Win11 Build 23550 adds the following new features:
Enable Voice Access in first-time-only settings (OOBE)

Microsoft has expanded Voice Access in Win11 Build 23550 Preview to allow navigation in the OOBE screen. Users can click on the Accessibility pop-up button in the bottom right corner of the screen and then click Enable Voice Access.

Enabling this feature requires an internet connection to be set up. Once Voice Access is enabled, you can navigate OOBE, use the on-screen keyboard to insert passwords, use dictation to enter text, and use the number and grid overlay to control the cursor.

Changes:

[Windows Subsystem for Linux]

• The September 2023 update for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is coming soon and includes networking improvements in the latest Insider Preview release. See this blog post for more details.

Fixes:

[General]

• Fixes for explorer.exe and start menu crashes in recent releases.

[File Manager]

• Fixed an issue where album thumbnails were flickering while scrolling.

[Start Menu]

• Fixed the problem that some icons are not displayed correctly in the recommended area of the start menu.

[Search on Taskbar]

• Fixed the issue that the magnifying glass is not displayed correctly when the search is set to “Search icons and labels”.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue where the dialog box incorrectly indicated that a kernel memory dump was being collected when collecting process memory dumps.
• Fixed an issue where some Insider members were experiencing Task Manager not launching.

The post Microsoft releases Win11 Dev 23550 preview update: enable Voice Access appeared first on TechGoing.

Organized as follows:

▲ image source Microsoft

Bug fixes

[Windows Copilot]

• Fixes an issue that caused the Windows Copilot icon in the taskbar to flip backwards (when using right-to-left languages such as Arabic).

[Taskbar]

• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe crashes affected the display of device power in the taskbar.
• Fixed an issue that caused applications in the taskbar to be displayed incorrectly with no rounded corners on the end display when the user had a large number of application windows open and the taskbar was set to unmerged.

[Live Captions]

• Fixed the issue that caused real-time subtitles to sometimes display the same line of text twice.

[Input]

• Fixed an issue that caused ctfmon.exe to crash with some frequency in recent releases, which could affect the typing ability of some Preview Experience members.

[Settings]

• Did some work to help improve the performance of opening Preview Experience member settings using the new homepage.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed a crash in Task Manager when clicking “End Task” on the process details page.

Known Issues

[Start Menu]

• Some apps under “All Apps” on the Start menu, such as PWA apps installed through Microsoft Edge, may be incorrectly labelled as system components.

[Searching on the Taskbar]

Sometimes the tooltip when hovering over the search box does not match the current search highlight.

[Input]

• Unicode Emoji 15 support was rolled out from internal version 23475, after the update due to an error, the updated color font format with COLRv23506 support rolled out from internal version 1 is no longer displayed, this issue will be fixed in a later release soon.

[Windows Copilot]

• Users can use Alt + Tab to switch out of Windows Copilot, but not back into Windows Copilot. windows + C will move the focus back to Windows Copilot.
• After starting or refreshing Copilot for the first time using voice access, users need to use the “Show grid” and then click the “Ask me anything” box.

The post Microsoft Windows 11 Dev 23536 Preview Released, Fixes End Task Crash appeared first on TechGoing.

[Reminder]

• Insider preview version expiration: Starting with Build 23526, the expiration date for Insider preview versions sent to the Developer Channel has been updated to September 15, 2024. Users need to ensure that they have updated to the latest version in the Developer Channel.
• In the European Economic Area (EEA), the Windows system component uses the default browser to open links.

[Search on Taskbar]

• The search experience has been reintroduced so that users can invoke a search when hovering over the search box blinking above the flyout window. You can right-click on the taskbar and select “Taskbar Settings” to adjust the search box experience to your preference.

Fixes
[General]

• Fixed a problem that caused explorer.exe to fail to run in Safe Mode.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue that could cause explorer.exe to crash when closing File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue where File Explorer would crash when navigating to “Gallery” if there were a large number of images.
• Fixed an issue where the “Auto-Type Search Box” did not work when File Explorer opened to the home page.
• Fixed an issue where an error code could appear if trying to copy and paste files from a zip folder into a OneDrive folder.

