Microsoft has released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309 to Windows insiders in the dev channel.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309 to the Dev Channel. 

What’s new

New volume mixer experience in Quick Settings

We’re introducing a new enhanced volume mixer into Quick Settings! The updated audio quick settings experience brings a modern volume mixer that allows for quick customization of audio on a per-app basis, with additional control to swap devices on the fly. We’ve also added a new keyboard shortcut (WIN + CTRL + V) to bring you directly to the volume mixer for faster control of the experience. With this change, you can now tailor your audio experience better with more control and fewer clicks to better manage your favorite apps.

Updated Touch Keyboard Settings

After making some fixes, we are re-introducing the new touch keyboard setting we originally introduced with  Build 25188 (and disabled with  Build 25217) that replaces the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” checkbox under Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard with a new dropdown menu with 3 options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard

Auto Color Management (ACM) Expansion

Back in October, we launched Auto Color Management (hardware accelerated system level color management) on select qualifying and specially provisioned SDR displays. Now, Insiders in the Dev Channel will be able to turn ACM on for their SDR displays and have all colors across all Windows apps, whether or not they are color-managed, appear accurately and consistently on every supported display.

Voice access improvements

Redesigned in-app command help page: We have completely renovated the in-app command help page in voice access to make it simpler to use and comprehend. The search bar allows users to quickly find commands and the different categories provide further guidance. Every command now has a description and examples of its variations, making it easier to understand and use.

Changes and Improvements

[General]

• Starting with  Build 25290, we started a new exploration of badging on the Start menu with two new treatments that some Insiders in the Dev Channel will see. Starting today, we’re trying out different text variants within these treatments. If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think.  As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.

• We’re trying out a more personalized second-chance out of box experience (SCOOBE) with a small subset of Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

[Search on the Taskbar]

• The search box on taskbar will be lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode. Specifically, when the Windows 11 mode is set to dark, and the app mode is set to light under Settings > Personalization > Colors you will see a lighter search box on taskbar.

[File Explorer]

• Windows Insiders will begin noticing a “pizza” icon on the command bar in File Explorer. This icon denotes that an Insider is previewing the Windows App SDK version of File Explorer. Functionality in File Explorer remains unchanged, it just switches from using WinUI 2 to using WinUI 3.

[Snap layouts]

• After pausing this with  Build 25300, we are un-pausing this with this build – we are trying out different treatments for  snap layouts with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. We are investigating ways to improve the discoverability and usage of the snap layouts such as decreasing the hover time required to invoke the flyout when you mouse over the maximum/restore button in an app’s title bar. In addition to a few other tweaks, you’ll notice some treatments will also pull in the icon of the app window you are working in and adding a descriptive title. If you see one of these treatments, give us feedback on what you think.  As a reminder, it is normal for us to try out different concepts in the Dev Channel to get feedback.

[Windows Spotlight]

• Starting today, we are disabling the different treatments we’ve been trying out for Windows Spotlight that began with  Build 25281 due to an issue impacting the experience Insiders will have on these treatments. We plan to re-introduce an updated Windows Spotlight experience for Insiders in a future flight based on the feedback from Insiders from using these different treatments. As part of disabling these treatments, Insiders may need to go to Settings > Personalization and re-enable Windows Spotlight.

[Input]

• We have updated the Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition engine to be faster and more accurate as well as supported characters defined in GB18030-2022. Currently you can write characters in GB18030-2022 Level 2 and some of characters in GB18030-2022 Level 1 in the handwriting panel or directly into the text field when it’s supported. Please try it and let us know what you think.

[Widgets]

• We are beginning to roll out theme-aware icons for Widgets on the taskbar so that based on the user’s Windows theme (dark or light), the Widgets icons will display a theme-aware icon that will have a higher contrast ratio which will make information on the taskbar clearer for users, particularly for those with low-sight.

[Settings]

• Settings > Power & Battery has been updated to include settings for choosing what happens when interacting with your PC’s physical power controls.

Fixes

[General]

• Fixed an issue causing USB devices (including keyboard and mouse) to not work for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295+.
• Fixed an issue for some Insiders where if you’d uninstalled the previous flight, it would cause your Start menu and taskbar to cyclically crash.
• Fixed an issue where when using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition, it may not have worked on Arm64 PCs.
• Fixed an issue with the Windows Insider Program settings page showing a newer build was available in Windows Update even though you were on the latest available build in the Dev Channel.

[Taskbar & System Tray]

• Fixed multiple Explorer.exe crashes impacting taskbar and system tray.
• Fixed a display issue that could result in the taskbar appearing duplicated when making resolution changes.
• Fixed an issue which was causing app icons on the taskbar to appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.

[Widgets]

• We fixed an issue where under certain circumstances third-party widgets were not loading as expected.

[Search on the Taskbar]

• Fixed rendering issues when using the touch keyboard with the search box on taskbar.
• Fixed an issue when double clicking the search highlight glyph in the search box makes it disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search box would randomly disappear.
• Fixed an issue where the search icon flips incorrectly for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
• Fixed on issue where you might have seen some text flicker in the search box when you click into it.
• Fixed an issue where the search box might disappear on one monitor if you are using multiple monitors.
• Made some accessibility fixes to the settings for search under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue which caused Insiders with custom desktop icon arrangements / sizes to get set back to default in the previous build.
• Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the cause of File Explorer unexpectedly jumping into the foreground sometimes.
• The “Open in new tab” context menu option and middle clicking folders will now open the tab in the background rather than switching focus.
• Fixed an issue where the close button could get stuck in a highlighted state when you moved your mouse across it.

[Input]

• Fix an issue where when using the French-Canadian layout for the touch keyboard, the letters output when typing didn’t always match what was displayed on the keys.
• When using the Korean IME, CTRL + F10 should no longer open the IME context menu.

[Settings]

• Fixed an underlying issue believed to be the root cause of why some Insiders saw their startup app settings get reset with the previous build.
• Going to Privacy & Security > Phone Calls should no longer crash Settings.

[Windowing]

• Fixed a high hitting DWM.exe crash in the last couple flights.

[Other]

• Fixed multiple issues that were preventing some of the new live captions language models from downloading correctly.
• Fixed an underlying issue causing Insiders on Arm64 PCs to not be able to activate M365, with it citing a network issue.
• Fixed a search indexer crash.
• Fixed an underlying issue that could cause UWP apps to appear in English after upgrading although that wasn’t your display language.
• Fixed an issue which was causing .appinstaller packages to fail to install with an error message that says “The parameter is incorrect” (even though it wasn’t).
• Fixed an underlying issue causing certain cameras to not work in apps with the last flight.
• Fixed an underlying issue which was leading to Microsoft Edge crashes for some Insiders in the last few 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 25309