Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows 11 build to Canary Channel Windows Insiders. This time around, it’s build 25905. It’s one of the rare builds that comes with documentation. This release is a fairly significant one. It brings new features from the Dev Channel, but also depreciates Arm32 UWP apps. Other features include richer emoji, fixes for Zune drivers, and an update for the Microsoft Store to add some improvements.
Features coming from the Dev Channel
We start first with the new features in this release that have been ported over from the Dev channel. You should now see things like Dev Drive, Backup and Restore improvements, and Dynamic Lighting. Take note that Microsoft also changed the name of the branch in the desktop watermark. It’s now RS_PRERELEASE, meaning features previously seen on ZN_RELEASE might have returned.
Other notable features
There are a lot of other notable features in this release. The first is actually Arm32 UWP App depreciation. Microsoft is removing support for Arm32 UWP apps on devices that have an Arm-based CPU. Once you upgrade, any Arm32 apps will not launch. Arm64 apps are not impacted, though. You might see a message with a list of applications that are installed, and you’ll be able to go to the Microsoft Store to update these apps. You can see below for other new features in this release.That
- With the update of our color font format to COLRv1, Windows is now able to display richer emoji with a 3D like appearance with support coming soon to some apps and browsers. These emoji use gradients to bring the design style that our customers have been asking for. The new emoji will bring more expression to your communications.
- This preview shipped with an early implementation of critical kernel features in safe Rust. Specifically, win32kbase_rs.sys contains a new implementation of GDI region. While this is a small trial, we will continue to increase the usage of Rust in the kernel. Stay tuned!
- A new option has been added to the PostAuthenticationActions Group Policy in this Insider Preview build. The new option is described as “Reset the password, logoff the managed account, and terminate any remaining processes”.
- With this build in the Canary Channel. So now it should be easier to use your (totally unsupported and still discontinued) Zune on Windows 11.
- To help you with your purchase decisions, you’ll now see information about the lowest price products have dropped to in the past 30 days.
- Explore a new curated section in the Microsoft Store where we will promote the best AI experiences built by the developer community and Microsoft.
That’s pretty much all to report this week. There are only two known issues. Microsoft won’t be offering this build to ASUS devices or PCS with Asus motherboards. You’ll also want to keep in mind that ethernet-connected devices may lose network connectivity after updating to this build. Microsoft says that unplugging the ethernet cable and re-plugging the cable should resolve the issue.