Microsoft has released a new build of Windows 11 for Windows Insiders on the canary channel. Build 25982 has the introduction of Copilot for Windows and SMB client encryption.

Microsoft are starting to roll out Copilot for Windows to Windows Insiders on the canary channel, this will gradually be rolled out to markets when copilot is supported:

We are beginning to roll out Copilot in Windows in preview to Windows Insiders in the Canary Channel. Rolling this out in the Canary Channel to Insiders in the select global markets mentioned below will be gradual, so some Insiders will not see it immediately.

The other change is SMB now supports requiring of encryption of outbound SMB client connections.:

Starting with this build (Build 25982), SMB now supports requiring encryption of all outbound SMB client connections. With this new option, administrators can mandate that all destination servers use SMB 3 and encryption, and if missing those capabilities, the client won’t connect. This enforces the highest level of network security as well as bringing management parity to SMB signing, which allows both client and server requirements.

Here are the fixes and known issues:

Changes and Improvements

[Networking]

  • Discovery of Network-designated Resolvers (DNR) is an upcoming internet standard to discover encrypted DNS servers. Until today, Windows Insiders users had to find out the IP address of their desired encrypted DNS server and manually enter it to configure client-side encrypted DNS on their machine. DNR will enable Windows Insider users to use encrypted DNS protocols like DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS (DoT) on the client-side without requiring manual configuration. Client-side support for DNR is now available in Windows Insiders Insider Preview Build 25982 and higher. For more information, read this blog post.

[Dev Drive]

  • ReFS filesystem Block Cloning Support is now available in the Windows copy engine. ReFS already supports Block Cloning, so this feature adds native support to copy actions and APIs on Windows. This feature improves the performance of ReFS volumes including Dev Drive volumes for build scenarios or any other copy intensive scenarios, the larger the files being copied the larger the savings.

[Remote Desktop]

  • We’ve updated Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe) to now support zoom options of 350, 400, 450, and 500%.

[Settings]

  • If you’re in light mode, the show accent color on Start and taskbar toggle is greyed out by design and we now show an information bullet that makes it more clear the setting is only available in Windows dark mode.

Fixes for known issues

  • Fixed an issue causing voice access to crash for Insiders in the Canary Channel when dictating text.
  • Fixed a few issues which could lead to hangs when launching File Explorer.
  • Fixed an issue causing the print queue to be inaccessible and show an error if you tried to open it.

Known issues

  • 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.

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