[HD Backgrounds]

• Fixed an issue that could cause HDR wallpapers to appear blurry when HDR is enabled.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue where the Task Manager window could not be moved by touch or pen.
• Fixed the issue that Task Manager crashes when using the “Reset to Default Settings” button in “Settings”.
• Fixed an issue that caused sporadic crashes when using Task Manager, including when ending tasks.
• Fixed an issue where if a search was performed and then cleared, the view would still be filtered even though there was no search.
• Fixed an issue where the search icon in the title bar was overlapping with the Task Manager text.
• Took some steps to help improve performance when switching between pages in the Task Manager.
• Updated the summary view of the Performance page (visible by double-clicking on the chart in the navigation pane) to make the window smaller.
• Note: Some of the fixes mentioned here in the Insider Preview version of the Developer Channel may make it into the service update for the full version of Windows 11.

Known Issues

[Start Menu]

• Some apps under “All Apps” on the Start menu, such as PWA apps installed through Microsoft Edge, may be incorrectly labelled as system components.

[Search on Taskbar]

• The tooltip sometimes does not match the current search highlight when the mouse is over the search box.

[Windows Copilot]

• Users can use Alt + Tab to switch out of Windows Copilot, but not back to Windows Copilot. windows + C will move the focus back to Windows Copilot.

After starting Copilot for the first time or refreshing it when using voice access, you need to click “Ask me a question” for the first time using the “Show grid” command.

The post Microsoft Windows 11 Dev 23531 Preview Released, Fixes Issues appeared first on TechGoing.

PhantomOcean3 said that Microsoft had released the Build 23526 preview ISO image on the Windows Insider page on time, but quickly withdrew it a few minutes later.

PhantomOcean3 said that due to the rapid withdrawal of Microsoft, the ISO image was not downloaded in time, and it is impossible to know the changes of the new version.

Microsoft officials did not respond to the reason for this withdrawal. Many foreign technology media have asked Microsoft for confirmation, but the official did not respond.

The post Microsoft withdrew Windows 11 Dev 23526 preview ISO image appeared first on TechGoing.

The Phone Link app is only initially supporting iPhone, and support for iMessage is still limited. Users can send and receive iMessages and SMS text messages through Phone Link, but there is no support for group chats or sending photos and videos.

Tom Warren of The Verge that Phone Link also lacks a full message history of conversations, and all incoming and outgoing messages are shown as gray bubbles, meaning users can’t distinguish between iMessage and SMS text messages.

As reminded by users, this feature is currently limited to the Win11 Dev Channel Preview.

The post Phone Link app for Windows 11 Dev Preview now adds iPhone support appeared first on TechGoing.

As we know, in Windows 11 and Windows 10, when an application or task is not responding, you need to open Task Manager, find the task name, and then end its process.

In Windows 11 Build 25300, Microsoft has made it easier to kill an entire process or task by allowing users to right-click on any application/process icon directly on the taskbar and quickly kill the process by clicking on the new “End task” option, as shown below.

The “End task” button invokes the same actions currently available through Task Manager and can be seen as a shortcut in Task Manager.

Windows 11 now allows users to kill any process using Task Manager, Command Prompt, PowerShell, and Settings, as long as the name or process identifier (PID) is recognized. Task Manager also comes with a new search bar that makes it easier to identify background processes.

In addition to this hidden feature, Windows 11 Build 25300 also brings a big update to accessibility, with the Live Captioning feature adding support for several new languages, including Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, and more.

Microsoft is also experimenting with different Snap window layout designs, including improving the discoverability of Snap layouts. For example, the updated Snap layout experience now includes icons for the application window and adds descriptive titles to the layout.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft is testing these improvements in the Windows 11 preview, most of which are hidden and can only be enabled when passing code.

The post Windows 11 Dev Preview Build 25300 hidden feature appeared first on TechGoing.

In this update, the version will not be available for Arm64 devices due to a known issue that caused the device to get stuck on the OS boot logo. Microsoft is offering a new widget trial for Preview Experience members in the Dev channel, which includes a set of fixes.

What’s New-New widget

With the release of Windows App SDK 1.2, developers are now able to create widgets for their apps. Users can access these experiences from the Windows 11 widget panel in the current Dev preview release.

Ready to try out the new widgets? For example, the Messenger app is now available in a preview version of its widget. To try it out, go to the Microsoft Store and update to the latest version of Messenger. then open the widget panel and navigate to the widget selector by clicking the “+” button in the upper right corner of the panel to fix the widget.

