Today, Microsoft released new preview builds of Windows 11 across all channels in the Insider Preview program. There are two builds for the release preview channel, two for the beta, and one for the dev channel. The beta channel receives the new build with 22621.2191 and 22631.2191 version numbers, whereas, the dev channel gets the new update with the 23521 build number.
In terms of changes, the Windows 11 beta users can get access to the features like HDR Backgrounds, Narrator Natural Voices in French, Portuguese, English (India), German and Korea, public preview of Windows 365 Switch, never combined mode for the taskbar is also available, option of Share in the context menu in File Explorer, and more.
Here’s the complete list of Changes, Improvements, and Fixes coming with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22631.2191.
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22631.2191 – Changes and Improvements
- Windows 365
- Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels can participate in the public preview of Windows 365 Switch. Windows 365 Switch provides the ability to easily move between a Windows 365 Cloud PC and the local desktop using the same familiar keyboard commands, as well as a mouse-click or a swipe gesture through Task View on the Windows 11 taskbar. Please read this blog post for all the details on how to participate.
- Taskbar & System Tray
- REMINDER:As noted in our Beta Channel flight here, the settings for never combined mode for the taskbar were showing up under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors but do not enable the experience. We have temporarily removed the settings for this to fix the issue. The feature will be coming to a Beta Channel flight soon.
- File Explorer
- We’ve added “Share” to the context menu in File Explorer in addition to having the share icon at the top of the context menu.
- Added more fields to show in the Details pane, including image dimensions for pictures, number of pages for .docx, space used and free information for drives, and many others.
- Windows Spotlight
- After doing an OS update, in certain cases such as using the default Windows 11 background or a solid color – Windows Spotlight may be enabled for you. If you decide you don’t want Windows Spotlight enabled, you can turn it off and in future OS updates it should not be enabled for you again unless you choose to re-enable the experience.
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22631.2191 – Fixes
- File Explorer
- Fixed an issue which was causing File Explorer to crash when navigating to Home, as well as some other issues causing crashes.
- Fixed a memory leak in File Explorer with the latest updates which could cause explorer.exe crashes and other issues over prolonged usage.
- Fixed an issue where after refreshing Home, actions to pin and unpin favorite files might not work.
- Fixed an issue where the tooltip would get stuck on the screen when you scrolled Home with touch.
- Fixed an issue where collapsing and expanding the sections of Home didn’t always work.
- Fixed an issue where Home and Gallery could get stuck in the wrong colors if they were open when changing between light and dark mode.
- Fixed an issue where thumbnails in Gallery might not load after changing the view to a smaller icon size (for example, medium to small).
- Made some small adjustments to the size of elements, including reducing the size of the text.
- The ALT + D, CTRL + L, and F4 keyboard shortcuts should work now to set focus to the address bar.
- Fixed an issue where typing drive letters, %localappdata%, and certain other things in the address bar wasn’t causing suggested paths to appear in a dropdown.
- Fixed an issue where the icons displayed in the tabs in File Explorer could become out of sync with the current folder after navigating.
- Fixed an issue which was causing File Explorer to show “Working on it” in an empty folder.
- Fixed an issue where the image in the Details pane might get blurry after resizing the File Explorer window.
- Fixed an issue where the design of the details pane was displaying from left to right instead of right to left when using Hebrew or Arabic display languages.
- Fixed an issue where the text box for naming newly created files or folders on the desktop was showing in the wrong position (far away or way too close) relative to the thumbnail.
- Fixed an issue where ALT + P and Shift + Alt + P keyboard shortcuts weren’t working when focus was set to one of the images in Gallery.
- Fixed an issue where right clicking items in the navigation pane wouldn’t open a context menu after you changed folders.
- Fixed an issue which was causing explorer.exe to crash when trying to access an FTP address.
- Fixed an issue where selecting the dropdown arrows in the address bar was opening a blank menu.
- Dynamic Lighting
- Fixed an issue where devices might show as empty squares in Settings > Personalization > Dynamic Lighting.
Moving to the Windows 11 Preview Build 23521, then it comes with the Windows 365 Switch public preview, users who are managed by AAD can again access of Windows Copillot, never combined mode for the taskbar, instant sync of Windows accent color with the devices around you with Dynamic Lighting, updated Task manager user interface, and many more.
Here’s the complete list of Changes, Improvements, and Fixes coming with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23521.
