TechNine

Apr 23

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23440

By Erik Moreau in Dev Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

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.

[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.

[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.

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

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Apr 23

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25346

By Erik Moreau in Canary Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

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.

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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 video streaming when running on battery.

source: Windows Blogs

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Apr 15

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23435

By Erik Moreau in Dev Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

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 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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

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Apr 08

The Windows 11 Right-Click menu

By Erik Moreau in Tips

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!

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Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.1546 and 22624.1546

By Erik Moreau in Beta Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

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

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Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23430

By Erik Moreau in Dev Channel, Insiders, Windows 11

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.

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

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Apr 08

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25336

By Erik Moreau in Canary Channel, Insiders, Windows 11

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

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Apr 01

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25330

By Erik Moreau in Canary Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

Hi all, Last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25330 to the Canary Channel.

Smooth upgrade here, looks like Snippingtool’s recoring feature has been fixed in this build (https://aka.ms/AAjus5q)

Feedback Hub had some issues connecting at first, restarting the app fixed it

Happy Upgrades!

Changes and Improvements

[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.
The settings page for wheel devices such as the Surface Dial has been updated to better match the Windows 11 design principles.

[Windows Sandbox]

If you have changed your primary mouse button under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Mouse, Windows Sandbox will now follow that setting.

[Remote Desktop]

We updated the Remote Desktop Connection setup window (mstsc.exe) so that it now follows the text scaling settings under Settings > Accessibility > Text Size. In cases where the text scaling is very large, it will show a scrollbar.

[BitLocker]

When encrypting a drive using BitLocker, you can now minimize the encryption progress dialog.

[Inbox apps]

You can now uninstall the Camera app if you need to.

Microsoft Store Update

Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels running version 22303.1401.x of the Microsoft Store and higher will see the following improvements rolling out:

Install free apps and games from search results: We’ve introduced a new way to install free apps and games. Hovering over a free product on the search results page opens a new expanded card experience, where you can find a convenient install button. This will trigger the installation without having to navigate into the product page.

Quickly install free apps and games from search results in the Store.

New design when purchasing apps and games in the Store: Discover a new and redesigned experience when purchasing apps and games inside the Microsoft Store! The purchase dialog’s styles align better with Windows 11 to bring you a more pleasant checkout experience.

New design when purchasing apps and games in the Store.

New UX for in-app ratings dialog: Developers of your favorite apps and games often use a Microsoft Store feature that requests ratings from within the app or game. We’ve updated this in-app ratings experiences to be faster, more reliable, and to better align with Windows 11 styling.

New UX for in-app ratings dialog in the Store.

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

source: Windwos Blogs

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Mar 26

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23419

By Erik Moreau in Dev Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

Hi all, Last Wednesday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23419 to the Dev Channel.

They also released ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.

Smooth updates on my devices on the #DevChannel keep an eye out for the iPhone sync option in Phone Link, it’s starting to be rolled out…

Happy Upgrades!

What’s new in Build 23419

Create live kernel memory dumps in Task Manager

We are introducing a set of new developer-focused features in Task Manager to aid the collection of live kernel memory dumps (LKDs). This is in addition to the existing “Memory dump” for user mode processes. The goal of kernel live dump is to gather data to troubleshoot an abnormal situation but allow the OS to continue operation. This reduces downtime when compared to a bug check for “non-fatal” but high-impact failures and hangs. Click here for more info on live kernel dumps.

To capture a live kernel memory dump (LKD), go to the Details page in Task Manager, right-click on the System process and the context menu should light up to show “Create live kernel memory dump file” to capture a Full live kernel or Kernel stack memory dumps.

The dumps will be written to a fixed location:

%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\TaskManager\LiveKernelDumps

Choose the new “Create live kernel memory dump file” option when right-clicking on a process on the details page in Task Manager.

You can also go to the Task Manager Settings page to view/edit the settings for live kernel memory dumps.

Configure live kernel dumps options in Task Manager settings.

