Microsoft has released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 to Windows insiders in the dev channel.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 to the Dev Channel. 

What’s new

Widgets settings

In this update, we have separated the widget picker and Widgets settings to make it easier for you to find and interact with each view. Now, the widget picker is opened by the “+” button and Widgets settings is opened by the “Me” button. We re-used the space the picker used to take in Widget settings to cover the highly requested taskbar settings based on Insider feedback to give you control over how the Widgets entry works on your taskbar.

When you open Widgets settings by clicking on the “Me” button shown above, you will see three taskbar behaviors that you can toggle on or off.

Please note the wording for the toggles in Widget settings is slightly different in this build over what’s shown in the above screenshot. In a future update, the text for the toggles in Widget settings will be updated to reflect what is in the (above) screenshot.

With the toggles in Widget settings, you can:

• Control whether the Widgets board opens when you hover over the taskbar icon.
• Control whether Widgets will show notification badging on the taskbar.
• Control whether live Widget content on the taskbar shows more than weather.

[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Widgets.

Changes and Improvements

[Taskbar]

• Based on your feedback, we’ve added Task Manager to the context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar. Let us know what you think!

[System Tray]

• This build includes preliminary support to rearrange System Tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with  Build 25197. Further improvements for this experience are coming soon. As a reminder, these System Tray updates are still rolling out and are not available to all Insiders just yet. If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue where the top part of File Explorer (with the search and address box) couldn’t be interacted with when File Explorer was in full screen mode (F11).

[Settings]

• For the time being, you will no longer be able to uninstall apps with interdependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam) or repair Win32 apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps. You will still be able to modify and uninstall Win32 apps without interdependencies.

Fixes

[General]

• We are beginning to roll out a server-side fix for the issue causing a “date, time and time zone settings are incorrect” message to be improperly displayed, which was also preventing the installation of the latest Insider Preview builds from proceeding.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed the issue where the command bar items like copy, paste, and empty Recycle Bin were unexpectedly not be enabled sometimes when they have been.
• Fixed an issue which was causing unexpected black bars on the sides of horizontal scroll bars when using dark mode.

[Start]

• When you have Start set to show more pinned items, the animation for opening folders lower on the page will now appear from the right place.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed a high hitting Shell Experience Host crash in recent Dev Channel builds, impacting Quick Settings launch reliability.

[Input]

• The gripper for moving the emoji panel and touch keyboard should now update color correctly when you switch between dark and light mode.
• Fixed a memory leak when repeatedly invoking the input switcher.

[Settings]

• Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when changing your mobile hotspot name.
• Updated the examples used in the Short time selection under Time & Language > Language & Region > Regional Format, to make the 12 hour options (vs 24 hour) a little more obvious by showing morning and afternoon times.

[Task Manager]

• Tweaked the graphs in the Performance page to use a bit more transparency so it’s easier to see the grid lines underneath.
• Made another fix to improve Task Manager reliability.
• Fixed a black flash while might be seen when launching Task Manager in light mode.
• Fixed a few issues where the font color of certain elements wasn’t correct / readable when using a contrast theme.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue where Narrator would read out the details of the calendar that opens from selecting the date and time from the taskbar when it was collapsed.
• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing repeatedly in Windows Sandbox for Insiders with the tablet optimized taskbar and updated system tray.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when opening the Open File Dialog.
• Fixed an issue which was making the screen go black for some Insiders when enabling HDR recently.
• Fixed an issue where after using the Open With dialog, the process might stay running even if it wasn’t in use anymore.
• Fixed an issue which was leading to increased CPU usage for WSL2 users on ARM64 PCs even when WSL was idle.
• Fixed an issue where closing the print dialog could lead to an app crash in the last couple flights.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211