Sep 03

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25193

Hi all, last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25193 to the Dev Channel.

Upgrades went smooth, no hiccup’s only the Surface GO took ages to pass ‘Working on updates 20%’ after the reboot

Happy Upgrading!

What’s new

Introducing Xbox subscription management in Settings

With this build, we are introducing a new Xbox subscription management experience within Windows 11 Settings app. If you are a member of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass for Console or Xbox Live Gold, you will now be able to see your subscription details via Settings > Accounts.

Like the Microsoft 365 subscription management experience, you will be able to view your billing recurrence, payment method and the games and benefits associated with your Xbox subscription.

In addition, you will also be able to manage and upgrade your subscription, redeem gift card tokens and be up to date on any actions required to continue your subscriptions without any disruptions.

Xbox subscription management in Settings.
Xbox subscription management in Settings.

If you don’t own any Xbox subscriptions, you can learn more about the games and benefits associated with Xbox subscriptions, by clicking the Learn more link on the card.

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

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Settings > User Profile Account Settings.

Support for new Braille displays in Narrator

We are excited to announce support for new Braille displays and new Braille input and output languages in Narrator. Some of the new braille displays we support include: the APH Chameleon, the APH Mantis Q40, the NLS eReader and many more. Refer to the detailed documentation to learn more about the new displays and languages that we support.

Prerequisites:

You must remove Narrator’s current braille support if it is already installed by following the steps below:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Go to Apps > Optional features > Installed features.
  3. Search for Accessibility – Braille support.
  4. Expand Accessibility – Braille support and uninstall the feature.

Install new narrator braille support:

  1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Narrator > Braille.
  2. Select the more button.
  3. Download braille from this new window by selecting the Download and install braille button.
  4. After braille is installed, restart your computer and return to Settings > Accessibility > Narrator > Braille.
  5. For Braille display to continue working seamlessly while switching between Narrator and third-party screen readers, select the braille display driver used by your third-party screen reader from the “Braille display driver” option. See the note below for customers that use the JAWS for Windows screen reader. This only needs to be done once. Refer to the detailed documentation to learn more about the braille driver solution.

Note: If you have the JAWS for Windows screen reader installed from Freedom Scientific and are using a version released in April 2022 or later along with a Focus braille display then there is no need to select the braille display as noted above.

Additional Resources:

Please refer to the Narrator User Guide for additional information on braille functionality in Narrator.

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

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • As a result of feedback from Windows Insiders, we have disabled the ability to share a local file directly to OneDrive using the built-in Windows share window that first began rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel with Build 25163. We hope to bring this feature back in the future after further refinement of the experience. As we’ve mentioned previously, features we try out in the Dev or Beta Channels may not always ship.

Fixes

[General]

  • Fixed an issue causing enabling .NET Framework 3.5 from the Windows Features dialog to not work in the previous build.

[Taskbar]

  • Made a fix so the taskbar overflow will now use the same accent color as your taskbar.
  • Fixed a couple of issues which were leading to sporadic explorer.exe crashes related to the taskbar overflow.
  • Fixed an issue related to the widgets entry in the taskbar which was causing the taskbar icons to appear to drift around sometimes in the previous flight.
  • Fixed an issue for Insiders with at least two monitors, where if the monitors had different DPI, the taskbar overflow could appear before it was needed or end up overlapped with the date and time on the secondary monitor.
  • Fixed an issue where the taskbar overflow flyout might appear floating away from the taskbar if you opened it after a display scaling change.

[Start]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing unexpected characters to show instead of an apostrophe in the tooltip for the Sleep option in the Power menu.
  • Fixed an issue which could lead to Start menu crashing on launch for some people when Search Highlights was enabled.