When trying out the widget, please submit content via the widget feedback link in the widget selector. As more developers create and publish widgets for their applications, users will see more new widgets.

Fixes
[Taskbar and System Tray]

Fixed an issue where right-clicking on some icons in a hidden icon pop-up window would cause the pop-up window to close instead of bringing up the context menu for that icon.

[Search on Taskbar]

These fixes are only available to Windows Preview Experience members who have embraced a different approach to the appearance of Search on the Taskbar, starting with the rollout to Preview Experience members of Build 25252:

Fixes for explorer.exe crashes affecting some Insiders, related to the search box in the taskbar.

[Input]

When triggering a search suggestion while using the Pinyin input method, the keyboard focus will now stay on the current candidate word. To move the focus to the search suggestion, press Tab.

[Window]

Fixed an issue with Touch PC that prevented swiping down from the top of the screen to display the title bar when using certain applications in full-screen mode.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue that caused some apps to hang or crash when saving a file as a PDF in recent versions.
• Fixes an issue where using the Connect option in the app could unexpectedly not show any devices in the latest version.
• Some of the fixes mentioned here in the preview version of the Dev channel may make it into the service updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known Issues/General-New

• Some intranet users may experience issues accessing websites and other resources over a virtual private network connection.
• Important: Some Arm64 devices running Build 25281 may not resume sleep/hibernation and may hang at the OS boot logo. To bypass this error, use the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to roll back the device to a previous version. Instructions can be found here: ms/WinRERollback.
• Logging in via facial recognition using Windows Hello may not work on Arm64 PCs. The workaround is to use the Hello PIN path.
• Some users are experiencing updates that take longer than expected when installing the latest version. Microsoft is actively investigating this issue.
• Microsoft is investigating reports that some intranet users are experiencing freezes when using the browser and certain other applications after installing the last Dev version.

Widgets

• [New] Third-party widgets may sometimes disappear from the widget panel. They can be re-added by clicking Refresh or by re-fixing them from the widget selector.
• [New] Third-party widgets may sometimes be unpinned when a Microsoft account is used to sign in to multiple Windows 11 devices.
• [New] The unpin button on widget pinning/unpinning toast notifications sometimes does not work.

Taskbar and System Tray]

• When using a taskbar optimized for tablets, the taskbar may sometimes be cropped in half. Users may also see this issue on the secondary display.

Search on Taskbar

• The following known issues apply only to Windows Preview Experience members who have accepted a different approach to the appearance of Search on the Taskbar, starting with the rollout to Preview Experience members using Build 25252.
• There is an issue where in some cases, users will not be able to change the taskbar search box to show only as an icon through the taskbar settings. To resolve this issue, first change to a different option and then will be able to select Show as an icon only.

Task Manager

• Some dialog boxes may not be rendered with the correct theme when applied from the Task Manager settings page.
• The data content area of the process page may blink once when a theme change is applied from the Task Manager settings page.

Windows Spotlight

The following known issues apply only to Windows Preview Experience members who receive one of the different treatments for Windows Spotlight, which are starting to roll out to Build 25281 users.

• [New] Clicking on the secondary display does not cancel the full-screen experience.
• [New] Spotlight wallpapers are displayed at incorrect resolutions on multi/hybrid resolution monitors.
• [New] In some cases, users did not get a consistent refresh every day.

The post Microsoft Windows 11 Dev Preview Build 25284 released: Experience third-party widgets appeared first on TechGoing.

Image source Unsplash

Changes and improvements
[General]

Moved Quick Assistant out of Windows Tools so that it appears directly in the All Apps list in the Start menu and is easier to find.

Microsoft is removing the suggested actions for searching for copied text in Microsoft Edge and displaying recommended popular websites in the Recommendations section of Start — both of which are available as of Build 25247. Both features are available starting with Build 25247. As a reminder, features and experiences that Microsoft is trying out in the Dev channel may be removed and never released outside of the Dev channel as Microsoft incubates new ideas and gets feedback from Insiders.

[WSL]

As of Build 25267, the built-in version of Windows Subsystem for Linux has been removed. If you are a WSL user, you will need to update to the latest WSL version outlined in this GitHub post when installing the version with this change to ensure that WSL continues to run on your PC. Once this is done, WSL will continue to handle subsequent version updates. In a future release, this will hopefully be done automatically.

[Print].

Added a refresh button to the Windows print queue.

