Dec 11

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22518

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22518 to the Dev Channel.

Smooth upgrades here, nice to have the current weather back in the taskbar

The transparent bars when maximizing a WSA app are fixed (FBH: https://aka.ms/AAf4y6n)

What’s new in Build 22518

View the world on your desktop with Spotlight collection

Keep your desktop fresh and inspiring with Spotlight collection. You will get beautiful new desktop pictures from around the world every day and fun facts about each picture. Here is how you can try out Spotlight collection:

  1. Right-click on your desktop and choose “Personalize”.
  2. On the Personalization settings page, choose “Background”.
  3. Under the “Personalize your background” dropdown, select “Spotlight collection”.

Upon enabling Spotlight collection, you will see an inspiring picture from Whitehaven Beach in Australia on your desktop as well as the Spotlight icon.

Right-click on the Spotlight icon on your desktop to switch to between Spotlight pictures or tell us whether you like or dislike a picture.
Right-click on the Spotlight icon on your desktop to switch to between Spotlight pictures or tell us whether you like or dislike a picture.

Later in the day, we will replace Whitehaven Beach with a collection of up to five background pictures from around the world. This could take up to 24 hours. If you hover over the Spotlight icon, you can learn more about each picture. Right-clicking on the Spotlight icon on the desktop opens a context menu where you can switch to a different background picture as well as tell us whether you like or don’t like one of the pictures. Double-clicking on the Spotlight icon launches the landing page where you can learn even more about any of the Spotlight collection pictures you saw throughout the day.

Please note the Spotlight collection experience is not yet localized and will show text in English only. Full localization will come in a future update. Spotlight collection is available to Windows Insiders in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain, Sweden, U.K., U.S. More countries will be added over time.

Updated entry point for Widgets on your taskbar

We are trying out showing the Widgets entry point on the left side of your taskbar with live weather content. You can also open the Widgets board by simply hovering over the entry point.

We’re trying out showing the Widgets entry point, with weather, on the left side of the taskbar.
We’re trying out showing the Widgets entry point, with weather, on the left side of the taskbar.

For users who choose to align their taskbar, the Widgets entry point will be to the right of the Task view icon.

How the Widgets icon looks on a left-aligned taskbar with weather.
How the Widgets icon looks on a left-aligned taskbar with weather.

Group policies and the ability to show/hide the Widgets button from the taskbar remains unchanged.

We’re trying this out so let us know what you think and check out the known issues below for some issues we’re aware of for this experience.

[We are beginning to roll this change out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

Introducing Voice Access

Voice access is a new experience that enables everyone, including people with mobility disabilities, to control their PC and author text using their voice. For example, voice access supports scenarios like opening and switching between apps, browsing the web, and reading and authoring mail. Voice access leverages modern, on-device speech recognition to accurately recognize speech and is supported without an internet connection. Voice access supports English-U.S. language only, so the Windows display language should be set to English-U.S., otherwise voice access may not work as expected.

Get started

You can enable voice access under Settings > Accessibility > Speech.
You can enable voice access under Settings > Accessibility > Speech.

You can find voice access in Settings > Accessibility > Speech. When you turn on voice access for the first time, it will prompt you to download a speech model for the on-device speech recognition. Once it is downloaded, you can choose a microphone you want to use with voice access and start using your voice to control your PC.

You can choose to auto start voice access the next time you sign-in to your PC in settings. You can also use voice commands or keyboard shortcuts (Alt + Shift + C and Alt + Shift + B) to control whether voice access is listening or not listening.

To do thisSay this
Get voice access to start listening to you“Voice access wake up”, “Unmute”
Put voice access to sleep
(It’ll only respond to “voice access wake up” command)		“Voice access sleep”, “Mute”
Completely stop voice access from listening to you 
(You can use mouse or keyboard to click on the microphone button to change its state)		“Turn off microphone”
Interactive guide showing the page titled "working with controls and options with instructions on the left and practice area on the right.
Interactive guide showing the page titled “working with controls and options with instructions on the left and practice area on the right.

Voice access includes an interactive guide that explains how to complete common tasks using your voice.

In addition to the interactive guide, you can access a complete list of commands by asking “what can I say?” when voice access is listening. You can also access the complete set of voice access commands here.

Desktop showing voice access UI at the top of the screen with voice access in listening state.
Desktop showing voice access UI at the top of the screen with voice access in listening state.

Voice access gives real-time feedback of what voice access heard so that you know which word was not recognized correctly.

Navigate Windows with your voice

You can navigate and interact with Windows, including opening and switching applications using your voice. You can also emulate your standard inputs like keyboard and mouse via voice.

For example, the following table includes how to complete common tasks:

To do thisSay this
Open a new application“Open [application name],” e.g., “Open Edge,” “Open Word”
Switch to an active application“Switch to [application name] ,” e.g., “Switch to Edge”
Manage your Windows “Minimize window,” “Maximize window,” “Close window”
Click an item, like a button or a link“Click [item name],” e.g., “Click Start,” “Click Cancel”
Right click an item“Right-click [item name],” e.g. “Right click Start”
Double clicks an item “Double click [item name],” e.g., “Double click Recycle Bin”
Scroll in a specific direction “Scroll down” or “Start scrolling down”
Press a key or key combination “Press Escape,” “Press and Hold Shift,” “Press tab 3 times”
Numbered tear drops appearing over all interactive items on Mail app, voice access UI and taskbar.
Numbered tear drops appearing over all interactive items on Mail app, voice access UI and taskbar.

Voice access number overlays make it possible to interact with items which don’t have a name and they also put you in control when there are more than one matching items to a command.

To do thisSay this
Show number overlays“Show numbers” or “Show numbers here”
Click a numbered item“Click [number]”, e.g., “Click 1”, “Double click 1”, “Right click 1”
Hide number overlays“Hide Numbers,” “Cancel”
3x3 grid with numbers drawn over the Mail app.
3×3 grid with numbers drawn over the Mail app.

In addition, to interact with inaccessible UI and achieve precise mouse movement with grid overlay:

To do thisSay this
Show the grid “Show grid” or “Show grid here”
Drill down into the grid“[Grid number],” e.g., “1”
Click an item at the centre of a grid“Click [grid number],” e.g., “Click 1”
Mark an object to drag “Mark [grid number],” e.g., “Mark 1”
Drop the marked object into a location “Drag”

Author text with your voice

In addition to navigating Windows, you can dictate and edit text with voice access:

To do thisSay this
Insert text in a text box“[Text]”, e.g., “hello world”
Select the last text you dictated“Select that”
Select specific text in a text box“Select [text]”, e.g., “select hello world”
Select previous or next character(s) or word(s) or line(s) or paragraph(s)“Select next word”, “select previous two lines”
Delete the selected text or last dictated text“Delete that”
Delete specific text in a text box“Delete [text]”, e.g., “delete hello world”
Capitalize the first letter of a word“Capitalize [word]”, e.g., “capitalize hello”
Capitalize all the letters of a word“Uppercase [word]”, e.g., “uppercase hello”
Change all the letters in a word to lowercase“Lowercase [word]”, e.g., lowercase hello”
Place cursor before/after specific text“Move before [text]”, e.g., “Move before hello world”
Move cursor to beginning/end of a word or a line or a paragraph“Go to beginning of line”, “go to end of paragraph”

Tips for best recognition quality:

  • Try to speak as clearly as you can
  • Work in an environment with minimal ambient background noise if possible
  • To prevent system audio (e.g., media playback or people speaking on a call) from being picked up by voice access, it is recommended to use headphones/earbuds or mute your system audio when voice access is actively listening

Be sure to check the known issues section below for known issues with voice access. We look forward to you trying out voice access and would love to hear your feedback and suggestions in Feedback Hub (Win + F) under Accessibility > Voice access. You can find the link to the Feedback Hub on the voice access help menu as well – use the voice command “Open Voice access help” > “Click Give feedback” to get there.