[File Explorer]

  • If the taskbar is set to auto-hide and File Explorer is maximized, hovering your mouse on the bottom of the screen to invoke the taskbar should work now.
  • Fixed an issue when dragging and dropping a folder to pin it to the navigation pane, that the line indicating where it would be inserted didn’t have enough contrast in dark mode.
  • We fixed an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode (for example dark in light mode).
  • Fixed an issue where File Explorer would appear to open, close, and re-open before it finished drawing after being launched from certain places (for example when opening the location of a downloaded file from Microsoft Edge).
  • Fixed an issue where certain files couldn’t be unpinned from the Favorites section of Home after you’d pinned them.
  • Made another fix to help address UI issues when switching between dark and light mode if the File Explorer window was open when you switch.
  • Fixed a GDI objects leak when resizing the navigation pane in File Explorer, which could potentially lead to content in File Explorer not rendering correctly over time for Insiders who resized the navigation pane frequently.
  • Made some improvements to help the performance of loading Home when using a cloud storage provider, like OneDrive, to back up your files in File Explorer.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue causing the Storage page in Settings as well as Disk Cleanup to crash in the scan phase for some people.
  • Fixed an issue where URIs to open pages under the Accounts section of Settings weren’t working for some people – Settings would open, but not navigate to the correct page. This impacted the link to open Sign-in Options in the Start menu.
  • Fixed an issue leading to app icons not displaying correctly under Privacy & Security > Voice activation.
  • Fixed a Settings crash when uninstalling apps using Apps > Installed apps.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue which could sometimes cause a ShellExperienceHost.exe crash when you stopped casting to another display or switched to duplicate your display.
  • Added a warning to findstr if Unicode input is detected, to make it more clear if that’s why results aren’t returned for certain files.
  • Fixed an issue in recent flights causing lines to not be included when printing tables from certain apps.
  • Fixed an issue in recent flights which could lead to hangs in certain apps.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[General]

  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
  • We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
  • We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports that Insiders are experiencing bugchecks when moving their mouse in certain games
  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports that some Insiders are seeing OneDrive setup asking for permission to set up every time their PC reboots.

[File Explorer]

  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports that a small set of Insiders with “launch folder windows in a separate process” are unable to open File Explorer after last week’s flight.
  • [NEW] We’re working on the fix for an issue where command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin may unexpectedly not be enabled when they should be.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports that the weather isn’t displaying correctly in the taskbar for some Insiders, with missing text and the weather icon raised too high.

source: Windows Blogs

Aug 27

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25188

Hello all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25188 to the Dev Channel.

Fast & smooth here no issues during the upgrades

Stange icon dace on the taskbar, when you open up just enough app to fill the taskbar with icons, they start dancing (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAhv9bt)

Happy ppgrading!

What’s new

Updated Touch Keyboard Settings

We are trying out a 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.
New touch keyboard settings.

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

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

Changes and Improvements

[Windows Terminal]

  • Windows Terminal is now the default terminal in Windows 11. This means, all command line applications will open in Windows Terminal automatically (Command Prompt and PowerShell, for example). The setting for this change can be found via Settings > Privacy & security > For developers. Please note that Windows Terminal version 1.15 or greater is required for this feature.

[Settings]

  • Updated the Wi-Fi and VPN properties pages in Settings to now include a link to advanced properties for that network.

Fixes

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an issue related to the taskbar overflow which was impacting explorer.exe reliability.

[Start]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing Start’s recommended to only show one column instead of two.
  • Made a fix for Narrator mistakenly reading out the search box in Start twice.
  • Fixed an issue where the access keys (underlined letters) in WIN + X had duplicate definitions when an update was pending reboot.

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue causing a small percentage of Insiders to experience repeated explorer.exe crashes after attempting to access certain folders on their systems in the last couple Dev Channel builds.
  • Fixed a recent issue where if File Explorer was open when you switched between light and dark mode, you could end up with some unreadable text / UI showing the wrong color.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing explorer.exe to crash when opening folders with certain images.
  • The up arrow should no longer be misaligned in File Explorer.
  • Fixed an issue which could lead to not being able to unpin Desktop, Pictures, or Documents folders from Quick access.
  • Fixed an underlying explorer.exe crash which could happen when File Explorer launch was aborted, for example if you were attempting to access a network share from the Run dialog, were prompted for credentials, and then clicked cancel instead of entering them.
  • If the tab title is too long to display completely in the available space, hovering your mouse over it will now show a tooltip with the full name.
  • Fixed an issue which could lead to explorer.exe crashing when File Explorer was closed.
  • Fixed an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer sometimes.
  • Removed the toolbar some people were unexpectedly seeing (with View / Edit / etc) after the introduction of tabs in File Explorer. As part of this, the “always show menus” option in Folder Options was also removed which didn’t do anything.