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

USB4 Settings Page

We are adding a USB4 hubs and devices Settings page for users under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > USB > USB4 Hubs and Devices. USB4 enables new productivity scenarios for docking, high performance peripherals, displays and charging. The USB4 settings page provides information about the system’s USB4 capabilities and attached peripherals on a USB4 capable system. These insights are meant to assist with troubleshooting in case users need support from their device manufacturer (OEM) or system administrator. The features provided by this page are:

View the tree of connected USB4 hubs and devices.
View attributes and capabilities associated with the USB4 domain.
Copy the details into the clipboard so it can be shared with customer support or system administrators for troubleshooting.

If the system does not support USB4 with the Microsoft USB4 Connection Manager, this page will not be displayed.

To confirm whether your system is USB4 capable or not, check for “USB4 Host Router” populating in the Device Manager.

USB4 Host Router as shown in Device Manager.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Buses.

Cloud Suggestion in Simplified Chinese IME

We are trying out some changes that will allow you to easily type popular words in Simplified Chinese. The changes include an improved cloud suggestion and integrated search suggestion. The cloud suggestion adds the most relevant word from Bing to the IME candidate window. We’ve updated the back-end logic so that we can provide better, fresh suggestions.

Simplified Chinese IME candidate window with a word suggestion from Bing at the second place.

The integrated search suggestion gives you additional suggestions that are similar to what you see in Bing search page. You can either insert a suggestion as text or search it directly in Bing.

Bing search suggestions expanded from IME candidate window.

To turn on these features, select a chevron button at the right end of the IME candidate window. You’ll find Turn on button.

IME candidate window with a balloon tip that points to the chevron button.

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

Changes and Improvements

[General]

The new features for app defaults in Windows 11 as mentioned here in this blog post are included in this build. The features for app pinning are coming in a future flight.

[Start menu]

We are trying out a small change with some Windows Insiders where the “Recommended” section of the Start menu is changed to “For you”. Let us know what you think in Feedback Hub if you see this change.

[Taskbar & System Tray]

The glanceable VPN status show overlayed over an active network connection into the system tray when connected to a recognized VPN profile now displays in your system accent color.

Glanceable VPN status in the system tray using system accent color.

In response to user feedback, we are introducing the capability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray. This feature can be enabled by toggling the option listed under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar in the Taskbar behavior section. You can also right-click on taskbar to quickly get to taskbar settings. We are beginning to roll this change out so not all Windows Insiders will see this change right away, but we hope to make it available to everyone soon.

Option to show seconds in the system tray clock.

[Search on the Taskbar]

Once you have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will include a button that opens the Bing chat experience in Edge. If you don’t have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will feature a dynamic search highlight button. We’re beginning to roll this out to Insiders, not everyone will see it right away.

[Voice access]

The redesigned in-app help page in voice access introduced with Build 23403 now includes all commands and the supplementary information accurately.

[Settings]

As part of the deprecation of Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) and MSDT Troubleshooters, we have begun redirecting some of the troubleshooters found under Settings > System > Troubleshoot and in other areas of the OS to the new Get Help troubleshooting platform.
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.

[Developer]

Virtual Memory ranges which are marked by a KbCallbackTriageDumpData BugCheck Callback Routine will now be added to kernel-generated minidumps after a bugcheck.

Fixes

[General]

Improved the experience on logon after booting up by reducing the performance impact of startup apps.

[Taskbar & System Tray]

Fixed an issue that was causing Narrator to read the position before the name on system tray icons.
Fixed an issue causing the show hidden icons flyout to open behind things like OneNote flyout and live captions.
Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe crashes related to drag and drop.

[Search on the Taskbar]

Fixed a search crash from the last flight.

[File Explorer]

Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening Home if certain content was visible in the Recent section.
Made some improvements to the performance of loading File Explorer in the case where there’s a disconnected network drive visible in the navigation pane.

[Start menu]

Fixed an issue where dragging content across an open Start menu folder could cause a crash.

[Input]

Fixed an issue where after using voice typing your PC might not enter modern standby.

[Live captions]

We fixed the issue causing live captions to not work for Chinese Traditional on Arm64 devices.

[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.

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 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.
[ADDED] If you have the Bing button in the search box on 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.