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23521 – Changes and Improvements
- Windows 365
- Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels can participate in the public preview of Windows 365 Switch. Windows 365 Switch provides the ability to easily move between a Windows 365 Cloud PC and the local desktop using the same familiar keyboard commands, as well as a mouse-click or a swipe gesture through Task View on the Windows 11 taskbar. Please read this blog post for all the details on how to participate.
- Windows Copilot
- Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel who login and are managed by AAD (soon to be Microsoft Entra ID) will see Windows Copilot enabled for them again without the need to enable it via Group Policy Editor.
- Taskbar & System Tray
- To make it easier to enable never combined mode on the taskbar, we have updated the settings. You can turn never combined mode on by simply adjusting “Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels” to never. And we provide a separate setting for turning this on for other taskbars (multiple monitor scenarios for example).
- Dynamic Lighting
- You can now instantly sync your Windows accent color with the devices around you with the “Match my Windows accent color” toggle under “Effects” for Dynamic Lighting via Settings > Personalization > Dynamic Lighting. This improvement started rolling out in last week’s Dev Channel flight.
- We have added the ability to choose a custom color to light up your devices with.
- 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. Oh, and we updated some dialogs in Task Manager too.
- Windows Spotlight
- After doing an OS update, in certain cases such as using the default Windows 11 background or a solid color – Windows Spotlight may be enabled for you. If you decide you don’t want Windows Spotlight enabled, you can turn it off and in future OS updates it should not be enabled for you again unless you choose to re-enable the experience.
- Search on the Taskbar
- Windows Search now uses the Microsoft Bing Search app to return web content and search results. In the European Economic Area (EEA), you can enable installed Microsoft Store apps that implement a web search provider to return web content and search results in Windows Search through Settings.
- Settings
- The end task feature under System > For Developers no longer requires Developer Mode to be enabled first before it can be used.
- [ADDED] Under Settings > Personalization > Device usage, we have added “Development” to the list and toggling it on will launch Dev Home. This matches what is shown in OOBE (“out of box experience”).
- Other
- In the European Economic Area (EEA), Windows will now require consent to share data between Windows and other signed-in Microsoft services. You will see some Windows features start to check for consent now, with more being added in future builds. Without consent to share data between Windows and other signed-in Microsoft services, some functionality in Windows features may be unavailable, for example certain types of file recommendations under “Recommended” on the Start menu.
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23521 – Fixes
- File Explorer
- Fixed an issue where you couldn’t drag a file out of an archived folder to extract it with one of the newly supported archive formats.
- Fix an issue where when extracting one of the newly supported archive formats using the Extract All option in the context menu, it wasn’t working unless Windows Explorer was set as the default for that file type.
- When trying to extract one of the new archive formats and the file is password encrypted, it will now show a message saying this isn’t currently supported.
- Fixed a bug where Insiders may have experienced a File Explorer crash when dragging the scroll bar or attempting to close the window during an extended file-loading process.
- We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer address bar that began rolling out with Build 23475:
- Fixed an issue which was causing the search box in File Explorer to not work well with IMEs.
- Fixed an issue where pasting using the context menu in the address bar wasn’t working (or other context menu actions in the address bar).
- We fixed the following issues for Insiders who have the modernized File Explorer Home that began rolling out with Build 23475:
- Fixed an issue where when trying to scroll with touch on Home might result in everything getting selected.
- Fixed a white flash in dark theme when switching between Home and Gallery.
- Taskbar & System Tray
- Fixed an issue that removed the USB icon and its options from the system tray.
- Fixed an issue where the titles were missing from taskbar previews when turning on tablet-optimized taskbar while using uncombined taskbar.
- Fixed an issue where uncombined taskbar’s app indicators weren’t shown correctly after it showed something was being downloaded.
- Fixed an explorer.exe crash impacting system tray reliability.
- Fixed an issue where the End Task feature wasn’t working if you tried it when there were multiple windows open of that app.
- Fixed an issue where using End Task on certain apps would cause other unrelated apps to close.
- HDR Backgrounds
- Fixed an issue where your HDR wallpaper might appear washed out although HDR was enabled.
- Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to select .JXL files for your wallpaper slideshow.
- Other
- If Get Help isn’t installed, when opening one of the troubleshooters in Settings, it will now prompt you to install it, rather than showing an error about not having an app associated for the action.
If your PC is running on Windows 11 with the canary channel in Windows Insider Preview Program, then you can install the new release preview build on your system. You can check for the new update by visiting Settings > Windows Update > Check for updates.
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