[Search]

  • Fixed an underlying crash which could lead to search not launching.
  • Searching for “detect displays” will now return Display Settings.

[Input]

  • Made a number of updates to emoji keywords based on feedback, including fixing that searching for apple didn’t return the red apple emoji in Korean or Polish (in the respective languages), searching for trash or garbage in English should now return the wastebasket emoji, searching for roger in English should now return the saluting face emoji, and searching for bug will now return the ladybug emoji. Please continue sharing feedback about emoji search results under Input & Language > Emoji Panel in the Feedback Hub!

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue where in certain cases removing a printer from Settings wouldn’t work.
  • Fixed an issue where the DNS suffix search list entry wasn’t displaying correctly in Settings.
  • Fixed an issue where the buttons for changing current view in Settings > Apps > Installed apps might unexpectedly show arrows overlaid on top.

[Task Manager]

  • Updated the positioning of the View button tooltip position so it shouldn’t block the close button in the title bar anymore.
  • The arrow shown when sorting processes by CPU should no longer be black on black in certain cases when using dark mode.
  • Updated the selection highlight color when you select rows on the Details or Services page to be less bright and more aligned with the other colors used with the updated Task Manager design.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue leading to missing / broken characters on the Bitlocker screen when using the Japanese display language.
  • Fixed an issue where the Advanced Settings of an application pool on a remote IIS server would display a blank screen.
  • Fixed an issue where Steps Recorder wouldn’t close when you pressed ALT + F4.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[General]

  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
  • We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
  • We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
  • [NEW] Enabling .NET Framework 3.5 from the Windows Features dialog will not work in this build. If you had it enabled prior to upgrading, it may become disabled. This will potentially lead to issues with apps that rely on these components. We’re working on a fix.

[File Explorer]

  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the taskbar isn’t able to display if File Explorer is maximized and you have the taskbar set to auto-hide.
  • [NEW] A fix for File Explorer appearing to open and close before finally finishing drawing when launched from certain locations will be available in a future flight.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.

[Printing]

  • We’re working on the fix for an issue in recent Dev Channel flights causing lines to not be included when printing tables from certain apps.

source: Windows Blogs

Aug 20

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25182

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25182 to the Dev Channel.

Upgrades went smooth here on all devices, no GSOD on the Surface Book 3 any more up to now

The Surface App is having a strange issue with the images (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAhqbd9)

Surface App showing interlaced pictures

Fixes

[General]

  • We fixed the issue that was causing devices with low disk space to receive download error 0x80070001 in Windows Update trying to install the latest Dev Channel build.
  • Fixed an issue leading to some Insiders experiencing a decrease in FPS when playing certain games in recent flights due to the wrong graphics card being used.

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an issue which could lead to the taskbar overflow flyout unexpectedly appearing on the opposite side of the screen. This was incorrectly noted as fixed in Build 25179.
  • We fixed an issue that was causing the animation on the taskbar that plays when a user switches from using a device in tablet posture to desktop while in overflow to incorrectly show when logging in.
  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash which could happen when determining if the taskbar overflow should display. This could happen when switching out of a full screen game.

[Start]

  • Fixed a Start menu crash that could prevent apps from launching from Start.

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue causing the left-half of the File Explorer title bar to not be draggable via mouse or touch for some Insiders.
  • We fixed an issue causing Home, Documents, Pictures, and potentially other folders to become unexpectedly duplicated in File Explorer’s navigation pane or appear on the desktop.
  • Selecting multiple folders and then using the context menu option to open them in a new tab will now actually do that, rather than opening the first folder in a new tab and all the others in a new window.
  • Updated the logic for Narrator so that if you navigate to a OneDrive folder using the navigation pane in File Explorer, Narrator will now explicitly say it’s a OneDrive folder, and not just something like “YourName – Personal”.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue which could cause the camera light on a laptop to get stuck on after logging into your PC.
  • Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of some Insiders seeing bugchecks when opening and copying files from network locations.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[General]

  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
  • We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
  • We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
  • [NEW] A small percentage of Insiders are experiencing repeated explorer.exe crashes after attempting to access certain folders on your system on Builds 25179+. Insiders who have the Xbox Dev Kit installed will hit this. We’re working on a fix for this in a future flight.

