May 06

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23451

Hi all, Last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23451 to the Dev Channel.

What’s new in Build 23451

Modernized Details Pane in File Explorer

We are introducing a modernized details pane in File Explorer (ALT + Shift + P) designed to help you easily access related content, stay up to date with file activity, and collaborate without even opening a file.

New modernized details pane in File Explorer.
New modernized details pane in File Explorer.

When a user selects a file in File Explorer and enables the pane, a modern pane will display contextual information about the file including file thumbnail, share status and button, file activity, related files and e-mails, and other information. To enable the pane, choose ‘Details pane’ in View menu and then toggle the pane with an easy-access button located on right side of the command bar. The View menu/toggle button in the command bar can similarly be used for accessing the preview pane. This modernized pane will replace the legacy details pane in File Explorer.

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

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

Improving Windows Spotlight

Starting with this build, we are trying out two different treatments for how Windows Spotlight looks. Both treatments will continue to share existing core Windows Spotlight features such as hovering over the icon on the desktop, right-clicking on the icon on the desktop, and double-clicking on the icon on the desktop. One treatment will include a richer UI, full screen, and minimized experience. Both treatments will include 4K portrait images and the ability to learn more about each desktop image. Insiders in the Dev Channel will see different treatments across their PCs so not everyone will see the same thing and the treatments will be shown in English only.

One of the multiple treatments for Windows Spotlight with richer UI showing in the full-screen experience. Clicking anyway on the desktop dismisses the full-screen experience.
One of the multiple treatments for Windows Spotlight with richer UI showing in the full-screen experience. Clicking anyway on the desktop dismisses the full-screen experience.

To enable Windows Spotlight on your PC today, right-click on your desktop and choose “Personalize” and then choose the new Spotlight theme. Alternatively, you can directly enable Windows Spotlight by going to Settings > Personalization > Background and choosing the option under the “Personalize your background” dropdown.

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

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

Narrator enhances interaction with Excel

Narrator now provides a more succinct and efficient reading experience while working in Microsoft Excel. Announcements are prioritized based on the information you need to skim a workbook and are customizable using convenient keyboard shortcuts. Review the Enhanced Narrator support in Excel documentation for further information.

To enable the enhanced announcements, you need to be on the latest Windows Insider and Office Insiders builds and start Narrator using the keyboard shortcut Control + Windows + Enter. The updated experience will be available through the Microsoft Store, so it may take a few minutes to be available on your PC. We look forward to you trying out our new changes and would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

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

New Widget: Facebook

Facebook is rolling out a preview version of their widget. To give it a try, download the Facebook app from the Microsoft Store or update to the latest version of the app. Then open the widgets board and navigate to the widgets picker by clicking the “+” button at the top-right of the board to pin your widget.

The Facebook widget.
The Facebook widget.

As you give this and other new widgets a try, please let us know what you think through the Widgets feedback link in the widgets picker. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and release widgets for their apps.

If you’re a Windows developer and interested in creating a widget, watch our tutorial video here. For an overview of the Windows widgets experience and design guidance for creating your own widgets, see Windows widgets. For more information on creating a Win32 widget provider, see Widget service providers. For information on PWA widget providers, see Build PWA-driven widgets.

Changes and Improvements

[Start menu]

  • We’re beginning to expand the roll out of notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu. A Microsoft account is what connects Windows to your Microsoft apps, backs up all of your data, helps you manage subscriptions, and where you can add extra security steps so you’re never locked out of your account. With this feature, we’re giving customers quick access to important account-related notifications. These notifications can be managed by going to Settings > Personalization > Start.
Example of a notification badge on the Start menu.
Example of a notification badge on the Start menu.
  • We continue to work on adding more valuable content to the Recommended section in the Start menu by re-introducing websites after trying this out with Insiders last fall. One improvement we’ve made is to recommend more useful and personal websites based on your browsing history instead of generally popular websites. Insiders can right-click on a website and choose to remove a website individually at any given time. Only some Insiders will see this experience and, if you do, please share your feedback. This feature will apply to users who have opted into sharing browsing data with Microsoft and have visited enough websites in Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome (with Continuous Import enabled). As a reminder, the settings for what is recommended on Start can be adjusted via Settings > Personalization > Start. Commercial customers can manage this experience via policy.
Recommended websites based on your browsing history on the Start menu.
Recommended websites based on your browsing history on the Start menu.