Install the Windows Subsystem from Linux (WSL) from the Microsoft Store

WSL is now available in the Microsoft Store. This is the same WSL you know and love but just a different delivery mechanism. Installing WSL from the Store will make it easier to get the latest WSL updates in the future. You can learn more about the Store preview at this blog post or by watching this video.

Starting in this preview build, we’ve made it easier for new users to get started with the WSL in the Microsoft Store by changing the `wsl.exe –install` command to install WSL from the Microsoft Store by default. Additionally, we’ve added some additional arguments to `wsl.exe –install` to make it easier to configure your install, such as `wsl –install –no-launch` which will install a new WSL distro without immediately launching it. To see a full list of available commands please run `wsl –help`. If you want to get started with the Store version right away and already have WSL installed just run `wsl –update` to update immediately to the Store version!

Changes and Improvements

  • Starting with today’s build we’re rolling out an underlying platform change to improve the overall performance and reliability of the input switcher for Insiders using multiple keyboard languages and layouts. In addition to this, we’re updating the input switcher to now have an acrylic background. If you have any feedback for the input switcher, please file it in the Feedback Hub under Input and Language > Keyboard and language switching. [We are beginning to roll this change out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
Input switcher UI with acrylic background.
Input switcher UI with acrylic background.
  • Updated the context menu in File Explorer to make these options top level based on feedback:
    • “Install” when right clicking on font files and .inf files.
    • “Install certificate” when right clicking on .cer files.
    • “Map network drive” and “Disconnect network drive” when right clicking on This PC.
    • “Disconnect” when right clicking on network drives.
  • The ability for personalized combinations of emoji based on face and skin tones of family members, couples with heart, kissing, and people holding hands which we began rolling out with Build 22504 is now available to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
  • Starting with Build 22509, we began rolling out a change to display your clock and date will now also be displayed on the taskbars of the secondary monitor or monitors. This is now available to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
  • We’ve added a new extra-large candidate height option for Simplified Chinese IME users under Personalization > Text Input in Settings.

Fixes

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash related to having websites pinned to the Taskbar.

[Search]

  • Did some work to help address an issue where an invisible window frame for the recent searches flyout could end up stuck on the screen, consuming input in that area.
  • When you’re hovering over items in the recent searches flyout, truncated text in the flyout (for example, when using the accessibility setting to make text larger) will now have a tooltip so you can see the full text.
  • Improved visibility of the text in the recent searches flyout if a contrast mode was enabled.
  • The recent searches flyout now has an accessible name when a screen reader sets focus to it, instead of just saying button.
  • Fixed an issue which was causing the search icon in the recent searches icon to become a garbage character for people using the Chinese display language.
  • Fixed a high hitting Search crash.
  • Did some work to help reduce the likelihood of keystrokes getting dropped if you start your search by pressing the Windows key and start typing.
  • If you use Search to run commands, the “Run as administrator” and “Open file location” options should be visible again for you to select on the side of the search window. In addition, CTRL + Shift + Enter should work again now for commands.

[File Explorer]

  • Mitigated an issue that could lead to not being able to add network drives as a source in Media Player.
  • Fixed an issue that could lead to seeing an unexpected blank icon after compressing a file, instead of the one corresponding to your default app for handling that file type.
  • Right clicking on a folder and then quickly closing and reopening the File Explorer window should no longer lead to an explorer.exe crash when the “run as a separate process” option is enabled.
  • Removed some unexpected characters in the dialog when moving user account folders to another location.
  • If you right click on files like .htm in File Explorer, the icon next to Microsoft Edge Canary, Beta or Dev should now display correctly (if installed) under Open With, instead of showing a generic icon.
  • Addressed an issue that could lead to icons for app entries (like Windows Terminal) in the context menu going missing / being invisible sometimes.
  • Improved the consistency of the background color of the command bar and menu dropdowns when a contrast mode was enabled.
  • Made some more little improvements to help with File Explorer folder navigation performance.

[Input]

  • If you’ve pressed WIN + Period and have navigated to the emoji or gifs section with a search term, when you go back to the main page, we will now clear out the search query so you can start fresh.
  • The IME candidate window should now appear more reliably when typing into Search immediately after booting your PC.
  • Fixed an issue where u-mode/v-mode/name-mode wasn’t not showing candidates when typing with the Simplified Chinese IME.
  • Fixed an issue where the Japanese IME was unexpectedly displaying candidates in horizontal mode instead of vertical mode.
  • Fixed an issue where the IME toolbar might randomly show on the lock screen.
  • Addressed an issue where the keyboard focus wouldn’t always be in the right place after pressing WIN + Period, depending on where you’d left focus the last time the window was used.
  • When personalizing your family emoji in the emoji panel, the UI should no longer unexpectedly dismiss when you click the white space.
  • Clicking on your personalized family emoji in the most recently used list in the emoji panel should no longer unexpectedly invoke the customization UI.
  • If you try to start voice typing (WIN + H) without setting focus to a text box first, the popup suggesting you move focus should work again now.

[Windowing]

  • Fixed issue where snap group thumbnails weren’t updating in real time in Task View after you moved a group window to a different Desktop.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing Settings to crash when going to open options for added languages for some Insiders.
  • Fixed a few issues on the Text Input page under Personalization, including:
    • The preview image for your current set up should be showing now.
    • Added a few keywords to help search for this page.
    • Improved read out of the page for screen reader users.
  • Searching for the word widgets should return to the corresponding Settings page with that toggle now.