[File Explorer]

  • The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer. If you encounter this, you should still be able to use the context menu to delete.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the taskbar isn’t able to display if File Explorer is maximized and you have the taskbar set to auto-hide.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.

[Printing]

  • We’re working on the fix for an issue in recent Dev Channel flights causing lines to not be included when printing tables from certain apps.

Camera App: Privacy Shutter Support

With the latest release (Version 2022.2207.29.0) available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel, Camera can now understand the state of the privacy shutter on supported hardware, like the Microsoft Modern Webcam or the integrated camera on many new Windows 11 laptops. If the shutter is blocking the view or if the laptop lid is closed, Camera app will inform you and offer guidance.

Camera app displaying a warning notification that the camera is blocked.
Camera app displaying a warning notification that the camera is blocked.

We’ve also improved the Camera app experience on Arm64 devices. You’ll see faster and better performance when you use the app.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Apps > Camera.

Microsoft Store Update

We are beginning to roll out a Microsoft Store update (version 22207.1401.x) with the following improvements:

Screenshots in search results: You can now view screenshots in search results to help improve your browsing experience.

Install games directly from the Microsoft Store app: When you find a game you like, we install it right from the Microsoft Store, without switching apps.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Microsoft Store.

source: Windows Blogs

Aug 13

Reliability History- quick status check

When issues arrise on a Windows device many of us dive into the eventlogs, check when latest updates were installed, when the device was restarted, how often does a certain app crash…

This can be quite a job filtering through logs, looking up info at numerous locations.

Windows has a built-in tool that does a lot of this work for you, it’s called Reliability History / Monitor

To find it tap start & start typing ‘reliability’ search should show it quite fast

screen capture of start searching for reliability history

If your display language is not English, you’ll have to search for the translated term for reliability (example: Dutch = Betrouwbaarheids geschiedenis)

Pro-tip: Typing “perfmon /rel” into the run box or CLI works on any language

Alternatively, you can open up control panel & navigate System and security / Security and Maintenance & expand maintenance to find it

location of the tool in control panel

The top part of the tool shows a graphical overview of the past days

top part of the app shows a graphical overview of events

The bottom part adds a detailed list of crashes, updates of apps & Windows, the typical logs you go hunt for when issues arrise

Example of a device where explorer crashed a couple of times & had a BSOD

This saves me a lot of time while doing the initial analysis of a device, hope this helps you too!

Aug 13

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25179

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25179 to the Dev Channel.

Smooth & fast upgrade on all but 1 of my devices, one needed to retry the operation (try again before the reboot) & was successful the 2nd time

GSOD on intel drivers is still happening on this build for my Surface Book 3 (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAhl4zn)

Explorer with tabs doesn’t respond to drag with mouse or touch on the title bar where the ‘next tab’ would be opened

Explorer now has Home & OneDrive folders on top of the left pane:

screenshot of explorer

(Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAhp6ao)

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • The spelling dictionary will now use a language-neutral word list and we are trying out syncing this across all devices that use the same Windows account. Users can toggle this feature via Settings > Accounts > Windows backup > Remember my preferences > Language preferences. This currently only works with Microsoft accounts today with AAD support coming later.

[File Explorer]

  • File Explorer tabs and navigation updates (which began rolling out to the Dev Channel with Build 25136) are now rolling out to everyone in the Dev Channel. If you don’t see these features right away, please try rebooting. If that doesn’t work, please file feedback in Feedback Hub.
  • We’re trying out different experiences in File Explorer to show search results.

[Input]

  • We’re adding the Tamil Anjal keyboard for the Tamil language. It’s a popular keyboard for inputting Tamil characters, so if you speak this language, please try it out! This keyboard is currently rolling out to a subset of Insiders while we evaluate the quality. To add it (once it’s available to you), make sure Tamil (India) is listed under Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region, and then click the “…” next to the language, select Language Options, and add it to the list of keyboards.
  • We are rolling out a small tweak to improve the key repeat rate for the traditional touch keyboard layout, as well as the default touch keyboard layout, so it feels more responsive. Now it has the rate of 20 keys per second (for example, when holding down the delete key).

