Microsoft has released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25931 to Windows Insiders in the Canary Channel.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25931 (Canary Channel)

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25931 to the Canary Channel. 

What’s new in Build 25931

New features from the Dev Channel

This build includes new features from the Dev Channel such as  Unicode Emoji 15 support,  voice access is available to use on more areas in Windows such as the Lock screen, and more.

DC location will no longer use NetBIOS\WINS\mailslot-based discovery by default

We have previously announced the deprecation of both  Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) and Remote Mailslots ( see this blog post here for information on Remote Mailslots). These deprecations are legacy technologies that are no longer secure in today’s environments. As part of these deprecations, DC location in your environment may be affected mainly because many legacy applications still specify short NetBIOS-style domain names when trying to locate a domain controller (DC). To help ease this transition with these deprecations, we are making two improvements to the  DC locator algorithm in Windows.

First, we are blocking by default the use of NetBIOS\WINS\mailslot-based methods for DC-discovery. This behavior can be reverted with the use of a new Group Policy setting (BlockNetBIOSDiscovery). In addition to disabling the new BlockNetBIOSDiscovery policy, reversion to default behavior also requires enabling the EnableMailslots SMB configuration option. (You can query and set the EnableMailslots setting using the Get-SmbClientConfiguration and Set-SmbClientConfiguration PowerShell cmdlets.)

PLEASE NOTE: Reversion should be considered only as a temporary measure while more viable, longer-term solutions are explored. 

Changes and Improvements

[General]

• Insider Preview Build Expiration: The expiration date for Insider Preview builds flighted to the Canary Channel has been updated to 9/15/2024 starting with Build 25931. Please make sure you are updated to the latest build in the Canary Channel.
• In addition to the  Camera app and  Cortana, the Photos app, People app, and Remote Desktop (MSTSC) client can be uninstalled.

[File Explorer]

• 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.

[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.

[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.

Fixes for known issues

• We fixed a major issue where you could no longer connect over SMB to a third-party storage device using guest (no username or password) credentials.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25931 (Canary Channel)