[Other]

  • Mitigated an issue believed to be causing Insiders with certain devices to be experiencing bug checks with the error SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION in recent flights.
  • Fixed an issue where users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO would receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing.
  • Removed some excess padding on the left of the boot logo, which was causing it to look off-center compared to the progress wheel.
  • Addressed an issue where UAC was unexpectedly showing “Unknown program” when trying to elevate certain programs, despite them having proper names.
  • Fixed an issue leading to Narrator unexpectedly saying “No item in view” sometimes when tabbing to win32 text boxes.
  • Fixed a crash that was leading to login issues in OOBE (if you were to reset your PC), and well as issues resetting your PIN from the lock screen in the last 2 flights.
  • Fixed an issue leading to acrylic unexpectedly not working in certain places in the preview flight.
  • Mitigated an issue leading to some people unexpectedly seeing “Something went wrong” when trying to click the “stop recording” button when recording a message in Voice Recorder.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that DWM is crashing (causing the screen to flash repeatedly) when trying to use certain apps.
  • [ADDED 12/9] You may be unable to sign-in to certain apps such as Feedback Hub. Restarting your PC should correct the issue.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • The network icon sometimes goes missing in the taskbar when it’s supposed to be there. If you encounter this, please try using Task Manager to restart explorer.exe.
  • If you have multiple monitors connected to your PC and right-click on the date and time on the taskbar on your primary monitor, it will crash explorer.exe

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Settings]

  • When viewing the list of available Wi-Fi networks, the signal strength indicators do not reflect the correct signal strength.

[Widgets]

  • Changing the taskbar alignment can cause the Widgets button to disappear from taskbar.
  • Widgets board may not have the correct resolution when hovering the entry point on a secondary monitor.
  • The Widgets board may be temporarily blank.
  • Links may not open properly when opening the widgets board using hover.
  • When having multiple monitors, Widgets content on taskbar may get out of sync between monitors.

[Voice access]

  • Voice access is not yet fully compatible with screen readers like Narrator, and you may experience gaps or unexpected behavior running these together.
  • Some text authoring commands, e.g., “select that” or “delete that”, may not work as expected across Windows applications.
  • You cannot use the command “press Windows L” to lock your PC via voice.
  • Recognition of some punctuation marks and symbols such as @ sign is not accurate.

source: Windows Blogs

Dec 07

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509 to the Dev Channel.

A smooth upgrade for all devices here,

A nice new update to Notepad rolled out December 7th through the store & it has Dark Mode 🎉

Reliability monitor only show critical events since 22504 (Feedback: https://aka.ms/AAewixr)

What’s new in Build 22509

Browsing the web in Microsoft Edge with Narrator is now easier

We have been working on a collection of improvements to web browsing with Microsoft Edge and Narrator. Specifically, typing in edit fields should now be faster, when navigating around the web more useful information is provided, and lastly you will have a more consistent navigation experience with Narrator.

Narrator Home in Windows 11.
Narrator Home in Windows 11.

We have made it easier to type in edit fields, such as the address bar, because Narrator scan mode will now turn off faster. Specifically, if you press Ctrl + L to jump to the address bar, you should be able to start typing immediately because scan mode will turn off sooner. This improvement will also help when filling in form fields such as typing your name and address in different edit boxes. In addition to making it easier to type into edit fields, we have also made it easier to delete in edit fields. Narrator will now read the character that the cursor position is at after a character has been deleted. In other words, if the cursor is on the “h” of “hello” and you press delete, Narrator will speak “e”.

You will also get more contextual information when navigating around the web. For example, required radio buttons and edit fields will now be read out as required, and more information about lists including list levels and accurate list indices will now be read out.

In addition to getting more information read out, you will have a more consistent navigation experience with Narrator. This includes improvements in heading navigation, a more consistent scan mode navigation experience where scan mode is less likely to loop between items, and a more consistent hyperlink reading experience when navigating forwards and backwards.

Thank you for all the feedback on the Narrator with Edge experience that you have sent in. These improvements were made based on your feedback. Please continue to send us feedback with Windows + F.

NOTE: Microsoft Edge version 97.0.4683.0 or higher is required to take advantage of these improvements on Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509 and higher.

Changes and Improvements

  • Starting in this build, you can right-click on Start to quickly access Start settings and choose the “More pins” or “More recommendations” layout option to show an extra row of either pins or recommendations, respectively.
You can now configure Start to show more pins or more recommendations based on your preference.
You can now configure Start to show more pins or more recommendations based on your preference.
  • When a secondary monitor is connected, your clock and date will now also be displayed on the taskbars of the secondary monitor or monitors for glanceability. [We are beginning to roll this change out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
  • For apps that send notifications for calls, reminders, or alarms that leverage Windows notifications in the OS, 3 high priority notifications will now be shown as stacked and shown at the same time. This means at any given time, you might see up to 4 notifications at the same time – 3 high priority notifications and one normal priority notification. [We are beginning to roll this change out, so it isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]
  • As part of our ongoing effort to bring over settings from Control Panel into the Settings app:
    • We have moved the advanced sharing settings (such as Network discovery, File and printer sharing, and public folder sharing) to a new page in Settings app under Advanced Network Settings.
    • We’ve made some updates to the device specific pages under Printers & Scanners in Settings to show more information about your printer or scanner directly in Settings when available.
    • Some of the entry points for network and devices settings in Control Panel will now redirect to the corresponding pages in Settings.
  • Added a new option to the Installed Apps page in Settings to sort the list from Name (Z to A), and accordingly, updated the previous “Alphabetically” option to now be called Name (A to Z).
  • We’ll now remember if you turn on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi while in airplane mode. Next time you use airplane mode, the radios will reflect your preference and stay on to make it easier to keep listening to headphones and remain connected while travelling.
  • Windows Sandbox now supports reboot inside of its virtualized environment (for example, if you were to click the Restart option under the Power button in Start).

Fixes

[Taskbar]

  • The Start, Search, Task View, Widgets, and Chat icons in the Taskbar should no longer be unexpectedly large when the system scaling is set to 125%.
  • Pressing the Windows key plus (the number corresponding to an app icon’s position in the Taskbar) should cycle now through the app’s windows if you repeatedly press the number instead of stopping at the last window.
  • When Narrator focus is set to the Task View button and the Desktops flyout appears, Narrator will now let you know information about the Desktops.
  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash some Insiders were experiencing in recent flights related to updating badges in the Taskbar.

[Input]

  • Handwriting should be working again now when the language is set to Chinese.
  • Mitigated an issue related to the mouse that was causing some Insiders to experience a bugcheck during hibernation sometimes in recent flights (making it appear as if the computer had rebooted).
  • Updated the Chinese Simplified IME candidates to be center aligned with the candidate window height has been customized.
  • Fixed touch keyboard invocation in PowerShell so it should work now.

[Windowing]

  • Hovering your mouse back and forth between different desktops in Task View will no longer result in the displayed thumbnails and content area unexpectedly shrinking.
  • CompactOverlay should be working again in this build (aka the option that some apps use to create a small always on top window).
  • Fixed a race condition that was causing explorer.exe to crash sometimes when closing a snap group of 3 or more windows in Task View.
  • Removed the unexpected tilt animation when clicking down on a corner of the New Desktop button.
  • Made a tweak to address an underlying issue that was causing the context menu to animation down to the mouse instead of away from the mouse when right clicking a Desktop in Task View.
  • Fixed a high hitting DWM crash in recent flights.