[Other]

  • Updated the default duration captured by powercfg -sleepstudy from 3 to 7 days.

Fixes

[General]

  • Fixed an issue causing hangs and crashes in apps (like Excel) when attempting to print in the last couple flights.
  • Fixed a few issues impacting explorer.exe reliability.

[File Explorer]

  • The Mount option when right clicking things like ISO files should now show an icon in the context menu.
  • Fixed an issue where the min / max / close button might not be visible in File Explorer when using a contrast theme.

[Widgets]

  • We have fixed the issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an issue which could lead to the taskbar overflow flyout unexpectedly appearing on the opposite side of the screen.

[Input]

  • Fixed a sporadic crash impacting reliability of the input switcher.
  • Fixed an issue where when Suggested Actions was enabled, if you copied multiple items in a row to your clipboard history, some of the items might not display after you pressed WIN + V.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue which was causing Settings to crash on launch sometimes.
  • Improved alignment of the “Scan for phone” button displayed on Accounts > Sign-In Options under Dynamic Lock when your phone failed to connect.
  • Your preferred state for the Suggested Actions setting under System > Clipboard should persist upgrade going forward from this build.

[Windowing]

  • Fixed an issue where when resizing certain app windows near the edge of the screen when using mixed DPI monitors might unexpectedly cause the window to jump and shrink.

[Other]

  • We made a change so that the media controls in Quick Settings will more reliably not load old media you’re no longer using.
  • Fixed an issue causing one of the characters in the bugcheck text to not display correctly (as a box) when the display language was set to Chinese.
  • Fixed an issue causing app install failures with error 0x80080204 in the last few flights.
  • Improved date / time recognition for existing supported locales when using Suggested Actions.

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] Devices with low disk space may be unable to update to this build and see download error 0x80070001 in Windows Update. A fix should go out with the next flight. Freeing up disk space 24GB or higher could allow the build to download and install.
  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
  • We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
  • We’re working on a fix for an issue leading to some Insiders experiencing a decrease in FPS when playing certain games in recent flights due to the wrong graphics card being used.
  • We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.

[File Explorer]

  • The left-half of the File Explorer title bar may not be draggable via mouse or touch.
  • The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Home, Documents, Pictures and potentially other folders to become unexpectedly duplicated in File Explorer’s navigation pane or appear on the desktop.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer. If you encounter this, you should still be able to use the context menu to delete.
  • [NEW] We’re working on the fix for an issue where the taskbar isn’t able to display if File Explorer is maximized and you have the taskbar set to auto-hide.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.

[Printing]

  • We’re working on the fix for an issue in recent Dev Channel flights causing lines to not be included when printing tables from certain apps.

source: Windows Blogs

Aug 06

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25174

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25174 to the Dev Channel.

Smooth & fast upgrades here on all devices

The taskbar overflow aligns to the left of the screen which is a bit strange (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAhm90w)

screenshot of left aligned overflow window

Happy upgrading!

What’s new

Introducing the new Game Pass Widget

PC Game Pass and Windows are a fantastic combination for gaming; with PC Game Pass, you have access to hundreds of high-quality games for your PC. For the past couple of months, we’ve been working with our friends on the Xbox team to make Windows and PC Game Pass an even better combination; today we’re announcing something new for gaming and our widgets experience: the Game Pass widget preview.

The Game Pass widget.
The Game Pass widget.

This widget is a window to the extensive PC Game Pass library  – it will show the latest additions, games leaving soon, and others from highlighted categories and then take you to the Xbox app where you can install them, see reviews, and go all in.

We’re still hard at work on some exciting functionality coming soon that will let you sign-into your Xbox profile and easily jump back into recently played games as well as see personalized recommendations of games we believe you’ll love.

The Game Pass widget preview is available in the widgets board alongside other widgets that bring weather, sports, and other great content closer to you. The widgets board is shown by clicking the left corner of your taskbar or by pressing Win + W. To pin the Game Pass widget, select the ‘+’ button in the top right corner of the widgets board.

Here is how to get started:

  • Open the widgets board.
  • Click on the + icon next to your user profile.
  • Click on the + icon besides the Game Pass
  • Close the Widget settings window.
  • The Game Pass widget should now appear in your widgets board.