[File Explorer]

  • For Windows Insiders who have Gallery in File Explorer (which began rolling out with Build 23435), we have updated the icon for Gallery.
Updated Gallery icon in File Explorer.
Updated Gallery icon in File Explorer.

[Widgets]

  • We are beginning to roll out a new widget picker experience with an image that gives a visual preview of the widget before pinning, a deep linking ability that allows users to jump directly to the picker from the provider app/service as well as a link to the widgets Store collection page where users can discover more apps with widgets.
Updated widgets picker.
Updated widgets picker.
  • We are beginning to roll out animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar. The animation triggers when you hover or click on the Widgets taskbar entry-point or when a new widget announcement is displayed on your taskbar. Currently, only a few weather and finance icons are supported.
Example of animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar.
Example of animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar.

[Live captions]

  • Languages support has been expanded to include Danish, English (Ireland), French (Canada), Korean, Portuguese (Portugal).

[Developer]

  • Enabling end task by right-clicking on an app on the taskbar under Settings > Privacy & security > For developers now works in this build. The setting for this first showed up with Build 23430 but the feature was not working.

Fixes

[Taskbar & System Tray]

  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash impacting taskbar reliability.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing Quick Settings and its project options to sometimes not respond when using ALT + F4 to close them.

[Start menu]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing the Recommended section in Start to be blank the first time it was opened.

[File Explorer]

We fixed the following issues for Insiders previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer

  • We fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of explorer.exe crashing when opening the context menu in the previous flight for some Insiders.
  • If you use an Arabic or Hebrew display language, the tabs should be displaying correctly now.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with Gallery in File Explorer:

  • Fixed an issue where the scrollbar for Gallery was displaying on the wrong side for Insiders with an Arabic or Hebrew display language.
  • If you have the Item Check Boxes setting enabled, the Gallery will now show check boxes on images.

[Search]

  • Did some work to fix an underlying issue which could cause Search to get stuck and not open. When this happened, you might also see a delay opening the Start menu.

[Input]

  • Fixed an issue where the Pinyin IME’s insert text button wasn’t displaying correctly in some cases.
  • Fixed an underlying crash impacting the ability to launch the touch keyboard / PIN entry on the login screen.

[Notifications]

  • Fixed another 2FA code pattern which wasn’t being recognized. If you see any others, please file feedback!

[Live captions]

  • Fixed an issue where caption characters shown in the second line of the default height window were getting clipped on top.
  • Features have been added to the enhanced speech recognition language files to improve performance and provide out-of-language filtering meant to limit the incorrect captions for speech not in the caption language.

[Accessibility]

  • Fixed an issue where using the down key while navigating by landmark with Narrator in Edge wasn’t jumping to the first line of the landmark correctly.

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

Known issues

[Search on the Taskbar]

  • There is an issue where some people may not see the search box on the taskbar and/or the settings to adjust the search box experience on the taskbar after updating to Build 23403. We are aware of the issue, and we are working on a fix.
  • [NEW] When you open the search flyout you may see the content flicker before the content finishes loading.
  • [NEW] Narrator customers may not be able to navigate down the left side panel of the search flyout.
  • [NEW] Text scaling may not work in the search flyout.

[File Explorer]

Insiders who have Gallery in File Explorer will see the following issues:

  • Gallery may require clicking twice on the node in the navigation pane for initial load.
  • Live updates (including filtering) are currently disabled and require using the Refresh button as a workaround.
  • Thumbnail loading performance for dehydrated cloud files and memory usage in large collections are known issues we are focused on improving. Please capture Performance traces in Feedback Hub for any performance-related issues. Rebuilding your Indexer can help if thumbnails are missing for cloud files; Search for “Indexing Options” and look in Advanced settings to find the rebuild tool.
  • Photos from OneDrive for Business currently must be hydrated to work properly.
  • Some file types (e.g., HEIC) might not be rendered correctly or performantly.

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer will see the following issues:

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

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

  • Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).

source: Windows Blogs

May 06

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25357

Hi all, Last Thursday #MayThe4th Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25357 to the Canary Channel.

A smooth and swift upgrade on most of my devices,

1 failed downloading the build a couple of times resulting in ‘retry’ on the Windwos Update pane in settings, after a few retry attempts, pausing updates & resuming did the trick 👍

After undocking a 2-in-1 the systray overflow icon overlaps with the last app taskbar icon (Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAktkv7)

Happy Upgrades!

What’s new in Build 25357

New Widget: Facebook

Facebook is rolling out a preview version of their widget. To give it a try, download the Facebook app from the Microsoft Store or update to the latest version of the app. Then open the widgets board and navigate to the widgets picker by clicking the “+” button at the top-right of the board to pin your widget.

The Facebook widget.
The Facebook widget.

As you give this and other new widgets a try, please let us know what you think through the Widgets feedback link in the widgets picker. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and release widgets for their apps.

If you’re a Windows developer and interested in creating a widget, watch our tutorial video here. For an overview of the Windows widgets experience and design guidance for creating your own widgets, see Windows widgets. For more information on creating a Win32 widget provider, see Widget service providers. For information on PWA widget providers, see Build PWA-driven widgets.

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • The new volume mixer experience in Quick Settings mentioned here is now available for all Insiders in the Canary Channel.

source: Windows Blogs

May 01

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25352

Hi all, last Friday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25352 to the Canary Channel.

Starting with today’s build, Windows Insiders in the Canary Channel will notice that the name of the branch shown in the desktop watermark has changed to ZN_RELEASE. Just like we have done in the past, we can change which branch we flight builds from. As our engineers work in development cycles internally, we may prioritize work being done in a specific branch and may need to move Insiders between branches. We are treating these builds the same as we would treat builds from the RS_PRERELEASE branch. As a result of this change, Insiders will notice that some features have been removed temporarily. We look to bring these features back to Insiders in the future. And builds from the ZN_RELEASE branch should not be viewed as being matched to a specific Windows 11 release.

After upgrade, USB-C devices did not function properly, like an Xbox controller connected through USB-C cable (Feeback Hub: https://aka.ms/AAknbee)

Happy Upgrades!

Changes and Improvements

[Widgets]

  • We are beginning to roll out a new widget picker experience to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels with an image that gives a visual preview of the widget before pinning, a deep linking ability that allows users to jump directly to the picker from the provider app/service as well as a link to the widgets Store collection page where users can discover more apps with widgets.
Updated widgets picker.
Updated widgets picker.

source: Windwos Blog

Apr 23

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23440

Hi all, Last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23440 to the Dev Channel.

If you miss this month’s Windows Insider webcast featuring the Phone Link team, you can watch it on demand here: https://aka.ms/April2023WIPWebcast.

Finally got to update my Dev Devices, as they did not travel to the MVP Summit with me.

All updates went smooth, Happy Upgrades!

Changes and Improvements

[Start menu]

  • We are trying out a recommendation in the Start menu to quickly access the release notes for Windows Insider Preview builds. Insiders can click the recommendation in Start where it will open this blog post for Build 23440 to learn about all the changes and improvements included in the build. Let us know what you think of this experience. As a reminder, the settings for what is recommended on Start can be adjusted via Settings > Personalization > Start.
Recommendation in the Start menu for the flight blog post for Build 23440.
Recommendation in the Start menu for the flight blog post for Build 23440.

[Taskbar & System Tray]

  • You can now hide the time and date in the system tray. You can turn this on by right-clicking on the system tray clock and choosing “Adjust date and time”.
  • When right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray, we’ve added the option to diagnose network problems.
Option to diagnose network problems added when you right-click on network icon in the system tray.
Option to diagnose network problems added when you right-click on network icon in the system tray.

