Microsoft has released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27695 to Windows Insiders in the Canary channel.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27695 (Canary Channel)

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27695 to the Canary Channel.

What’s new with Build 27695

New position for the Widgets entry-point on left-aligned taskbars 

We’re beginning to roll out a new position for the Widgets entry-point on left-aligned taskbars. The taskbar entry-point will move to the left of the systems tray and will be wider so you can see richer content from Widgets on your taskbar. When you launch the Widgets board, it will fly out from the right side instead of the left side.

The Widgets entry-point at its new position to the left of system tray on a left-aligned taskbar.

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

Windows LAPS: Retrieve encrypted passwords during Active Directory recovery situations

Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) has been improved with a new ability to recover encrypted passwords from Active Directory (AD) backup media even when there are zero AD domain controllers running.

Windows LAPS encrypted passwords offer much better security over the traditional approach of storing clear-text passwords in Active Directory. Windows LAPS password encryption is based on  Cryptography API: Next Generation Data Protection API (CNG DPAPI). Under normal operating conditions, the decryption keys are always retrieved from a running AD domain controller. When an unexpected disaster occurs, there may be no AD domain controllers running.

You can now use the Get-LapsADPassword PowerShell cmdlet to retrieve and decrypt Windows LAPS encrypted passwords from Active Directory backup media (mounted using the AD snapshot browser, aka dsamain.exe) with zero network interaction with any AD domain controller. In fact, this operation is now possible even when running on a non-domain-joined, workgroup machine. If you still have access to your AD backup media, all Windows LAPS encrypted passwords will now be recoverable regardless of the situation.

This new improvement is implemented in the existing Get-LapsADPassword PowerShell cmdlet. When the -Port and -RecoveryMode parameters are both specified, any retrieved passwords will be automatically decrypted in a purely local operation using the decryption keys found in the snapshot browser.

Step 1: Mount the Active Directory backup media database:

Command line view of mounting an Active Directory backup media database.

Step 2: Recover the Windows LAPS passwords from the mounted AD backup media database:

PowerShell view of recovering Windows LAPS passwords from a mounted Active Directory backup media database.

Step 3: This step is informative only; the screenshot below demonstrates that the above operations were executed on a workgroup machine:

View of all the operations for executing recovery of Windows LAPS passwords from a mounted Active Directory backup media database.

In summary this improvement resolves a key Windows LAPS concern of how to recover Windows LAPS passwords in a disaster scenario where no AD domain controllers are running. For more information see:  Retrieving passwords during AD disaster recovery scenarios.

Changes and Improvements

[General]

• Insider Preview Build Expiration: The expiration date for Insider Preview builds flighted to the Canary Channel has been updated to 9/15/2025 starting with Build 27691. Please make sure you are updated to the latest build in the Canary Channel.
• Some Insiders in the Canary Channel will begin to see an estimated time for how long their PC will be offline to install Build 27695. This estimate will be shown on the Windows Update settings page and via the Start menu power button.

Estimated time for how long a PC will be offline to install a build as shown on the Windows Update settings page.

[Notifications]

• If desired, there’s now an option to turn off the  suggestions to disable notifications from certain apps. You can now press the “…” within the notification to disable the notification, as you can with other notifications, or you can go to the list of notification senders in Settings > System > Notifications and turn it off from there (called “Notification Suggestions” in the list). Note – this entry will only appear in the senders list after you have received one.

[Windows Share]

• We are rolling out the ability to easily share content to an Android device from Windows share window. The feature requires you to pair your Android device to your Windows PC using the Link to Windows app on Android and Phone Link on your PC.

Updated UI for sharing content to an Android device via the Windows share window showing an updated icon in the Nearby Share section.

[Widgets]

• We are rolling out an update to the Widgets Board to improve security and the APIs for creating widgets and feeds for users in EEA regions. As part of this update, the Microsoft Start Experiences app will power the Microsoft Start widget and feed experiences. Also, as part of this update, some existing widgets will be removed and others will be modified, temporarily affecting their functionality. This update sets the foundation for new widgets and other features in development, set to roll out soon.

Fixes

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue where when pressing WIN + E, a screen reader might unexpectedly say a pane had focus, or focus may not be set within File Explorer at all.
• Fixed an issue which was causing CTRL + F to sometimes not start a search in File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue where keyboard focus might get lost sometimes when doing Shift + Tab in File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue causing screen readers to not announce when you were opening or navigating items in the breadcrumb flyouts of the open or save dialog.
• Fixed an issue causing screen readers to not announce anything when opening or navigating items in the column header flyout in File Explorer.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue where the colors in the Performance section weren’t displayed correctly in dark mode.

[Windows Sandbox]

• Fixed an underlying issue which could cause Windows Sandbox to fail to launch with error 0x80070005 sometimes.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue where when installing Windows by booting from recent install media, it wouldn’t make itself the default partition if another version of Windows was installed.
• Fixed an issue underlying issue causing dfrgui.exe (Defrag and Optimize drives) to fail in the previous flight with a pop up saying SXSHARED_UCRT.dll was not found. This is also believed to be the cause of seeing an error saying “the specified module could not be found” errors in that flight when trying to use the backup options in Control Panel.

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27695 (Canary Channel)