We are looking forward to getting feedback on the Game Pass widget from Windows Insiders who are PC gamers. Tell us what you’d love to see in the widget, or if you see anything that is strange or unexpected on the widget itself or on the widgets experience.

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

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Widgets.

Changes and Improvements

[File Explorer]

  • Middle clicking a folder in the navigation pane of File Explorer will now open it in a new tab, like clicking a folder in the body of File Explorer already does. Please note that this requires tabbed File Explorer, which hasn’t rolled out to everyone in the Dev Channel yet.

Fixes

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening new File Explorer windows.
  • Fixed an issue where launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) was showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
  • Fixed an issue where the left/right arrows in File Explorer were in light mode when you were using dark mode, causing them to not have enough contrast to show when they were enabled.
  • Fixed an issue where the dividers in the navigation pane were overlapping / drawing too close to text sometimes.
  • Fixed an issue where if you drag and drop a folder into the navigation pane was sometimes unexpectedly putting the folder at the bottom of the list rather than where you’d dropped it.
  • Fixed an issue causing UI issues in File Explorer when using F11 to put File Explorer in full screen mode.

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an issue leading to various system tray elements being unexpectedly missing for some Insiders on the previous build.

[Settings]

  • Fixed a crash on some PCs were experiencing when going to System > Storage > Disks & Volumes.

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue which was leading to mouse and keyboard input not working correctly in certain games in the last 2 flights.
  • Fixed an issue believed to be leading to SQL Server Management Studio failing to launch for some Insiders.
  • Fixed an issue where Memory Integrity in Windows Security might show a warning saying it couldn’t be enabled due to incompatible drivers, but the incompatible drivers list would be blank.
  • Fixed an issue which was causing some apps to unexpectedly not launch in the last few flights when core isolation was enabled in Windows Security.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[General]

  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
  • [NEW] We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
  • [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue leading to some Insiders experiencing a decrease in FPS when playing certain games in recent flights due to the wrong graphics card being used.
  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.

[File Explorer]

  • The left-half of the File Explorer title bar may not be draggable via mouse or touch.
  • The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
  • [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing Home, Documents, Pictures and potentially other folders to become unexpectedly duplicated in File Explorer’s navigation pane or appear on the desktop.
  • [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
  • [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer. If you encounter this, you should still be able to use the context menu to delete.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

[Printing]

  • [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing hangs and crashes when trying to print from certain apps (like Excel) in the last flight.
  • [NEW] We’re investigating reports in recent Dev Channel flights lines aren’t included when printing tables from certain apps.

Jul 31

The #Windows11 context menu

Windows 11 introduced the new context menu (right-click menu)

example of right-click on the desktop
the previous experience (SHIFT Key + Right click

The new menu has the most used options instantly available where the less used options are ‘hidden’ behind the ‘Show more options’ extra click

For me the new menu took some getting used to, but once embraced it’s very nice to use!

Not everyone has gotten used to the new interface yet & many users are asking to return the old experience to Windows 11 or make it possible to set the default.

Getting to the ‘full context menu’ however does not require 2 clicks.

When you need it, hold down the SHIFT key while clicking to instantly open the full option context menu

right-click on a file
SHIFT key + right click on a file

Jul 31

Best Practice Analyser – ‘Warning’ Short file name creation should be disabled – Configuration

Disabling Short filename Creation frees up performance for other file server tasks

This will stop NTFSfrom generating the 8 char filename alias for all files (only required for very old software)

Example:

Query the current state for the setting:

fsutil 8dot3name query

To disable the function, change the following registry value & reboot the system

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

Set it to 1 (Default value is 2 for 2012 & up, earlier it was 0)

This is one of the many performance tuning options for file shares: Performance Tuning for NFS File Servers | Microsoft Docs

More on scanning & cleaning up already generated names: fsutil 8dot3name | Microsoft Docs

Jul 30

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25169

Hi all, last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25169 to the Dev Channel.

Multi-App Kiosk Mode is here, long awaited feature in 11

The Taskbar icon overflow that in the builds since last week is a very nice feature

What’s new

Multi-App Kiosk Mode

Multi-app kiosk mode is a lockdown feature for Windows 11 that allows an IT administrator to select a set of allowable apps to run on the device, while all other functionalities are blocked. This enables you to create multiple different apps and access configurations for different user types, all on a single device.