[Search on the Taskbar]

  • We are exploring a new hover behavior for the search box and search highlight gleam. The proposed interaction model aims to create a more engaging search experience by invoking the search flyout when you hover over the search box gleam. This behavior can be adjusted by right-clicking on the taskbar, choosing “Taskbar settings” and adjusting your preferred search box experience. UPDATE 4/20: Due to an issue discovered after releasing this build, we have disabled this feature for now and plan to bring it back in a future flight.

[Windows Spotlight]

  • We have updated the icon that shows on the desktop for Windows Spotlight. You can turn Windows Spotlight by right-clicking on your desktop, choosing “Personalize”, and then choosing the Windows Spotlight theme.
Updated Windows Spotlight icon on the desktop when Spotlight is turned on.
Updated Windows Spotlight icon on the desktop when Spotlight is turned on.

Fixes

[Taskbar & System Tray]

  • Fixed a few explorer.exe crashes that were impacting taskbar reliability.

[Widgets]

  • Updated the Widgets invocation logic, so that if you brush your mouse quickly across the Widgets icon in the taskbar while travelling somewhere else, it should be less likely to accidentally open Widgets. As a reminder, if you’d prefer that Widgets doesn’t launch on hover, there is an option for that in the Widgets settings.

[File Explorer]

We fixed the following issues for Insiders previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer

  • Fixed an issue where the context menu was opening far away from where your mouse had right-clicked sometimes.
  • Fixed an issue which was causing some of the icons in File Explorer and the context menu to be blurry after DPI changes.
  • Fixed an issue where the New button in the command bar might not show anything in the dropdown.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with Gallery in File Explorer:

  • CTRL + Mouse wheel scrolling should now resize the thumbnails.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with recommended files in File Explorer:

  • Made some improvements to how Narrator reads out the recommended files.

We fixed the following issues for Insiders with access keys in File Explorer:

  • Shift + Right click on a file or folder should open “Show more options” again now.
  • Adjusted how Narrator was reading out the access keys after pressing the menu key, to make it clearer.

[Search]

  • Fixed an issue where the cursor wasn’t displaying correctly in the search box when using an Arabic display language.

[Input]

  • Fixed an issue where the touch keyboard didn’t correctly recognize a hardware keyboard was available in some cases.

[Windowing]

  • Fixed a shellexperiencehost.exe crash when disconnecting from another monitor using WIN + P.

[Notifications]

  • Fixed an issue where 2FA codes weren’t being recognized if they were in parentheses.

[Live captions]

  • Fixed an issue that was causing live captions to crash on first launch due to an issue impacting registry data retrieval.
  • Adding enhanced language recognition support in Language & region settings will now install the right files on ARM64 devices. You will no longer need to restart live captions after switching between caption languages installed from Language & region settings. However, you will need to uninstall any “speech pack” entries in Settings > Apps > Installed apps which were installed before the Language & region settings fix and re-install from Language & region settings.
  • Fixed an issue in Language & region settings that caused language feature installation progress to be hidden.
  • Fixed an issue causing live captions’ Add a language menu icon and label to overlap.

[Task Manager]

  • Double clicking Task Manager’s title bar to maximize the window should work again now.
  • Fixed a Task Manager crash which was impacting Insiders in the last couple flights.

[Accessibility]

  • Fixed an issue that was leaving voice access’s window empty after opening.
  • Fixed an issue where voice access was crashing when using the command to go to the start of a document.
  • Fixed an issue where Narrator’s Ctrl + Home and Ctrl + End commands to move to the top and bottom of the web page weren’t working correctly in Edge.

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

Known issues

[Search on the Taskbar]

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

[File Explorer]

Insiders who have Gallery in File Explorer will see the following issues:

  • Gallery may require clicking twice on the node in the navigation pane for initial load.
  • Live updates (including filtering) are currently disabled and require using the Refresh button as a workaround.
  • Thumbnail loading performance for dehydrated cloud files and memory usage in large collections are known issues we are focused on improving. Please capture Performance traces in Feedback Hub for any performance-related issues. Rebuilding your Indexer can help if thumbnails are missing for cloud files; Search for “Indexing Options” and look in Advanced settings to find the rebuild tool.
  • Photos from OneDrive for Business currently must be hydrated to work properly.
  • Some file types (e.g., HEIC) might not be rendered correctly or performantly.

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer will see the following issues:

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

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

  • Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).

[Live captions]

  • Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
  • Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

soource: Windows Blogs

Apr 23

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25346

Hi all, last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25346 to the Canary Channel.

If you miss this month’s Windows Insider webcast featuring the Phone Link team, you can watch it on demand here: https://aka.ms/April2023WIPWebcast.

Installed this build while at Microsoft Capus during the MVP Summit here’s a picture of the current MVP Wall of fame

At 1st closing any app seemed to have a delay after the upgrade but this turned out temporary.

Happy Upgrades!

What’s new in Build 25346

Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) on plugged in devices including desktop PCs

Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) is already a feature that users are familiar with. This feature in Windows 11 will dim or brighten areas of a display or monitor based on the content being displayed with the goal of striking a balance between reduced power consumption with visual experience to save battery life. Starting with this build, we are allowing this feature to run on devices such as laptops and 2-in-1’s that are plugged into a charger. For most users, this change won’t be noticeable and should reduce energy consumption.

Content Adaptive Brightness Control options in Settings.
Content Adaptive Brightness Control options in Settings.

This feature can be adjusted via Settings > System > Display under “Brightness & color” and through a drop-down menu with 3 options: Off, Always, and “On Battery Only”. For battery powered devices such as laptops and 2-in-1’s, the default is “On Battery Only”.  We encourage Insiders across laptops, 2-in1’s, to try the  “Always” option and give us feedback on the visual quality of CABC so we can ensure it is properly tuned.

Please note: Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) needs to be enabled by the OEM (the manufacturer of the device). As a result, this feature is not available on all laptop or 2-in-1 devices.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Display and Graphics > Adaptive Brightness.

Changes and Improvements

[Remote Desktop]

  • Redesigned the connection bar for remote desktop sessions to a new refreshed light / dark mode design that aligns with our Windows 11 design principles.
Redesigned the connection bar for remote desktop sessions.
Redesigned the connection bar for remote desktop sessions.
  • When sharing a local file in File Explorer to Outlook contacts – you will now see the option to quickly email the file to yourself. In addition, we’ve made improvements in loading your contacts from Outlook. This capability is not available for files stored in OneDrive folders as OneDrive has its own share experience.

[Taskbar & System Tray]

  • [ADDED] When right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray, we’ve added the option to diagnose network problems.
Option to diagnose network problems added when you right-click on network icon in the system tray.
Option to diagnose network problems added when you right-click on network icon in the system tray.

[Settings]

  • We are introducing new presence sensor privacy settings and APIs. If you have a device with compatible presence sensors, you can now manage your privacy and block/allow certain apps from accessing these sensors. No images or metadata is collected by Microsoft and all processing is done locally on the device hardware to maximize privacy. You will find these settings under Settings > Privacy & security > Presence sensing here if your device supports it. App developers with devices with compatible presence sensors can target apps to request and read user presence information after requesting a human presence capability. Learn more about the API here.
New presence sensor privacy settings under Settings if your device supports it.
New presence sensor privacy settings under Settings if your device supports it.

[Windows Security]

  • After fixing some issues based off Insider feedback, we are re-introducing the updated Windows Security (firewall) notification dialogs that match the Windows 11 visuals.
Updated Windows Security (firewall) notification dialogs.
Updated Windows Security (firewall) notification dialogs.

[Narrator]

  • Narrator users who interact with Traditional Chinese characters are now able to do this with confidence while using Narrator and the IME candidate window in Windows. This was accomplished by creating a Traditional Chinese dictionary for detail reading. Narrator now consumes the dictionary to disambiguate each Traditional Chinese word. Users should be aware that Narrator detailed reading is only supported for the Taiwan language pack. The Hong-Kong language pack is not supported with Narrator.

[Graphics]

  • It’s now easier to configure the state of HDR when running on battery! Simply go to Settings > System > Display > HDR and choose whether you want HDR (or HDR video streaming) to remain turned on when your PC is running on battery.
Configurable state of HDR when running on battery.
Configurable state of HDR when running on battery.
Configurable state of HDR video streaming when running on battery.
Configurable state of HDR video streaming when running on battery.

source: Windows Blogs

Apr 15

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23435

Hi all, yesterday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23435 to the Dev Channel.