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

Clicking on the Share command will currently bring up the Windows share sheet (non-OneDrive).
Clicking on the “Open File Location” command will pop an error dialog that can easily be dismissed.
Clicking on the ‘Remove from list’ command will result in no actions.

[Live captions]

On ARM64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support installed through the Language & Region settings page will require restarting live captions if you switch languages in the live captions Caption language menu.
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

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Mar 26

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25324

By Erik Moreau in Canary Channel, Insiders, Windows, Windows 11

Hi all, Last Thursday Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25324 to the Canary Channel.

They also released ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.

On this build My Phone Link app started showing the option to link not only an android but also the option to link an iPhone.

look for Phone Link in your start menu

slightly redacted view of my Phone Link app linked to my iPhone

What’s new in Build 25324

Evolved Widgets Board

We are beginning to preview a revamp of the widgets board experience with a larger canvas (3-columns if supported by the device) and dedicated sections for widgets and feed content with a clear separation between them. This will provide users with quick access to glanceable content from their apps and services as well as enable users to take a high-value break with personalized news content.

Example of updated widgets board with larger canvas and dedicated sections for widgets and feed content.

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

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

USB4 Settings Page

View the tree of connected USB4 hubs and devices.
View attributes and capabilities associated with the USB4 domain.
Copy the details into the clipboard so it can be shared with customer support or system administrators for troubleshooting.

If the system does not support USB4 with the Microsoft USB4 Connection Manager, this page will not be displayed.

To confirm whether your system is USB4 capable or not, check for “USB4 Host Router” populating in the Device Manager.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Devices and Drivers > Buses.

Unsafe password copy and paste warnings

Starting in Windows 11, version 22H2, Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen helps protect Microsoft school or work passwords against phishing and unsafe usage on sites and apps. We are trying out a change starting with this build where users who have enabled warning options for Windows Security under App & browser control > Reputation-based protection > Phishing protection will see a UI warning on unsafe password copy and paste, just as they currently see when they type in their password.

Example warning dialog on unsafe password copy and paste.

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Security and Privacy > Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.

Introducing SHA-3 Support

Starting with this build, we are adding support for the SHA-3 family of hash functions and SHA-3 derived functions (SHAKE, cSHAKE, KMAC). The SHA-3 family of algorithms are the latest standardized hash functions by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Support for these functions has been enabled through the Windows CNG library.

Supported SHA-3 hash functions: SHA3-256, SHA3-384, SHA3-512 (SHA3-224 is not supported)
Supported SHA-3 HMAC algorithms: HMAC-SHA3-256, HMAC-SHA3-384, HMAC-SHA3-512
Supported SHA-3 derived algorithms: extendable-output functions (XOF) (SHAKE128, SHAKE256), customizable XOFs (cSHAKE128, cSHAKE256), and KMAC (KMAC128, KMAC256, KMACXOF128, KMACXOF256).

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Developer Platform > API Feedback.

Changes and Improvements

[Widgets]

We are beginning to roll out animated icons for Widgets on the taskbar. The animation triggers when you hover or click on the Widgets taskbar entry-point or when a new widget announcement is displayed on your taskbar. Currently, only a few weather and finance icons are supported.

[Search on the Taskbar]

Once you have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will include a button that opens the Bing chat experience in Edge. If you don’t have access to the new Bing, the search box on the taskbar will feature a dynamic search highlight button. We’re beginning to roll this out to Insiders, not everyone will see it right away.

[Input]

We have updated several simplified Chinese fonts and the Microsoft Pinyin IME to support GB18030-2022. With this update, you can enter and display characters from conformance level 1 or 2 via the additions to Microsoft Yahei, Simsun and Dengxian. Unicode Extensions E and F are now supported in our Simsun Ext-B font to meet the requirements for level 3.

[Settings]

As part of the deprecation of Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) and MSDT Troubleshooters, we have begun redirecting some of the troubleshooters found under Settings > System > Troubleshoot and in other areas of the OS to the new Get Help troubleshooting platform.
If you have multiple cameras that support Windows Hello, you can now select your preferred camera under Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options.

[File Explorer]

Made some changes which should noticeably help improve the performance of the “calculating” phase when sending a large number of files at once in File Explorer to the recycle bin.

source: Windows Blogs

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