Some lockdown customizations include:

  • Limiting access to Settings, except selected pages (e.g., Wi-Fi and screen brightness)
  • Lock down the Start menu to show only allowed apps.
  • Block toasts and pop-ups that lead to unwanted UI.

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>

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Device Lockdown

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • The changes noted here in this previous blog post on changes to how IT admins enroll devices in the Windows diagnostic data processor configuration option are now included in this build (Build 25169 and higher). A reminder that if the documented changes are not acceptable, it is recommended to pause flighting.

[Windows Spotlight]

  • You can now enable Windows Spotlight on the desktop via a brand-new Windows Spotlight theme now included in the latest builds in the Dev Channel under Settings > Personalization and Settings > Personalization > Themes. Additionally, you can make your own custom themes with Windows Spotlight’s rotating images as well. UPDATE 7/29: This update is currently rolling out so it may not be available to all Insiders in the Dev Channel just yet.
The brand-new Windows Spotlight theme.
The brand-new Windows Spotlight theme.

[Input]

  • We have updated the U.S. English (EN-US) handwriting model to be faster and more accurate. Use the updated Handwriting Panel for ink-to-text and let us know what you think.

[Settings]

  • Settings now supports managing apps which were earlier only supported from Control Panel. This includes uninstallation of apps which have inter-dependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam), repair and modifying of Win32 apps.

[Windows Security]

  • The Windows Security app version is now displayed in Windows Security settings under About.

Fixes

[File Explorer]

  • Fixed an issue leading to the Azure Information Protection context menu entry unexpectedly showing with the name Microsoft.Azip.RightClick after an upgrade.

[Taskbar]

  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash that was preventing taskbar from loading when launching Microsoft Teams meetings sometimes.
  • Fixed a couple explorer.exe crashes some Insiders were experiencing related to taskbar overflow.

[Start]

  • Fixed an issue that was removing the “More” button in Start’s Recommended section.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue where after using the reveal password button in the Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings, the text field might unexpectedly lose focus.

[Input]

  • We made a small tweak to improve the key repeat rate for the traditional touch keyboard layout, as well as the default touch keyboard layout, so it feels more responsive. Now it has the rate of 20 keys per second (for example, when holding down the delete key).

[Other]

  • Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of some Insiders experiencing bug checks when opening and copying files from network locations recently.
  • Fixed an issue which could cause desynced audio when recording game play with the Xbox Game Bar.
  • Fixed an issue leading to error code 0x80004005 when using the network troubleshooter.
  • Made some adjustments to fix an issue where the scrollbar in certain places (like File Explorer) was unexpectedly wide when using high DPI scaling.
  • Fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of Windows Security saying standard hardware security wasn’t supported on devices where it was actually supported, as well as showing a warning in the taskbar but not showing any issues when Windows Security was launched. Please note, due to timing of the payload, these issues may come back after the next Windows Security update. It will go away again after a future Windows Security update.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues

[General]

  • We’re investigating reports that SQL Server Management Studio is failing to launch for some Insiders.
  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.

[File Explorer]

  • [NEW] The left-half of the File Explorer title bar may not be draggable via mouse or touch.
  • The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
  • We’re working on a fix to address reports that launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) is showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.

[Widgets]

  • Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
  • In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

source: Windows Blogs

Jul 25

Microsoft Endpoint Manager Insiders community

This month’s Tech Community Live: Endpoint Manager! (July 21, 2022)

tcl-landing-page-banner_mem.png

Revealed something new, the MEM Insiders community.

If you’re interested in more opportunities to talk about Microsoft Endpoint Manager, get the new stuff at the earliest & be able to give your feedback early, this is the place to go. I’ve already signed up & got access quite fast.

When approved, you’ll get access to the SharePoint page of the Insiders Community

The sign-up form states:

“One of the perks of being an Insider is early access to announcements, exclusive community calls with the product team and more”

Here’s the link to the sign-up form:

>Microsoft Endpoint Manager Insiders community<

I’m excited to see what will happen here, hope to see you there!

Here are the recorded sessions from the Community Live event: