Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25977 for the Canary Channel

Microsoft has released a new build of Windows 11 for Windows Insiders on the canary channel. The new build has new Bluetooth feature, Windows Location improvements and other some other changes. As well as being available via Windows Update Microsoft are also providing an ISO so you can perform a clean install if needed.

Bluetooth Improvements

With this build Microsoft are adding support for hearing aids equipped with Bluetooth LE. This means that Windows users with Bluetooth hearing aids can pair with Windows and stream audio and take calls on their Windows PC.

We’re excited to announce that Windows has taken a significant step forward in accessibility by supporting the use of hearing aids equipped with the latest Bluetooth® Low Energy Audio (LE Audio) technology. Customers who use these new hearing aids are now able to directly pair, stream audio, and take calls on their Windows PCs with LE Audio support.

Microsoft say there are adding new Bluetooth LE audio support in future builds.

Windows Location Improvements

Microsoft are adding new controls so you can manage which apps have access to the list of Wi-FI networks that are around you, these could be used to determine your locations. So the new setting enable you to give permission to apps to access the list. The setting is in Settings > Privacy & security > Location.

There is also a new prompt that Microsoft have added that will appear the first time an app attempts to access your location or Wi-Fi information.

Here are the other changes and known issues:

Changes and Improvements

[General]

Starting with this build, Mail and Calendar will no longer be installed after doing a clean install using the provided ISOs here. This ONLY applies for clean installs of Build 25977 and higher in the Canary Channel today. Mail and Calendar will not be removed on upgrade for Insiders in the Canary Channel. You can click here to learn more about the future of Mail and Calendar in Windows.

[Start menu]

The Xbox Game Bar will now show as just Game Bar under the Start menu and also under Settings > System > System Components. This change will come through a Game Bar update via the Microsoft Store.

[Input]

We are including two new keyboard layouts in this flight. These keyboards implement the two new German extended layout standards (E1 and E2). The extended layouts allow users to type all characters needed for German (including German quotations marks, which were not previously available), all Latin-based languages of the EU, Greek, IPA phonetic transcription, Egyptian hieroglyph transcription, most Latin-based languages of the entire world (including Vietnamese with its multiple accents per character), and more. To enable one of these layouts, go to Settings > Time & language > Language & region and select Language options under the ellipsis for the language you would like to use this keyboard with. On the Options page, select “Add a keyboard” and look for the new keyboard layouts “German Extended (E1)” or “German Extended (E2)”. For more information, visit this Wikipedia page.

[Settings]

In Settings, when looking at your Wi-Fi password under the Wi-Fi properties, we now show a QR code so you can more easily share it with others. We also show a QR code when you set up a mobile hotspot to share your network connection.

Fixes for known issues

Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the root cause of various games having issues launching (citing graphics issues) or changing resolution in Build 25967.

Did some work to help improve performance when expanding the navigation pane in Task Manager.

Fixed an issue where certain .rar files would open blank or with an unexpected message saying there was insufficient memory to open the file.

Known issues

[NEW] Using dictation in voice access makes voice access crash.

We’re working on the fix for an issue causing the print queue to no longer be accessible and showing an error when you try to open it.

Some popular games may not work correctly on the most recent Insider Preview builds in the Canary Channel. Please be sure to submit feedback in Feedback Hub on any issues you see with playing games on these builds.