Microsoft has released Windows 11 Dev Channel Build 25158. It is a fairly minor one, bringing notifications for widgets, different visual treatments for search on the taskbar. ISO files are also available, and here’s the scoop.
First up, new features. Microsoft is now rolling out even more dynamic Widgets content to your taskbar with notification badging for Widgets. When you open the Widgets board a banner will appear at the top of the board providing more information on what triggered the notification badge. Check it out below, with the weather widget being an example.
Other than that, Microsoft is also testing different visual treatments for search on the taskbar. This comes as a way for Microsoft to test longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts in Windows 11. There are three treatments you might end up seeing, as seen below.
A big change in this build is that Microsoft is ending the testing of lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop. If you have it, you’ll no longer have it on your next boot. Some of the other changes are below, please check Microsoft’s changelog for the full details.
- DNS over TLS testing is now available for Windows DNS client query protection. DoT is another protocol in addition to DNS over HTTPS (DoH) which is already supported in Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. For setup instructions, see this Windows Networking blog post. The setup requires command line use and is recommended for advanced networking users.
- The Nyala font has been updated to support syllables for the Gurage language orthography from the Ethiopic Extended-B Unicode range. Also revised and replaced Ethiopic kerning to fix gaps and errors in earlier implementation improving the overall texture of text in Ethiopic languages.
- Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to experience bugchecks with error message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in NetAdapterCx.sys in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue which was leading some PCs hanging at black screen when resuming from a low power state in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue believed to generally be impacting performance across Windows shell experiences in the last few flights.
- Fixed an issue where the Mica material and Acrylic blur effect was rendering incorrectly in OS surfaces like the Start menu, Notification Center and other areas sometimes in recent flights.
- Fixed an issue where closing command bar flyouts could in some rare cases crash explorer.exe.
- Fixed an issue which could lead to explorer.exe crashing when navigating through File Explorer with OneDrive enabled.
CTRL + F4 should work to close the current tab now.- Opening a zipped folder in a new tab should no longer have a blank tab name.
- If focus is on the tab row, CTRL + W will no longer unexpectedly close two tabs instead of just the tab in focus.
- Fixed an issue where CTRL + Tab wouldn’t cycle in the correct order after rearranging tabs.
- We made some adjustments so when using “Show full path in title”, the folder name is always visible in the tab at the top of File Explorer.
- Fixed an underlying issue which could lead to pinned app icons getting stuck on the taskbar after uninstalling the app in recent flights.
- Fixed a high hitting explorer.exe crash in the last few flights related to loading Widgets.
- Start shouldn’t crash anymore when using CTRL + Shift + Right Arrow to move a pinned app into a folder that’s the last item in Start.
- Fixed a crash some Insiders were experiencing when opening Start.
For known issues, there are four this week relating to general, File Explorer, Widgets, and Live captions. Check these out below.
- [NEW] We’re investigating reports that SQL Server Management Studio is failing to launch for some Insiders.
- Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
- The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
- We’re working on a fix to address reports that launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) is showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
- [NEW] Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
- [NEW] In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
- We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.
- Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
- Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.
Happy Downloading, Windows Insiders!
