REMINDER: All Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel will now be on the same build (Build 22635.xxxx) via an enablement package. For Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel who want to be the first to get features gradually rolled out to you, you can turn ON the toggle (shown in the image below) to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Windows Update. Over time, we will increase the rollouts of features to everyone with the toggle turned on. Should you keep this toggle off, new features will gradually be rolled out to your device over time once they are ready.
Going forward, we will document changes in Beta Channel builds in two buckets: new features, improvements, and fixes that are being gradually rolled out for Insiders who have turned on the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available and then new features, improvements, and fixes available to everyone in the Beta Channel.
Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*
[File Explorer]
- We’re rolling out the ability to duplicate a tab by right-clicking on a tab in File Explorer.
Fixes gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*
[File Explorer]
- Fixed a memory leak when interacting with archive folders in File Explorer.
- Fixed a few issues impacting File Explorer reliability.
- Made a change to help fix an issue which could cause the spacing between your desktop icons to become extremely wide.
- Fixed a timing issue where if you start a search from Home in File Explorer, it may unexpectedly show no results the first time you tried.
- Did some work to help address an issue where the address bar dropdown might appear unexpectedly while you were using File Explorer.
[Task Manager]
- Updated the units (from MHz to MT/s) for DDR speed.
- Fixed an issue where the Safely Remove Hardware option for ejecting USB devices wouldn’t work if Task Manager was open.
- Did some work to ensure Task Manager releases process handles quickly when terminating processes.
- Made some more improvements to help with Task Manager reliability.
- We have improved the performance when changing the sort order.
- Made multiple improvements to overall accessibility of Task Manager, including improving keyboard focus, tab navigation, text scaling, names of items read out by screen readers, and more.
- We made it a little easier to resize Task Manager when trying to resize by grabbing the top of the window.
Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to everyone in the Beta Channel
[Copilot in Windows**]
- Over the last few months, we’ve been trying out different experiences for Copilot in Windows (Preview) with Windows Insiders across the Canary, Dev, and Beta Channels. Some of these experiences include the ability for Copilot in Windows to act like a normal application window and the taskbar icon animating to indicate that Copilot can help when you copy text or images. We have decided to pause the rollouts of these experiences to further refine them based on user feedback. Copilot in Windows will continue to work as expected while we continue to evolve new ideas with Windows Insiders.
Fixes for everyone in the Beta Channel
[Start menu]
- We fixed the issue causing a component related to upgrading and restoring data from Windows Backup called “Global.WindowsMigration” to incorrectly show under the Start menu > All apps.
[Copilot in Windows**]
- We are rolling out a fix for the issue causing Copilot to auto-launch unexpectedly for Windows Insiders in the Canary, Dev, and Beta Channels after restarting their PCs. This issue was unrelated to the auto-launching experience we tried out with Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels in early February which we stopped rolling out in March.
Known issues
[General]
- We are investigating an issue where Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) may not work after installing this update.
[Widgets]
Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel who have the new position for the Widgets entry-point on left-aligned taskbars may see the following known issues:
- Swipe invocation for Widgets may not work if taskbar is center-aligned instead of left-aligned.
- Unpinning Widgets from the taskbar may not work if taskbar is center-aligned instead of left-aligned.
- The Widgets board is incorrectly positioned when Copilot is in side-by-side mode.
- Turning on/off Widgets in taskbar settings may refresh the taskbar.
Reminders for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel
- Updates released to the Beta Channel are based off Windows 11, version 23H2.
- Features and experiences included in these builds may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. Features may change over time, be removed, or replaced and never get released beyond Windows Insiders. Some of these features and experiences could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready.
- Many features in the Beta Channel are rolled out using Control Feature Rollout technology, starting with a subset of Insiders and ramping up over time as we monitor feedback to see how they land before pushing them out to everyone in this channel.
- Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel who want to be the first to get features gradually rolled out to you*, you can turn ON the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Windows Update. Over time, we will increase the rollouts of features to everyone with the toggle turned on. Should you keep this toggle off, new features will gradually be rolled out to your device over time once they are ready.
- Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first.
- Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.
- Copilot in Windows** in preview is being rolled out gradually to Windows Insiders in select global markets. The initial markets for the Copilot in Windows preview include North America, United Kingdom and parts of Asia and South America. It is our intention to add additional markets over time.
Thanks,
Amanda & Brandon