key above"
The reason the script does not always work is not all upgrade paths or key changes are supported in the same way more info on this can be found here: MS Learn website – edition upgrades
Hi all, Last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25295 to the Dev Channel.
Upgrades went smooth here, spotted some new stuff:
Task Manager shows a different results in performance & details tab (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAjlw92)
Performance Tab Showing 100% CPU load
As shown in the screenshot above CPU load seems 100% while the processor is only throttled at 1.93 Ghz, switching to the Details pane shows the actual info, the device is not at High CPU
Snipping Tool still crashes when used to create a snip or recording from the app interface (using Windows Key + Shift + S works fine) (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAjmha9)
The app also refuses to start a snip when you select the photo camera icon & press New (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAjmaoc)
Happy Upgrades!
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. We moved this back to the known issues and are investigating.
[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]
[ADDED] The ability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray, first introduced with Build 25247, has disappeared for Insiders after updating to Build 25295. We’re aware of the issue and this will return shortly in a new flight.
[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 https://aka.ms/wipISO.
[ADDED 2/10] 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.
[ADDED 2/10] 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.
[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.
Running the previous build of Windows 11 or Windows 10 and the new build is not showing up for you?
Checked updates in setting with no new build available?
This might be due to policies set on your device trough Group policies or Intune set by you company admin.
If those are not interfering with your attempt to update, you might be facing a compatibility issue.
To find out what’s going on you can check the ‘redreason’ key in the registry.
Option 1: lookup the key with regedit
with registry editor navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators
This key will have key referring to the target edition your device has checked for compatibility in this case NI22H2.
with that key selected in the navigation pane, the pane on the right should contain a key called RedReason
Option 2: use a PowerShell script
PowerShell script to pull the info without opening regedit:
If you RedReason is none and you are still not seeing the new build offered, you can re-trigger the compatibility check by Removing everything under the ‘TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators’ key + reboot the device.
To do this with PowerShell (requires run as admin)
# Define the registry path
$registryPath = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators\'
# Get all subkeys
$subKeys = Get-ChildItem -Path $registryPath
# Iterate over each subkey and remove it
foreach ($subKey in $subKeys) {
Remove-Item -Path "$registryPath\$subKey" -Recurse -Force
}
# Get all values
$values = Get-ItemProperty -Path $registryPath
# Iterate over each value and remove it
foreach ($value in $values.PSObject.Properties.Name) {
Remove-ItemProperty -Path $registryPath -Name $value
}
Write-Output "All sub-items and keys under $registryPath have been removed, but the root has been preserved."
To manually trigger a re-check for compatibility, after the reboot
Press Windows logo key + S or select Search, type cmd, and then select Run as administrator under Command Prompt on the right side.
Hi all, Last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25290 to the Dev Channel.
The new Widgets are great, Messenger, Spotify,… quick access like never before, they do tend to get unpinnend from the widgets pane after a reboot, but that’s being worked on: https://aka.ms/AAjhst7
What’s new
New Widgets: Spotify and Phone Link
Last week, we promoted a preview of the widget for the Messenger app. Spotify and Phone Link are now rolling out preview versions of their widgets as well. To give them a try, go to the widgets collection in the Microsoft Store and update to the latest version of the apps. Then open the widgets board and navigate to the widgets picker by clicking the “+” button at the top-right of the board to pin your widgets.
The Spotify and Phone Link widgets on the widgets board.
As you give these and other new widgets a try, please let us know what you think through the Widgets feedback link in the widgets picker. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and release widgets for their apps.
With the release of Windows App SDK 1.2 developers are now able to create widgets for their apps. Users can access these experiences on their Windows 11 widgets board in current Dev Channel Insider Preview builds. If you’re interested in developing a widget, watch our latest tutorial video:
Changes and Improvements
[Start menu]
Back in October with Build 25227, we started trying out a small change to the Start menu where some Insiders saw badging on their user profile notifying them that certain actions need to be taken. We concluded that initial exploration in November. Starting today, we are starting a new exploration of badging on the Start menu with two new treatments that some Insiders in the Dev Channel will see. If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think. As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.
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.
[ADDED 2/3] We’re investigating reports that some Insiders who use IMEs are experiencing crashes with some apps like Notepad and Terminal after upgrading to this build.
[ADDED 2/3] 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 https://aka.ms/wipISO.
[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.
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