Microsoft is rolling out new builds for Windows 11 Insiders, adding a new Facebook widget, a modern Details pane in File Explorer, and more.
Windows Insiders are getting a slew of new features for Windows 11 today, as Microsoft is rolling out new builds across Canary, Dev, and Beta channels of the Insider program. The bulk of the news applies to the Dev channel, but there’s something for everyone here, including a new widget for the Facebook app.
Source: Microsoft
Slowly, but surely, the ecosystem of Windows 11 widgets has been growing, and Facebook is now rolling out a new widget for its primary app. Facebook was one of the first to support the platform with a widget for the Messenger app, but the new Facebook widget lets you see all your notifications from the social network, like comments, new posts, and invites, without having to open the app.
The Facebook widget is available in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels, and you’ll need to make sure you have the latest version of the Facebook app for it to work.
File Explorer gets a more useful Details pane
Source: Microsoft
Exclusively for Insiders enrolled in the Dev channel, with build 23451, Microsoft is now testing a modernized Details pane that shows more information about a file, including suggested files that may be related to it, or even an email conversation where the file was included or mentioned. This new pane was reported on a few weeks ago, and it’s finally starting to become available.
On top of suggested files and other content, this new pane also includes an activity history for the file and an easy share button. Plus, it has a modern look that fits in with the rest of Windows 11, making the experience a bit more cohesive.
Only some Insiders in the Dev channel will see this experience for now.
Windows Spotlight improvements
Source: Microsoft
Also in the Dev channel, Microsoft is making some changes to the way Windows Spotlight looks, with a couple of treatments being tested. One will include a richer UI that shows more information about the picture being shown, related pictures, and both a minimized and full-screen experience. Both options will also include 4K portrait images, which should improve the image quality of Windows Spotlight backgrounds on high-resolution monitors.
Which treatment you’ll see is random, so you may notice a bigger difference depending on what you get.
Other changes
Windows 11 build 23451 includes a handful of other improvements for Windows Insiders in the Dev channel. For one thing, the new widget picker experience, previously available only in the Canary channel, is now available. This update also adds animated widget icons, which were available in other channels before. Start menu account notification badging is now rolling out more widely, and Microsoft is also trying out a new experience to show more relevant content in the Recommended section of the Start menu. With this update, you may see website suggestions based on your browsing history.
On the topic of accessibility, Microsoft has improved the way Narrator works with Excel, so it reads content in a more efficient way. Meanwhile, support fort live captions has expanded to more countries and dialects.
The Canary channel also has some interesting news in that the new audio mixer should now be available to everyone with build 25357.
Fixes and improvements in Windows 11 build 23451 (Dev)
If you’re in the Dev channel, Windows 11 build 23451 also includes the following fixes and improvements:
[Taskbar & System Tray]
- Fixed an explorer.exe crash impacting taskbar reliability.
- Fixed an issue that was causing Quick Settings and its project options to sometimes not respond when using ALT + F4 to close them.
[Start menu]
- Fixed an issue that was causing the Recommended section in Start to be blank the first time it was opened.
[File Explorer]
We fixed the following issues for Insiders previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer
- We fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of explorer.exe crashing when opening the context menu in the previous flight for some Insiders.
- If you use an Arabic or Hebrew display language, the tabs should be displaying correctly now.
We fixed the following issues for Insiders with Gallery in File Explorer:
- Fixed an issue where the scrollbar for Gallery was displaying on the wrong side for Insiders with an Arabic or Hebrew display language.
- If you have the Item Check Boxes setting enabled, the Gallery will now show check boxes on images.
[Search]
- Did some work to fix an underlying issue which could cause Search to get stuck and not open. When this happened, you might also see a delay opening the Start menu.
[Input]
- Fixed an issue where the Pinyin IME’s insert text button wasn’t displaying correctly in some cases.
- Fixed an underlying crash impacting the ability to launch the touch keyboard / PIN entry on the login screen.
[Notifications]
- Fixed another 2FA code pattern which wasn’t being recognized. If you see any others, please file feedback!
[Live captions]
- Fixed an issue where caption characters shown in the second line of the default height window were getting clipped on top.
- Features have been added to the enhanced speech recognition language files to improve performance and provide out-of-language filtering meant to limit the incorrect captions for speech not in the caption language.
[Accessibility]
- Fixed an issue where using the down key while navigating by landmark with Narrator in Edge wasn’t jumping to the first line of the landmark correctly.
As for those in the Beta channel, Windows 11 build 22624.1690 (and 22621.1690) include the following fixes and improvements:
Changes and Improvements in Build 22621.1690 & Build 22624.1690
[General]
- We are trying out providing alerts under Settings> Accounts advising users to add a recovery email address or phone number to their Microsoft account to ensure they never lose access to their account.
[Start menu]
- We are trying out a small change with some Windows Insiders where the “Recommended” section of the Start menu is changed to “For you”. Let us know what you think in Feedback Hub if you see this change.
Fixes in Build 22624.1690
[Input]
- Made another fix for the underlying crash impacting the ability to launch the touch keyboard / PIN entry on the login screen.
[Notifications]
- Fixed another 2FA code pattern which wasn’t being recognized. If you see any others, please file feedback!
[Task Manager]
- Did some work to help address an issue which was causing random processes to sometimes get grouped under Microsoft Edge even though they weren’t related.
- Fixed an issue impacting Task Manager reliability.
- The search icon should be easier to see now when using a contrast theme.
- Made the navigation pane a bit narrower. As part of this change, when necessary, the text will be wrapped now.
- The creation of live kernel memory dump file submenu has access keys now.
- Pressing enter when keyboard focus is on one of the sections (like Memory) in the Performance page should now actually switch sections.
- Resizing Task Manager from the top of the window should work now.
As per usual, Canary builds don’t come with a detailed changelog. If you’re enrolled in any of these channels, you can grab these updates now by heading into the Settings app and checking for updates. They’ll also be installed automatically sooner or later.