What’s new in Build 23435

Gallery in File Explorer

We are introducing Gallery, a new feature in File Explorer designed to make it easy to access your photo collection. The set of content shown in Gallery is the same as what you’ll see in the All Photos view in the Photos app.

Gallery in File Explorer.
Gallery in File Explorer.

Gallery is optimized for accessing your most recently taken photos. If you have OneDrive Camera Roll Backup set up on your phone, photos you take will show up automatically at the top of the view. You can choose which folders are shown in Gallery through the Collection dropdown. You can also add subfolders of existing sources to filter to a subset of your content, such as desktop backgrounds and SD card/camera imports.

Gallery also works from the file picking dialog, bringing that same ease of use to situations such as inserting attachments, building a PowerPoint deck, or crafting social media posts.

Gallery in the file picking dialog.
Gallery in the file picking dialog.

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

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • We are continuing the exploration of badging on the Start menu with several new treatments for users logging in with local user accounts to highlight the benefits of signing in with a Microsoft account (MSA). If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think. As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.
Different treatments of badging on the Start menu highlighting the benefits of signing in with a Microsoft account for users logged in with a local user account.
Different treatments of badging on the Start menu highlighting the benefits of signing in with a Microsoft account for users logged in with a local user account.

[File Explorer]

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

[Narrator]

  • Narrator users who interact with Traditional Chinese characters are now able to do this with confidence while using Narrator and the IME candidate window in Windows. This was accomplished by creating a Traditional Chinese dictionary for detail reading. Narrator now consumes the dictionary to disambiguate each Traditional Chinese word. Users should be aware that Narrator detailed reading is only supported for the Taiwan language pack. The Hong-Kong language pack is not supported with Narrator.

[Settings]

  • We are introducing new presence sensor privacy settings and APIs. If you have a device with compatible presence sensors, you can now manage your privacy and block/allow certain apps from accessing these sensors. No images or metadata is collected by Microsoft and all processing is done locally on the device hardware to maximize privacy. You will find these settings under Settings > Privacy & security > Presence sensing here if your device supports it. App developers with devices with compatible presence sensors can target apps to request and read user presence information after requesting a human presence capability. Learn more about the API here.
New presence sensor privacy settings under Settings if your device supports it.
New presence sensor privacy settings under Settings if your device supports it.

Fixes

[Taskbar & System Tray]

  • Fixed a few explorer.exe crashes that were impacting taskbar reliability.

[Input]

  • Updated the TextInput/EnableTouchKeyboardAutoInvokeInDesktopMode MDM policy to allow “2” as a valid value to enforce showing the touch keyboard on tapping an edit control even when the hardware keyboard is attached.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue which was causing Settings crashes when navigating to various Windows Update related pages in the last couple flights.

[Live captions]

  • Fixed the issue that caused enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page to require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu on Arm64 devices.
  • Fixed the issue where you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions) when adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, and language feature installation progress may become hidden.

[Task Manager]

  • Improved the performance of the expand all / collapse all View options on the Processes page.

[Accessibility]

  • Updated Narrator’s default for “Context level for buttons and controls” to “3 – Immediate content name and type.”

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

Known issues

[Search on the Taskbar]

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

[File Explorer]

Insiders who have Gallery in File Explorer will see the following issues:

  • [NEW] Gallery may require clicking twice on the node in the navigation pane for initial load.
  • [NEW] Live updates (including filtering) are currently disabled and require using the Refresh button as a workaround.
  • [NEW] Thumbnail loading performance for dehydrated cloud files and memory usage in large collections are known issues we are focused on improving. Please capture Performance traces in Feedback Hub for any performance-related issues. Rebuilding your Indexer can help if thumbnails are missing for cloud files; Search for “Indexing Options” and look in Advanced settings to find the rebuild tool.
  • [NEW] Photos from OneDrive for Business currently must be hydrated to work properly.
  • [NEW] Some file types (e.g., HEIC) might not be rendered correctly or performantly.

