For Windows Insiders on the beta channel there are new builds of Windows 11. Build 22621.2129 (without features) and 22631.2129 (with features) has Windows Copilot Preview which enables you to interact with Windows via chat and do things like turn on dark mode and take a screenshot.
For developers there is Dev Drive which Microsoft say is a new form of storage volume available to improve performance for key developer workloads. Dev Drive is built upon Resilient File System (ReFS) technology and includes file system optimizations and features that enable developers to better manage their performance and security profile. It has been designed to meet a developer’s needs to host project source code, working folders, and package caches.
The build includes Narrator enhances interaction with Excel and new text authoring experiences in voice access
Voice access is now available to use on more areas in Windows. You can now use voice to login to your PC and access other areas on the Lock screen.
Screen casting enables you to project your Windows 11 screen to a Miracast or another Windows PC, and with this build Microsoft are making the discovery of the easier:
When doing multitasking activities on your PC such as often switching between windows to complete a task or using Snap Assist to organize your screen space, we will provide the suggestion to Cast via a notification toast.
We will now provide inline setup of a PC from within the Cast flyout in Quick Settings, with step-by-step guidance for users to enable:
Installation of the optional Wireless Display feature.
Discoverability of the PC to other devices, via the “Projecting to this PC” Settings page.
If your PC has a presence sensor that supports attention detection, there is a new Adaptive Dimming option. Your device will dim the screen when you look away. This setting is in Settings/Privacy & Security / Presence sensing.
Other changes:
[Start menu]
For people logged into a Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise editions with an AAD account (soon to be Microsoft Entra ID), we are providing a richer preview when hovering over files such as Word documents under Recommended on the Start menu. For this initial release, thumbnails will not be available for all files and a later update will enable the experience for more files and for MSA users. Additionally, when right-clicking on cloud file recommendations, there is now an option to quickly share these files.
Example of richer preview when hovering over files such as Word documents under Recommended on the Start menu.
[Taskbar & System Tray]
Notifications will now show as a bell in the system tray and when new notifications come through, the bell will colorize based on your system accent color. When there are no notifications and the clock is visible, the bell will be empty. Notification counts are no longer shown.
The updated API for pinning as mentioned here in this blog post are now included in this build for preview.
Example of new dialog that is displayed based on the updated API for pinning apps to the taskbar.
[Task Manager]
We’ve updated the Task Manager settings page to match the design principles of Windows 11. The design has a similar look and feel to the Settings in Windows 11 and provides a cleaner UI separating categories into different sections. We will also be enabling this in the Dev Channel soon.
Redesigned Task Manager settings.
[Settings]
We are improving the user experience when changing time zones, including cases of low confidence in location data. It displays a non-dismissible notification for accepting or rejecting the change and prompts the user for confirmation before adjusting the time zone.
We are also improving the user experience while changing the time zone via Settings > Time & language > Date & time. If location settings are disabled, a warning is now shown to the user, urging them to enable location settings to ensure accurate time zone adjustments. This warning provides helpful information to the user, helping them understand why their time zone may not be correct and guiding them towards resolving the issue.
ALT-TEXT: Warning if location services are disabled on the Date and Time settings page.
Fixes in Build 22631.2129
[File Explorer]
The keyboard shortcuts to set focus to the search box (CTRL + F, CTRL + E, F3) should work now.
Fixed an issue where the dropdown in the address bar could appear totally blank.
[Taskbar & System Tray]
Fixed an issue that was causing quick settings not to open when selecting the network, volume, and battery icons in the system tray.
Fixed a few issues causing explorer.exe crashes and leading to taskbar reliability issues.
[Notifications]
Fixed an issue causing Insiders to unexpectedly see a notification suggesting you turn off notifications for an app named NotifyiconGeneratedAumid_*.
[Input]
Fixed a high hitting ctfmon.exe crash in the last two flights, which could impact the ability to type.
[Task View & Desktops]
Adjusted the desktops switching animation to ease into the animation a little more.
[Task Manager]
Fixed an issue where some of the app icons in the Startup Apps section of Task Manager were very tiny.
Fixed an issue where the selection color wasn’t displaying correctly if you were using a contrast theme.
Fixed an issue where focus wasn’t getting set correctly to search if the Task Manager window was small enough that search was collapsed to an icon.
Fixed alignment of Task Manager icon and name in the title bar.
Known issues
[General]
We’re working on the fix for an issue causing explorer.exe to crash on the login screen when attempting to enter safe mode.
[File Explorer]
We’re working on the fix for an issue causing File Explorer to crash when going to Home. If you encounter this when opening File Explorer, you may need to use Search or the Run dialog to open File Explorer directly to a specific folder (for example, C:).
In some cases, the context menu background in File Explorer may appear transparent.
In some cases, the icons on your desktop may all go blank. If this happens, using the refresh option in the desktop context menu should resolve it.
[Taskbar]
We’re working on a fix for an issue causing the safely remove hardware icon to not appear when expected in the system tray.
[Input]
We’re investigating reports that typing with the Japanese and Chinese IMEs is not working correctly after the last flight.
[Narrator]
You may see some of the strings are NOT localized to the selected language. This will be fixed in a future flight.
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Example of richer preview when hovering over files such as Word documents under Recommended on the Start menu.
Example of new dialog that is displayed based on the updated API for pinning apps to the taskbar.
Redesigned Task Manager settings.