After Microsoft announced on Monday that they were introducing a new Canary Channel, by all indications a method to test Windows 12, and moving Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel already on 25000 series builds (so far 25300 and 25309), the stage has been set for this new channel to begin to take shape.
Earlier today Microsoft announced Windows Insider build 23403 for the Dev Channel, which is now expected to be focused on the latest Windows 11 innovations, and there’s been somewhat of a reset: offering features previously in the 25300 and 25309 builds to 23403, and now bringing over new features in 23403 like Access Keys in File Explorer, File Recommendations in File Explorer, and Narrator Outlook support to the 25000 series of builds with this new 26314 Canary Channel build.
One new feature coming to 25314 is LSA Protection Enablement on Upgrade, which will check devices running 25314 and beyond for Local Security Authority (LSA) incompatibilities, and if none are found, will automatically turn the LSA protection on.
One change of note too with 25314 is that Remote Mailslot Protocol will be disabled by default:
The legacy Remote Mailslot Protocol is a simple, unreliable, insecure, and unidirectional inter-process communications protocol between a client and server and was introduced in Windows NT 3.1 and will be deprecated in a future Windows release.
Just a reminder that the Canary Channel is Microsoft’s new “hot off the presses” channel, with some caveats:
The builds that will be flighted to the Canary Channel will be “hot off the presses,” flighting very soon after they are built, which means very little validation and documentation will be done before they are offered to Insiders. These builds could include major issues that could result in not being able to use your PC correctly or even in some rare cases require you to reinstall Windows. We will offer limited documentation for the Canary Channel, but we will not publish a blog post for every flight – only when new features are available in a build.
If you were current with your build installs and were on build 25300 or 25309, you should have already been moved to the Canary Channel, so if you want to get back to something a bit more stable, you’ll have to clean install either a Dev, Beta, Release Preview, or Production build of Windows 11. If you want the earliest look at what may come to be Windows 12, hang on it should be a fun ride!