Fixes
[General]

• Fixes an issue that caused some Arm64 devices to have a black screen when resuming from sleep or hibernation.
• Fixes an issue that caused various UI elements in the application to sometimes disappear and reappear in recent releases.

[Search on Taskbar]

• These fixes are only available to Windows Preview Experience members who received a different treatment for the appearance of search on the taskbar, starting with the rollout to Preview Experience members of Build 25252.
• Fixes an issue that caused the search box on the taskbar to not render correctly and display visual artifacts.
• Japanese IME candidates will now display correctly in the search box on the taskbar.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue that caused filtering by publisher name on the process page to not match correctly.
• Fixed an issue that caused some services to not show up on the “Services” page after applying filters.
• Fixed an issue that caused a new process to appear in the filter list if it was started while setting the filter.
• Fixed an issue where Task Manager did not display light and dark content correctly, rendering text that may not be readable.
• Fixes an issue that caused the Launch Applications page in Task Manager to not list any applications for certain internal testers.
• Task Manager now explicitly states if there are no matching search results.
• Fixed a Task Manager crash that could occur when trying to end certain processes.
• Users can now set the focus to the search box by pressing CTRL + F.

[Narrator]

• Fixed an issue that caused settings to crash after opening or closing the narrator in Lithuanian and Hungarian versions.
• The narrator now works properly with Windows Defender Application Guard for Edge.

[Live Captions]

• Fixed an issue that caused Live Subtitles to not work in the latest Insider Preview version of the Dev Channel.

[Input]

• When using Japanese IME in combination with the Narrator will no longer read out the entire combined string each time the user presses a key.
• If only one input language is installed, the message displayed when using ALT + Shift for the first time will no longer be displayed.
• Fixed an issue with the Surface Pen not advancing PowerPoint slides in the latest version.
• Made changes to help improve mouse performance when playing games.
• Fixed an issue where the Start menu could get stuck in the middle of opening with a touch gesture.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Excel to stop responding to certain mouse-drag events when using Japanese or Chinese IME.

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue that could cause a hang if authentication was canceled when connecting to a virtual private network.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused settings to crash when turning on the power and battery.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Quick Settings to crash when navigating to the Bluetooth section.
• Fixed the issue that the app icon under “Settings” > “Apps” > “Default Apps” might be blurred.

[Window]

• Fixed an issue that caused a black screen when ALT + Tabbing exited certain games in recent versions.
• The maximize button should no longer be slightly smaller than the close and minimize buttons when users use dark mode to highlight the maximize button in File Explorer and certain other applications.
• Fixed several DWM crash issues introduced in recent versions.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue that caused some Windows security applications to crash.
• Fixed an issue with the print queue showing stale job information for printer-connected devices.
• Fixes an issue where you may see a dialog box twice in a row in some cases when creating FIDO2 credentials for a website in the browser.
• This release includes a fix for a Windows Hello issue that affected some PCs. Microsoft is continuing to investigate resolving the issue specific to Arm64 PCs
• Fixed an issue that could cause problems with the Camera app display if you press pause while recording video.
• Some of the fixes mentioned here in the Insider Preview version of the Dev channel may make it into the service update for the released version of Windows 11.

Known Issues
[General]

• Using Windows Hello to sign in via facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. The workaround is to use the Hello PIN path.

[Taskbar and System Tray]

• When using a taskbar optimized for tablets, the taskbar is sometimes cropped in half. Users may also see this problem on the secondary display.

[Search on Taskbar]

• The following known issues apply only to Windows Preview Experience members, who received a different treatment of the search on taskbar appearance that started rolling out to Preview Experience members using Build 25252.
• There is a layout issue with the text in the taskbar search box in languages that are displayed right-to-left, such as Arabic.

[Task Manager]

• Some dialogs may not render with the correct theme when applied from the Task Manager settings page.
• The data content area of the process page may blink once when a theme change is applied from the Task Manager settings page.

[Widgets]

• Microsoft is investigating an issue where the widget panel will be stuck in an invisible state in Insiders in China (and possibly others), causing clicks on the left side of the screen to not work. If this is encountered, pressing WIN + D may resolve the issue.
• In right-to-left display languages (e.g. Arabic), when clicking to expand the widget panel view, the content animates before the widget panel resizes.

The post Microsoft Windows 11 Dev Preview Build 25272 Released with a full list of updates appeared first on TechGoing.