Microsoft today pushed the Build 22538 update to users of the Windows 11 Dev preview version. This update has made many improvements in keyboard and input methods.
New Features:
Microsoft introduced voice access in Build 22518. Voice Access is a new experience for controlling your PC with just your voice. In today’s build, Microsoft is offering some Voice Access updates for Windows Insiders.
Voice access using the touch keyboard:
When the user turns on the voice access function, as you can see from the screenshot, numbers appear on all the keys of the touch keyboard.
Users can do the following by voice:
- Spell words such as names and email addresses.
- Enter numbers, such as phone numbers and addresses.
- Enter punctuation and symbols.
- Enter emoji.
Just say Click [number] to simulate pressing a key. Say Show keyboard or Hide keyboard to toggle the touch keyboard on/off.
Changes & Improvements:
- The taskbar weather widget entry, first introduced in Build 22518, should now be available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev channel.
- In ALT + TAB, Task View, and Snap Assist, the focus rectangle showing the selection will now use the accent color selected on the PC.
- The updated IME (input method) and touch keyboard designs will now appear on the lock screen and where account information such as username and password is entered. This change is currently rolling out to some users.
- Started rolling out Voice Typing, a downloadable voice pack from the Microsoft Store that enables device-based speech recognition for better transcription performance.
- An attempt is being made to improve the discoverability of certain input functions in various areas of the operating system.
- If necessary, you can directly visit ncpa.cpl again.
- Added HTTPS boot for Hyper-V Generation 2 VMs, which is currently enabled by default.
- Display calibration can now be done directly under Settings > Display > HDR without having to open a separate Settings page.
Repair:
Conventional:
- Pressing hardware buttons to raise/lower volume should no longer cause explorer.exe to crash for some Insiders.
- Addressed some garbled text issues insiders saw in settings and elsewhere.
- Fixed an issue that caused Narrator to crash in the textbox when using scan mode.
- Alleviates an issue where, on some PCs, after resuming from sleep or hibernation, video playback resumes immediately but audio may take 10 seconds to start playing.
File Explorer:
- A folder named Advanced should no longer accidentally open the Advanced Sharing Settings page in Settings.
Search:
- Fixed an issue where after using “Search from Start” or clicking the “Search” icon in the taskbar, the search would not actually start when typing because no text was entered.
Mission Board:
- Long-form taskbar date and time won’t break on secondary displays.
Set up:
- There is no longer a random blank entry under Bluetooth and Devices.
- Fixed an issue where Narrator would read the Resume update button as “Check for updates” in the Windows Update page.
- Settings no longer crashes when going to System > Display > HDR.
- Fixed root issue with settings crash when using clear location history option.
- Resolved an issue that caused some Insiders to crash the settings when viewing Wi-Fi network properties.
- For those with dual network cards, the “Private” and “Public” controls in the network properties no longer flicker.
- A search for “network reset” can already appear in the search results.
- When viewing the list of available Wi-Fi networks in Quick Settings, the signal strength indicator should now reflect the correct signal strength instead of showing all full signals.
Enter:
- Removed “Try Your Settings” box from Personalization > Text Input > Custom Themes because it didn’t work.
- Custom text colors in Settings > Personalization > Text Input > Custom Themes can be applied to text in Candidate Window/Clipboard History/Emoji panels.
- With the new input switcher, an issue affecting performance when switching inputs back and forth quickly is resolved.
- Clicking the search box in the expression input area of the touch keyboard for the first time after switching input languages no longer causes the touch keyboard to close immediately.
- The fixed unexpected 1-pixel gap between touch keyboard side and screen edge when docked.
- Added missing inverted interrobang (⸘) to the general punctuation part of WIN + period.
Window:
- Backgrounds for ALT+Tab, Task View, and Snap Assist should now follow the default Windows mode (light and dark) instead of the default app for those using the custom mode in Settings > Personalization > Colors model.
- When using Arabic or Hebrew display languages, the drag and drop window in Task View should now drag in the correct direction again.
- explorer.exe no longer crashes when closing a snapshot group containing 3 or 4 applications.
Widget:
- Fixed an issue that caused widget buttons to disappear from the taskbar when changing the taskbar alignment.
- When multiple monitors are connected to the PC, the widget content on the taskbar will be synchronized between the monitors.
Voice Access:
- Fixed an issue with recently removed microphones showing as the selected microphone.
- Fixed an issue to ensure microphone state changes were announced to screen reader users.
- Fixed an issue that ensured the microphone name was read out for screen reader users on the microphone selection page when setting up Voice Access for the first time.
- Fixed an issue that ensured the microphone tag communicated the current microphone status to screen reader users.
- Fixed an issue where duplicate number labels were displayed on the Microsoft Edge homepage using the “show numbers” command.
- Fixed command “lowercase previous character” not working as expected.
- Fixed an issue where Voice Access would give an error message saying “Voice access wakes up” even when no microphone is connected.
- Resolved an issue where dictation was not working correctly on desktop and file explorer.
- Fixed an issue where the command “show numbers” was not showing number labels on the focused window.
Task Manager:
- Fixed an issue affecting Task Manager reliability.
- Changed the “App History” tab column name in Task Manager from “Tile Updates” to “Notifications”.
Known Issues:
Mission Board:
- Investigating reports of hidden icon flyouts showing two arrows and quick settings icons misaligned with date and time. A restart might solve the problem.
- The taskbar sometimes flickers when switching input methods.
Search:
- The search panel may not open after clicking the search icon on the taskbar. If this happens, restart the Windows Explorer process and open the search panel again.
Enter:
- At the UAC prompt, the IME candidate window is not displayed.
Widget:
- When the taskbar is left-aligned, information such as temperature is not displayed, which will be fixed in a future update.