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer will see the following issues:

  • Access keys will appear inconsistently if no button is pressed. Pressing a button will cause them to reappear.
  • Shift + Right click on a file or folder is not opening “Show more options”.

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

  • Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).

[Live captions]

  • [NEW] Live captions will crash on first launch due to an issue impacting registry data retrieval. A new fix is expected very soon.
  • Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
  • Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.

source: Windows Blogs

Apr 08

The Windows 11 Right-Click menu

One of the most noticeable changes in Windows 11 is the new right-click menu that appears when you click on a file, folder, or desktop. The new menu is more compact and modern, with rounded corners and icons for common actions. It also integrates with Microsoft’s cloud services, such as OneDrive and Teams. Here are some of the features and tips for using the new right-click menu in Windows 11.

  • The new menu shows only the most frequently used commands, such as open, cut, copy, paste, rename, delete, and share. If you want to access more options, you can click on the “Show more options” button at the bottom of the menu, which will open the classic context menu that you are familiar with from previous versions of Windows.
  • You can also access the classic context menu by holding down the Shift key while right-clicking on an item. This is useful if you want to quickly access some advanced commands that are not available in the new menu, such as properties, security, or previous versions.
  • The new menu has a dynamic layout that adapts to different types of items and screen sizes. For example, if you right-click on an image file, you will see additional commands for editing, printing, or setting as desktop background. If you right-click on a text file, you will see commands for opening with Notepad or WordPad. If you right-click on a folder, you will see commands for opening in a new window or pinning to Quick Access.
  • The new menu also supports keyboard shortcuts for faster navigation. You can use the arrow keys to move up and down the menu items, and press Enter to select an item. You can also use the first letter of an item to jump to it directly. For example, pressing S will select the Share command. You can also press Esc to close the menu without selecting anything.
  • The new menu is integrated with Microsoft’s cloud services, such as OneDrive and Teams. If you right-click on a file or folder that is synced with OneDrive, you will see commands for managing your online storage, such as freeing up space or viewing online. If you right-click on a file or folder that is shared with Teams, you will see commands for opening or chatting in Teams.
  • The new menu is customizable to some extent. You can add or remove items from the menu by using the Registry Editor or third-party tools. However, this is not recommended for novice users, as it may cause system instability or errors. You can also change the appearance of the menu by using different themes or colors in Windows 11 settings.

The new right-click menu in Windows 11 is designed to make your workflow more efficient and convenient. It offers a sleek and simple interface that matches the overall look and feel of Windows 11. It also connects you with Microsoft’s cloud services and apps that enhance your productivity and collaboration. Try it out and see how it works for you!

Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1546 and 22624.1546

Hi all, yesterday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1546 and Build 22624.1546 (KB5025310) to the Beta Channel.

  • Build 22624.1546 has new features rolling out and turned on by default.
  • Build 22621.1546 has new features off by default.
  • Insiders who were previously on Build 22623 will automatically get moved to Build 22624 via an enablement package.
  • Insiders who landed in the group with new features off by default can choose to install the update that will have features rolling out.
  • The blog post also lists some changes, improvements, fixes and known issues in the new builds.

My Beta Channel decvice update quickly & without issues

Happy upgrades! & Happy Easter!

Changes and Improvements in Build 22624.1546

[General]

  • In the previous flight, we documented that Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) works on desktop PCs – however, it does not. We have updated that blog post. Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) also needs to be enabled by the OEM (the manufacturer of the device). As a result, this feature is not available on all laptop or 2-in-1 devices.

[Settings]

  • Improved the performance of search within Settings.
  • Pressing the print screen key will now open Snipping Tool by default. This setting can be turned off via Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard. If you have previously modified this setting yourself, your preference will be preserved.
  • A limit of 20 most recent tabs has been introduced under Settings > Multitasking to show tabs in ALT + TAB and Snap Assist.

Fixes in Build 22624.1546

[Input]

  • Fixed an issue where text input features like touch keyboard, voice typing, and emoji panel might not launch.
  • Fixed an issue where the buttons in the Pinyin IME’s settings flyout were hard to see when they had focus if a contrast theme was enabled.

[Task Manager]

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

Known issues

[Search on the Taskbar]

  • If you have the Bing button in the search box on the taskbar and you restart your computer, you may see the daily rotating search highlight for some time before getting the Bing button back.

[File Explorer]

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer:

  • [NEW] Shift + Right click on a file or folder is not opening “Show more options”.

[Live captions]

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

source: Windows Blogs

Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23430

Hi all, yesterday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23430 to the Dev Channel.

  • The build introduces some changes and improvements, such as a view notification button for urgent or important notifications, a new setting for developers to enable end task on the taskbar, and a limit of 20 most recent tabs in Settings > Multitasking.
  • The build also fixes some issues related to input, Task Manager, and accessibility.
  • The build has some known issues with search on the taskbar and File Explorer.

All of my Dev Channel devices upgraded without issues.

Happy Upgrades!

What’s new in Build 23430

Changes and Improvements

[General]

  • Urgent or important notifications that break through when do not disturb is turned on while using apps at full screen will now display a “view notification” button to view the content of the notification for privacy.
Urgent or important notifications now show display a view notification button to view the content of the notification when using an app in full screen.
Urgent or important notifications now show display a view notification button to view the content of the notification when using an app in full screen.
  • In the previous flight, we documented that Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) works on desktop PCs – however, it does not. We have updated that blog post. Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) also needs to be enabled by the OEM (the manufacturer of the device). As a result, this feature is not available on all laptop or 2-in-1 devices.

[Settings]

  • A limit of 20 most recent tabs has been introduced under Settings > Multitasking to show tabs in ALT + TAB and Snap Assist.

[Developer]

  • We are introducing a new setting under Settings > Privacy & security > For developers to enable end task when right-clicking an app on the taskbar. This setting is in Build 23430 but does not currently work when the feature is toggled on. It will be fixed in a future flight.

Fixes

[General]

  • Fixed an underlying issue causing some Insiders to see an increase in explorer.exe crashes in the last 2 flights.

[Input]

  • Fixed an issue where text input features like touch keyboard, voice typing, and emoji panel might not launch.
  • Fixed an issue where the buttons in the Pinyin IME’s settings flyout were hard to see when they had focus if a contrast theme was enabled.

[Task Manager]

  • Fixed an issue impacting Task Manager reliability.
  • The search box should no longer be cropped at the top when the window is maximized.

[Accessibility]

  • Fixed an issue where in Quick Settings, Narrator was reading out the previous page’s title instead of the active page’s.
  • After downloading voice access, information to help you get started with it should correctly open again now.
  • Fixed an issue where popups for voice access weren’t translated correctly.

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

Known issues

[Search on the Taskbar]

  • There is an issue where some people may not see the search box on the taskbar and/or the settings to adjust the search box experience on the taskbar after updating to Build 23403. We are aware of the issue, and we are working on a fix.
  • If you have the Bing button in the search box on the taskbar and you restart your computer, you may see the daily rotating search highlight for some time before getting the Bing button back.

[File Explorer]

Insiders who have access keys in File Explorer:

  • Access keys will appear inconsistently if no button is pressed. Pressing a button will cause them to reappear.
  • [NEW] Shift + Right click on a file or folder is not opening “Show more options”.

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

  • Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).

[Live captions]

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

source: Windows Blogs

Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25336

Hi all, Yesterday Microsof treleased Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25336 to the Canary Channel.

A very short blogpost details some of the changes, expecting to find some more while we test this new build 🙂

All Canary devices went smoothly here.

Happy upgrades! & Happy Easter!

Changes and Improvements

[Settings]

  • Improved the performance of search within Settings.
  • Customers with 2 or more discrete graphics adapters with no integrated graphics can now choose which of the discrete graphics adapters is considered high-performance. Navigate to Settings > System > Display > Graphics > Default graphics settings and select which of the discrete graphics adapters you would like to be designated as the Default high performance GPU.
  • A limit of 20 most recent tabs has been introduced under Settings > Multitasking to show tabs in ALT + TAB and Snap Assist. This change rolled out with Build 25330 last week.

source: Windows Blogs