[Settings]

  • Fixed some overlapping text for certain languages on the Installed Apps page in Settings.
  • Clicking the Uninstall button when using the Installed Apps page in grid view will now show a confirmation dialog.
  • Changed the new ms-settings:installed-apps URI to now be ms-settings:appsfeatures, to address scenarios where existing links expect the latter to lead to the list of installed apps, for example, when selecting the App Settings option after right clicking a UWP app in Start.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing some Insiders to see error 0x8007001f when trying to upgrade to recent Dev Channel builds.
  • Fixed an issue where some PCs are unable to install new builds, or other updates with an error code 0x80070002.
  • Fixed an issue causing some devices to roll back with error code 0xc1900101-0x4001c when installing new builds.
  • Did some work to help address an issue leading to the Wi-Fi connection getting lost after resuming from sleep.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

source: Windows Blogs

Nov 21

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22504

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22504 to the Dev Channel.

A phased rollout of Windows Media Player Preview is also ongoing, it showed up on 2 of my device today:

Media Player #Preview

Aslo Windows Subsystem for Android showed up through the Microsoft Store (https://aka.ms/AmazonAppstore) (last week it wasn’t available outside the US yet)

WSA is running very smooth & performant on this build

Enjoy upgrading!

Changes and Improvements

  • To further personalize your Windows text input experience, we have expanded the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to now apply to our other input experiences, including IMEs, the emoji panel, and voice typing. Also available for all themed experiences is the theme engine that allows you to create a fully customized theme including background images. You can find all this under the new “Text Input” section under Settings > Personalization. This isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.
We have expanded the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to more input methods, including the IME, emoji panel, and voice input.
We have expanded the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to more input methods, including the IME, emoji panel, and voice input.
  • We have added the ability for personalized combinations of emoji based on face and skin tones of family members, couples with heart, kissing, and people holding hands. Just open the emoji panel (WIN + . ) and try these combinations out by typing the following in the search box: family, couple, holding hands, or kissing. This isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.
We have added the ability for personalized combinations of emoji based on face and skin tones of family members, couples with heart, kissing, and people holding hands.
We have added the ability for personalized combinations of emoji based on face and skin tones of family members, couples with heart, kissing, and people holding hands.
  • You can now use the WIN + Alt + K keyboard shortcut to toggle the new mute icon in the Taskbar when it’s showing.
  • Based on feedback, we’re making emoji search in Portuguese and Polish a little more flexible with keywords containing diacritics.
  • Introducing .NET Framework 4.8.1 our latest .NET Framework that will bring native ARM64 support for the .NET Framework runtime.
  • As Settings > System > Sound in Windows 11 shows a warning when microphone access has been restricted in your privacy settings, we’re removing the notification to alert you about this.
  • Added support for the cancellation of daylight savings time for the Republic of Fiji for 2021.
  • We’re making a change so that going forward on new installs the touch indicator option will now be turned off by default under Settings > Accessibility > Mouse pointer and touch. As part of this change, we’ve added a link to this Settings page from Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touch and made it so that the press and hold visual is now always displayed regardless of the setting state.
  • Apps will now launch maximized by default when in the tablet posture on small devices (11-inch screens diagonal and under).
  • [ADDED 11/18] We’ve adjusted the context menu highlight color in places like Task Manager and File Explorer’s “Show more options” to now align with your selected mode (light or dark).

Fixes

[Start]

  • Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of icons not displaying correctly in the Recommended section of Start (showing the wrong or a generic icon) sometimes.
  • If you open Start and immediate press Shift + F10 or the context menu key, the context menu should be aligned with the search box now.

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an issue leading to an explorer.exe crash in recent builds if there were issues loading the battery icon in the Taskbar.
  • Made some changes to help the clock in the Taskbar update more reliably, including addressing a recent issue where it wasn’t updating at all over Remote Desktop.
  • Mitigated a positioning issue that could cause the date and time to get clipped off the end of the Taskbar.
  • If you’ve updated the critical and low battery level notification definitions, the battery icon in the Taskbar will now align with that, rather than using the default values to show a warning.
  • Right clicking the date and time in the Taskbar will now dismiss the Notification Center if it’s open, so that you can see the context menu options.

[Input]

  • Keyboard lights (for example, for caps lock) should work properly again now with this build.
  • We’ve made a few more tweaks to our emoji search keywords based on feedback, including improving results for day, night, and face with raised eyebrow. Please continue sharing feedback with us about this under Input and Language > Emoji Panel in the Feedback Hub.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the kaomoji list in WIN + . to be blank when accessed while using a Chinese IME.
  • Fixed an issue with the emoji panel search results that could lead to a single gif being displayed repeatedly with certain queries.
  • Mitigated an issue resulting in IMEs not working with certain games.
  • Addressed an issue where the options under Settings > Personalization > Typing to change the settings “Show text suggestions & add a spacebar after I choose a text suggestions” for the touch keyboard might unexpectedly not display.
  • If you make a long pause while using voice typing (WIN + H), it should be able to resume listening more reliability now.
  • Fixed some inconsistencies between actual listening status and the microphone visual in voice typing.
  • Text should no longer be unexpectedly duplicated if the caret is moved while using voice typing.

[Windowing]

  • Selecting snap layout options should no longer randomly put windows on your other monitor sometimes.

[Settings]

  • The brightness and volume sliders in Quick Settings should no longer randomly become invisible.
  • Fixed an issue preventing Adjusting active hours from being set to manually.
  • Addressed an issue which could result in the touch keyboard occluding the password entry field when connecting to a network in Quick Settings.

[Other]

  • Fixed a scaling issue that was causing the update prompt dialog (and other dialogs of that style) to get cut off and not draw correctly after the DPI changed.
  • Improved the positioning of the context menu when right clicking the bottom corner of the desktop.
  • Mitigated an issue related to TCPIP which could result in bug checks when waking a device.
  • Fixed an issue where high priority notifications (such as an alarm) would sometimes unexpectedly dismiss without you engaging with it, leading to it randomly reappearing the next time a normal priority notification came in.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • We’re investigating an issue where some PCs are unable to install new builds, or other updates. The PC may report an error code 0x80070002. If you are experiencing this issue, please reboot your PC and try again.
  • Some devices may bugcheck with error code 0xc1900101-0x4001c when installing this build. If you hit this, after the device rolls back to the previous build, you may want to pause updates until we release a fix.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

[Windowing]

  • Hovering your mouse back and forth between different desktops in Task View will result in the displayed thumbnails and content area unexpectedly shrinking.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

source: Windows Blogs

Nov 14

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22499

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22499 to the Dev Channel.

Clipboard History is fixed!

Had some strange performance issues with Edge on this build but they seem resolved after installing the pipeline test update 22499.1010 released on Friday.

All smooth upgrades here, so far nothing to report…

Happy Upgrading!

What’s new in Build 22499

Quickly share open app windows directly from your taskbar to a Microsoft Teams call

In last week’s flight, we introduced the ability to quickly mute and unmute your active meeting calls right from your taskbar. Today we are announcing an extension of that experience with the ability to quickly share the content from open app windows directly from your taskbar to your meeting calls too. This experience, also starting with Microsoft Teams, eliminates the need to flip back and forth across applications just to share or reshare a window. There are no interruptions to your meeting attendees or what they see on screen – share any open window during your call.

By hovering over open windows on your taskbar, you can quickly share that window with a Microsoft Teams call.
By hovering over open windows on your taskbar, you can quickly share that window with a Microsoft Teams call.

When you are in a meeting call through Microsoft Teams, simply hover over the apps running on your taskbar and you will see a new button that allows you to share your window with your meeting attendees. When you are done sharing your content, hover over the window again and click Stop Sharing or choose another window and click Share this Window. If you’re presenting a full screen presentation in PowerPoint, simply move your mouse to the bottom and your taskbar will pop up for you to share or stop sharing the presentation without interruption to your attendees.

We are beginning to roll this experience out to a subset of Windows Insiders with Microsoft Teams for work or school installed and ramp it up over time. This means not everyone will see this right away with their Teams calls. We plan to bring this to Chat from Microsoft Teams (Microsoft Teams for home) later.

Other communications applications can also add this capability to their applications. The capability to share your meeting call applies only to your current meeting call.

*Features and app availability may vary by region.

Changes and Improvements

  • Based on feedback, we are making keyboard focus visuals in Task View and Alt + Tab a little more prominent, so they’re easier to see.

Fixes

[Input]

  • Clipboard history should be back up and running properly once you’re on this build.
  • Clicking gifs in the emoji panel will now actually insert them into supporting apps, unlike in the previous build.
  • Updated the backend dictionaries for several languages – the touch keyboard’s text suggestions and autocorrect should be more accurate now.
  • If you change your accent color the accents in the emoji panel should follow suit now, instead of getting stuck with the old color.
  • Fixed an IME crash that was happening sometimes for people who had chosen to use the previous version of the Pinyin IME.
  • Mitigated an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes recently related to touch keyboard usage.

[Windowing]

  • Made another fix to address an issue where explorer.exe would crash if you pressed ALT + F4 while ALT + Tab was open.

[Settings]

  • Fixed a Settings crash that could happen when trying to check remote sound properties while accessing a PC over Remote Desktop..

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing some clipping / unexpected zoom when going through OOBE on some ultrawide monitors.
  • The apostrophe in the error message when your fingerprint isn’t recognized on the login screen should display correctly now.
  • When taking a screenshot of a UWP app by pressing the New button in Snipping Tool, Snipping Tool should come into the foreground once the snip is done.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing some Insider PCs to bugcheck when coming out of sleep recently, with an error message saying “SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED”.
  • Fixed a deadlock that could happen related to MediaPlaybackCommandManager, resulting in certain apps not being able to play media sometimes.
  • Addressed an issue that was causing reports in Reliability Monitor to unexpectedly be blank with just an empty rectangle when going to see more info.
  • Did some work to help address an issue resulting in certain games having some lag that was only noticeable when the window was in focus. As a reminder if needed, please refer to the following documentation for filing actionable game perf feedback.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • We’re investigating an issue where some PCs are unable to install new builds, or other updates. The PC may report an error code 0x80070002. If you are experiencing this issue, please reboot your PC and try again.
  • Some PCs may rollback with error code 0xc1900101-0x4001c when installing this build. If you hit this, after the PC rolls back to the previous build, you may want to pause updates until we release a fix.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re investigating an issue in this build where the clock in the Taskbar can get stuck and not updated, particularly when accessing the PC via Remote Desktop.

[Windowing]

  • Hovering your mouse back and forth between different desktops in Task View will result in the displayed thumbnails and content area unexpectedly shrinking.

[Input]

  • We’re working on a fix to address reports from some Insiders that the lights on their keyboards, for example for caps lock, are not working properly after upgrading to the previous build.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

source: Windows Blogs

Nov 10

Event | MICROSOFT IGNITE AFTER PARTY

Hi Friends!

As part of Ignite 2021, we will be hosting an after-party and we would like you to join us on November 16th at 20:00 CEST.

Learn about the latest hybrid capabilities in Azure Arc and Azure Stack HCI, and how to secure and govern your applications whether you are on-premises, multicloud or at the edge!

Agenda:

20h00 – Wim Matthyssen and Karel De Winter

Microsoft MVP’s Wim Matthyssen and Karel De Winter will deliver a session about the capabilities of Azure Arc and Azure Stack HCI together. After the session, we then hold a Q&A to talk about other announcements at Microsoft Ignite.

We will hope you join us for a two-way conversation, some drinks and a lot of fun!

We’d love to see you among us at our next TechNine event on the 16th of November 2021.

> Register Here <

Nov 07

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494

Hi all, Last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494 to the Dev Channel.

All smooth upgrades here, few issues in this build,

Clipboard History’s empty (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAert27)

Admin menu / Apps and Features ends up in a submenu of Apps & Features instead of the applist (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAelz7n)

Having used the build a couple of days, the mic icon in taskbar is awesome! (more info below)

What’s new in Build 22494

Easily mute and unmute your microphone directly from your taskbar during a Microsoft Teams call

No more awkward or embarrassing moments when you forget to unmute or mute your microphone. Starting with Microsoft Teams today, you’ll find a microphone icon automatically added to your taskbar when you’re actively in a call. You can see your call audio status, what app is accessing your microphone, and quickly mute and unmute your call at any time.

When you join a meeting, you will see the following icon instantly appear in your taskbar. The icon will be present throughout your call, so it is always accessible, no matter how many windows you have open on your screen.

Mute and unmute your calls with the microphone icon on the taskbar.
Mute and unmute your calls with the microphone icon on the taskbar.

We are beginning to roll this experience out to a subset of Windows Insiders with Microsoft Teams for work or school installed and ramp it up over time. This means not everyone will see this right away with their Teams calls. We plan to bring this to Chat from Microsoft Teams (Microsoft Teams for home) later.

Other communications applications can also add this capability to their applications. The capability to mute or unmute your call applies only to your current call.

You can now communicate and collaborate with confidence & ease using the new call mute feature on Windows 11. We plan to enable this feature for all Windows 11 customers in a future serving update.

*Features and app availability may vary by region.

Changes and Improvements

  • We are trying out showing snap groups in ALT + TAB and Task View with some Windows Insiders just like when you hover open apps on the taskbar, and you see them there. This isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.
  • If you’re searching for file type or link types under Settings > Apps > Default apps, we’ll now show a dropdown of options containing your current query without having to first press enter.
  • If needed, you can now launch the installed apps settings page under Settings > Apps > Installed apps directly via this URI: ms-settings:installed-apps.
  • Adjusted the names of the sort by options under Settings > Apps > Installed apps to help make them clearer and added a new option to sort from smallest to largest size.

Fixes

[Taskbar]

  • Tooltips should no longer appear in random places on the Taskbar after sliding your mouse over volume, battery, network, or other icons in the Taskbar corner.
  • Addressed an underlying issue that was leading to come unexpected duplication of certain icons in the Taskbar corner.

[File Explorer]

  • Addressed an issue that was causing the context menu to crash for some people if you tried to scroll it.
  • Did some work to help address an issue where in certain areas of the screen the context menu submenus would draw on top of the context menu instead of beside it (for example, if you hovered over New).
  • The context menu icons should be less blurry on systems with multiple monitors with mixed DPI now.
  • Addressed an issue that could cause selecting Open With in the context menu to unexpectedly just open the file in certain cases rather than actually opening the Open With dialog.
  • Renaming files on the desktop is back up and running in this flight.
  • Made another adjustment to the command bar underlying logic to help improve performance of command actions in File Explorer.

[Search]

  • Fixed a recent issue that was causing the indexer database to become too fragmented, leading to the indexer unexpectedly consuming a large amount of memory and CPU for a prolonged period of time. This was particularly noticeable for people that have large Outlook mailboxes.

[Input]

  • Mitigated an issue that was causing certain apps to hang when trying to drag something with the Shift or Ctrl key held down.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the touch keyboard to not appear on tablets when tapping the text field if you were to try to reset your PIN from the login screen.
  • Improved reliability of the Pen menu.

[Windowing]

  • Fixed a few explorer.exe crashes related to using windowing features (snap, ALT + Tab, and Desktops).
  • If you open Task View on a system with multiple monitors, the background should now be acrylic on both monitors.
  • Addressed a couple UI issues with the window thumbnails in Task View and ALT + Tab, notably that the close button might get cut off if the app window was too thin.

[Settings]

  • Addressed an issue where Facial Recognition (Windows Hello) might be unexpectedly greyed out in Sign-in Settings in certain cases until closing and opening Settings.
  • Fixed an issue where Storage Sense wasn’t cleaning up C:\Windows\SystemTemp.
  • Standard users (aka non-admins) should now be able to change the time zone in Settings if Location access is not granted, rather than the dropdown going blank.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue causing links to Windows Update, Recovery and For developers to show under the main Windows Update Settings page.
  • Fixed a bug where images had a yellow tonality in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Lightroom Classic when in HDR mode.
  • Mitigated an issue related to DHCP that was causing unexpected power usage while the screen was off in recent builds for some Insiders.
  • Did some work to help address an issue where Service Host: WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service would unexpectedly utilize a lot of CPU.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause some devices to have a black screen when coming out of sleep (where the lock screen wouldn’t display).
  • Addressed an underlying issue that was causing some users with ARM64 PCs to experience an increase in Microsoft Teams crashes in the last few Dev Channel builds.
  • We have increased the padding for selected items as seen by clicking Show More Options in the File Explorer context menu, or the menu options in Task Manager.
  • WSL: Fixed error 0x8007010b when accessing Linux distributions via `\\wsl.localhost` or `\\wsl$` (Issue #6995).

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.
  • [ADDED 11/4] We’re investigating an issue where some PCs are unable to install this build, or other updates. The PC may report an error code 0x80070002. If you are experiencing this issue, please reboot your PC and try again.
  • [ADDED 11/4] We’re investigating reports from some Insiders that the lights on their keyboards, for example for caps lock, are not working properly after upgrading to this build.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re investigating an issue in this build where the clock in the Taskbar can get stuck and not updated, particularly when accessing the PC via Remote Desktop.

[Input]

  • Clipboard history says it is empty even if it is enabled and should contain content. This is a UI issue we’re investigating – when a flight goes out with a fix, any pinned items should become available again.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

source: Windows Blogs

Oct 30

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22489

Hi all, Last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22489 to the Dev Channel.

Quick & smooth upgrades here, quite some nice teaks to the settings app:

Windows updates got rearranged for easier navigation:

Apps & Features got a makover splitting up installed apps & options

Using Apps & Features in the admin menu (Windows key + x) lands in Apps/Advanced Apps settings, not the expected Apps pane (FeedbackHub: https://aka.ms/AAelz7n)

The ‘Your Microsoft account settings page is rolling out to a limited number or users at 1st, didn’t get lucky so far.

Happy upgrading!

What’s new in Build 22489

Your Microsoft account setting page

We are beginning to roll out a new entry point for “Your Microsoft account” under Settings > Account. Clicking this new entry point brings you to a new settings page that displays information related to your Microsoft account, including your subscriptions for Microsoft 365, links to order history, payment details, and Microsoft Rewards. This allows you to access your Microsoft account directly within Settings in Windows 11. We are beginning this rollout to a very small set of Insiders at first and then will ramp it up over time.

The new Your Microsoft account settings page.
The new Your Microsoft account settings page.

Over time, we plan to improve the Your Microsoft account settings page based on your feedback from Feedback Hub via Online Service Experience Packs. These Online Service Experience Packs work in a similar way as the Windows Feature Experience Packs do, allowing us to make updates to Windows outside of major OS updates. The difference between the two is that the Windows Feature Experience Packs can deliver broad improvements across multiple areas of Windows, whereas the Online Service Experience Packs are focused on delivering improvements for a specific experience such as the new Your Microsoft account settings page. For example, under Windows Update this would  appear as “Online Service Experience Pack – Windows.Settings.Account” with a version number. Right now, we’re testing this mechanism out with the new Your Microsoft account settings page first.

Changes and Improvements

  • We’ve added support for Discovery of Designated Resolvers which allows Windows to discover encrypted DNS configuration from a DNS resolver known only by its IP address. See this blog post for more details.
  • To improve consistency, we’re updating the name of the Connect app to now be “Wireless Display”. This app is a feature-on-demand (FOD) and can be enabled by going to Settings > Apps > Optional features > Add an optional feature.
  • We’re splitting up “Apps & Features” in Settings into two pages under Apps, “Installed Apps”, and “Advanced app settings”.
  • In case you missed it last week, just a reminder that Windows Sandbox now works on ARM64 PCs!
  • [ADDED 10/28] Insiders have noticed we have added the ability to view installed apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps by list, tiles, or grid.

Fixes

[Taskbar]           

  • App icons on secondary monitors should draw more reliably now instead of being blank.
  • Stopped an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when using the Desktops flyout context menu.
  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when dismissing the Desktops flyout.

[File Explorer]

  • Pin to Quick Access is a top-level option now when right clicking a drive in File Explorer.
  • We improved context menu launch performance.
  • Made a few fixes to help improve explorer.exe reliability when using File Explorer.

[Windowing]

  • Closing windows in Task View should look less jumpy now.
  • Did some work to help address an issue that was causing flickering in the app window when resizing certain apps in recent Dev Channel builds.

[Settings]

  • Addressed an issue that was causing Settings to crash in certain cases after going to Windows Update.
  • Added a space that was missing in the search results when searching for Touch Keyboard settings.
  • Fixed a Settings crash when trying to customize options in Wheel Settings.
  • If animations are turned off, dismissing a notification using the X will no longer have an animation.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the media controls to not show up in Quick Settings sometimes when music was playing recently. Also believed to have impacted hardware media key usage.
  • The tooltip for the Wi-Fi option in Quick Settings should no longer fly to the top of the screen.

[Other]

  • Mitigated an underlying issue that was causing the Processes tab in Task Manager to be blank sometimes. This is also believed to be the same root cause causing UAC to open very slowly recently.
  • Addressed an issue Xbox Game Pass games are failing to install with error 0x00000001.
  • Fixed an issue where get-winevent in PowerShell was failing with an InvalidOperationException (Issue #60740).
  • Mitigated a high hitting mousocoreworker.exe crash in the last few flights.
  • Did some work to try and improve the layout of the text in notification buttons in cases where there’s both an icon and text.
  • The Get Started app will no longer crash if the Tips app has been uninstalled.
  • Fixed an issue causing some devices to bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCPTION when updating on previous builds.
  • Made an underlying change to help fix an issue causing some users to see an unexpected “bad image” error message dialog on boot.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • In this build, you will notice links to Windows Update, Recovery and For developers under the main Windows Update Settings page. You will need to click on Windows Update a second time to check for updates. The Recovery and For developers links should not appear under Windows Update in settings. These issues will be fixed in a future build.
  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[File Explorer]

  • Trying to rename items on the desktop isn’t working properly in this build. It should work if you open File Explorer, navigate to the Desktop folder, and try to rename from there.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing tooltips to appear in an unexpected location after hovering over the Taskbar corner.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

source: Windows Blogs

Oct 23

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22483

Hi All, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22483 to the Dev Channel.

A slow download at first & quite an impact on performance during the pre-reboot upgrade phase, but soomth as usual upgrades on all my devices

New Feeback posted, noticed on this build & the previous one, Mail app stops refreshing contend after a while open, swapping focused to other keeps displaying focused content (Feeback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAe65h5)

On Thursday 10/21 New ISO’s were posted on the WIPISO page here

https://aka.ms/wipISO

Windows 10 21H2 has also been release to the release preview ring, the time is now to get that final testing done!

7th anniversary badge exclusively for Windows Insiders

To continue celebrating our anniversary this week, we will begin rolling out 7th anniversary badge. Windows Insiders will soon see it in the Feedback Hub achievements section in the coming weeks.  Thank you all for participating and supporting Windows Insider Program!

7th anniversary badge for Windows Insiders.
7th anniversary badge for Windows Insiders.

Changes and Improvements

  • We’ve added the ability to right-click on either “Recommended” or the “More” button in Start to refresh the items show there.
  • [ADDED 10/21] Windows Sandbox now works on ARM64 PCs. Shout out to Jeremy for catching this!

Fixes

[Search]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing Search to appear black and not display any content below the search box.

[Settings]

  • Searching for “display” will now return Display Settings.

[Other]

  • Trying to access the Linux entry for WSL in File Explorer’s navigation pane should no longer pop up an error saying “wsl.localhost is unavailable, insufficient resources exist” on ARM64 PCs.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing cellular data to not work on certain devices in recent Dev Channel builds.
  • Addressed an issue with NTFS when the USN journal was enabled, where it was doing extra unnecessary action with each write, impacting I/O performance.
  • Made some small improvements to keyboard navigation and screen reader usage of Performance Monitor.
  • Webview2 processes should now be properly grouped with the application using it in Task Manager’s Processes tab.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the Publisher column in Task Manager to not retrieve publisher names.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.
  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the Processes tab in Task Manager is blank sometimes.
  • We’re working on a fix for an issue causing some devices to bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCPTION when updating, starting with the previous build. If hit this issue previously, try rebooting and re-trying the update.
  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that Xbox Game Pass games are failing to install with error 0x00000001.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing tooltips to appear in an unexpected location after hovering over the Taskbar corner.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

source: Windows Blogs

Oct 19

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22478

Hi all, Last week Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22478 to the Dev Channel.

Very fast & smooth upgrades here, on the 15 a pipeline servicing update was released bringing the build to 22478.1012

Feedback Hub Recordings seem not to work (FBH: https://aka.ms/AAe30ib)

Search in explorer doesn’t launch by pressing the enter key (FBH: https://aka.ms/AAe37w5)

7 years of the Windows Insider Program

October has been a big month for us. Not only did we launch Windows 11 to the world with the help of you, our Windows Insiders, we’re also celebrating our 7 year anniversary. To celebrate our anniversary this year, we are releasing special desktop backgrounds designed by the Microsoft Design Team to show off being Microsoft and Windows 11 fans! Download the special background here for dark theme and here for light theme.

What’s new in Build 22478

New Fluent Emoji

Back in July, the Microsoft Design Team announced refreshed and new Fluent-designed emoji that would roll out across all of Microsoft 365 – including Windows. We are excited to be giving Windows Insiders a “first look” at how our new emoji design will look in Windows 11 starting with today’s Dev Channel build.

New and refreshed emoji as they appear in the emoji panel in Windows 11.
New and refreshed emoji as they appear in the emoji panel in Windows 11.

Emoji have become part of the way we communicate. Extending our expression by providing humor, feelings, and fun. You will notice we have redesigned all the emoji and introduced some nostalgia for our fans by making the standard paperclip emoji our beloved Clippy! As part of this rollout, we’re adding support for Unicode emoji up to Emoji 13.1 which includes new emoji such as face in the clouds, heart on fire, space with spiral eyes plus many more!

To check out the new emoji, just open up the emoji panel (WIN + . )!

After previewing these with Windows Insiders, we plan to bring these new emoji to everyone on Windows 11 via a future servicing update.

Changes and Improvements

  • The updated version of the Korean IME, which began rolling out with Build 22454, is now available to everyone in the Dev Channel.
  • When your laptop is closed, it’s now possible to login to your PC using Facial Recognition (Windows Hello) on a connected external monitor if it has a camera attached that supports it.
  • We’ve made a change to the underlying indexer platform to help improve overall reliability and database size, which should help reduce disk space usage on the system – particularly in cases where users had very large Outlook mailboxes.
  • Scrolling your mouse wheel on the volume icon in the Taskbar will now change the current volume level.
  • Made some small adjustments to the dialog when adding a new language in Settings to make it look a little more modern, including rounding the corners.

Fixes

[Start]

  • Keyboard focus will no longer get lost if you press ESC after opening the user profile flyout in Start.
  • Updated the prompt text when pinning something from a UWP app to Start, so it now says simply “Do you want to pin this to Start?”.

[Taskbar]

  • Addressed an issue that was causing Notification Center to get stuck in a state in recent builds where it would stop launching.
  • The plus icon for adding a new Desktop will now display properly when hovering over the Task View icon in the Taskbar when using Arabic and Hebrew languages.
  • After bringing up an app’s jump list from the Taskbar, right clicking on the app name should now show the correct icon for Pin to Start (a pin icon).
  • Left and right clicking Taskbar at the same time should no longer crash explorer.exe.

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue where the command bar was doing unnecessary calculations when navigating to folders, causing an unexpected decrease in performance. This is also believed to be the root cause of performance issues when using drag to select files, as well as using the arrow keys to navigate in certain folders.
  • The “Show hidden items” option should no longer get out of sync when multiple File Explorer windows are open.

[Widgets]

The following two issues have been addressed with Microsoft Edge version 95, currently live for Microsoft Edge Insiders, and as such we’re removing them from the known issues list:

  • The widgets board may appear empty.
  • Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors.

[Search]

  • The recent searches flyout when hovering over the search icon in the Taskbar should no longer immediately dismiss on invocation if an admin window is in focus.

[Input]

  • Setting focus to the search box in File Explorer shouldn’t make the touch keyboard invoke and immediately dismiss now when using a tablet with the Taskbar set to auto-hide.
  • Fixed an issue causing the handwriting panel to not insert text when using it to write Chinese.
  • Mitigated a memory leak that could occur in ctfmon, causing unexpected resource usage over time.
  • Addressed an issue for a small number of users that was causing TextInputHost.exe crashes when setting focus on any text field.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing Settings to crash when radio buttons were updated, for example if you connected an additional audio endpoint while the Sound page in Settings was open.
  • Improved performance of loading the themes displayed in Personalization Settings.
  • If a non-admin user changes their display language in Language Settings, we’ll no longer show the clickable sign-out button there as it was popping a UAC dialog and causing confusion.
  • The Windows Update entry at the top of the System page in Settings should no longer be misaligned with the other options (when shown) in languages like German.
  • The Braille options in Settings for Narrator users should now be in sync with the actual state of the Braille input/output mode.
  • Made a change to help address an issue where “Media streaming options” in the Network and Sharing Center would unexpectedly revert to default settings after an upgrade.
  • Improved Quick Settings launch reliability. This change should also help address the issue causing the window to not fully render (just a thin rectangle).
  • Addressed an issue where if you clicked on the media controls area in Quick Settings, it wasn’t bringing the app displayed to the foreground in certain cases.
  • Fixed an issue where the colors for items in Quick Settings could get stuck and not reflect the proper color for that state, particularly when using a contrast theme.
  • Updated the Quick Settings page for managing audio endpoints from “Volume” to “Sound output”.
  • Opening the page for managing audio endpoints in Quick Settings should no longer cause a brief cut in audio playback when multiple devices are listed.

[Windowing]

  • Mitigated an issue related to using ALT + Tab very quickly that could make explorer.exe crash.
  • Holding down ALT and pressing F4 after pressing ALT + Tab will no longer crash explorer.exe.
  • When using the Arabic or Hebrew display languages, dragging an app window to a different Desktop should show the thumbnail moving in the correct direction now.

[Other]

  • Fixed a casing issue that was causing LP.cab files to be unexpectedly removed in certain cases, which could lead you your display language changing until you added the desired display language back in Settings.
  • Addressed an issue that was causing some users to see a bugcheck with error “KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_ERROR”.
  • Mitigated an issue that was causing the SysMain service to use an unexpected amount of power in recent builds.
  • If the display order is missing in BCD settings that should no longer cause an upgrade failure.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing captions to draw at the wrong offset in certain apps.
  • Mitigated an issue that was causing crashes related to audiosrv.dll.
  • If going through OOBE with an Arabic or Hebrew display language, the volume and accessibility buttons should display on the correct side of the screen now.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing tooltips to appear in an unexpected location after hovering over the Taskbar corner.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
  • Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

Introducing Update Stack Packages

We are beginning to test a new process for delivering new update improvements to our customers outside of major OS updates with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel starting with Build 22478. Through the Update Stack Package, we can deliver improvements to the update experience prior to the PC taking a monthly or Feature Update. The Update Stack Package will help ensure that your PC has the highest likelihood of successfully installing new updates with the best and least disruptive experience available.

Currently, the Update Stack Package is limited to a very small set of update-related system files that are developed independently of the OS. By testing this process first with Windows Insiders, we hope to expand the scope and the frequency of releases in the future.

Update Stack Packages will be delivered to Insiders through Windows Update just like builds and cumulative updates are. Insiders in the Dev Channel today can go to Settings > Windows Update and check for updates to receive the Update Stack Package.

source: Windows Blogs

Oct 09

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22471

Hi all, Early build release this week on Monday, moved up a bit due to the Release of Windows 11 on October 5th, Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22471 to the Dev Channel.

Sooth & fast upgrades here on all devices, glad to see the multi monitor issue got fixed!

Windows 11 release October 5th 2021

Make sure you check out the 6D recorded event page for Windows 11 release at https://aka.ms/Elevenation

Changes and Improvements

  • To better represent the how the purpose of TabletInputService has expanded over the years, we’re renaming it to be TextInputManagementService.

Fixes

[Taskbar]

  • We fixed an underlying issue that was causing the Taskbar’s hidden icons flyout to have sharp corners instead of rounded corners sometimes.
  • Using the down arrow when interacting with the Desktops flyout’s context menu should now move focus down the menu instead of dismissing it.

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue that was making explorer.exe crash sometimes when closing File Explorer windows.

[Input]

  • Addressed an issue where voice typing might fail with an error message citing a network connection issue when that was not actually the cause of the failure.
  • If you’re using the touch keyboard in “Kana” key mode for the Japanese IME, the key labels will now correctly show the character that will be input when you’re holding Shift.
  • Mitigated a race condition that was causing textinputhost.exe to crash on launch sometimes.

[Windowing]

  • Typing wt from the Run dialog will now open Windows Terminal in the foreground instead of the background.
  • Addressed an issue that could lead to apps getting stuck in a minimized state after disconnecting an external monitor and resuming the system from sleep.

[Other]

  • Addressed a network issue for Insiders running certain traffic optimization software. This should lead to improved performance on websites utilizing HTTP/3.
  • Fixed and issue where some devices were failing to update to a newer build with error code 0xc1900101. If you are still experiencing this error code, please file a new piece of feedback in Feedback Hub.
  • Updated the “reboot needed” dialog for Windows Update to now say Windows 11. Please note that you will only see the results of this change when prompted to reboot for the next flight, as you need to be on a build with the change.
  • Fixed a DWM crash that could happen when enabling a contrast theme.
  • Corrected an issue for ARM64 PCs that could result in certain apps not responding to display language changes if they were installed prior to upgrading to Windows 11.
  • Addressed an issue where when explorer.exe is launched from an elevated process was using a lower memory priority, impacting the performance of all processes launched after it (Issue #55).

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 after general availability on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re investigating reports that Notification Center will get in a state in recent builds where it doesn’t launch. If you are impacted by this, restarting explorer.exe may resolve the issue for you.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
  • Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.

[Widgets]

  • The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.
  • Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.

source: Windows Blogs