Microsoft pushed the latest Windows 11 Dev preview version 22567 system update.
Here are some highlighted features:
- This release includes several new features, including enabling Windows Update to take advantage of renewable energy, improved Microsoft 365 subscription management in Settings, Phone Link (OOBE) in Device Settings, and new security features for smart app controls.
- Microsoft has updated the Open With dialog to use the design principles of Windows 11, among other improvements.
- Microsoft has expanded the voice typing improvements to make it available to all Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.
Here’s what’s new in Windows 11 Build 22567
Windows Update taps more renewable energy
Windows Update will try to schedule update installations at certain times of the day, in the hope that doing so will reduce carbon emissions. Most power grids are powered by multiple energy sources, including renewables and fossil fuels.
Whenever possible, Windows 11 will now prioritize installing updates in the background when clean energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydro are in abundance. Users always have the option to install the update now by navigating to Settings > Windows Update and selecting “Check for Updates”.
This feature is only enabled when your computer is plugged in and you have regional carbon intensity data from Microsoft partners electricMap or WattTime. If enabled, users will see the text below on the Windows Update settings page. Microsoft is still working on the content of this text link – stay tuned for future updates.
[Microsoft is starting to roll out this feature, so it’s not yet available to all beta testers, as Microsoft plans to monitor feedback and see how it goes before rolling it out to everyone.]
Improved Microsoft 365 subscription management in Settings
Last October, Microsoft introduced subscription management in “Your Microsoft Account” under Settings > Accounts. As part of a Microsoft 365 subscription in Windows 11, users can view OneDrive storage, recurring billing and sharing information, making it easier to manage their Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft is taking the Microsoft 365 subscription management experience under Settings > Accounts to the next level. Microsoft will use the Online Services Experience Pack to bring more experiences to users within the account under Settings > Account.
Microsoft is introducing payment details into the subscription card experience. Users can view payment information and be notified when payment methods need to be updated, and users can continue to subscribe without any interruption.
For customers who are not on a Microsoft 365 subscription, Microsoft highlights the free benefits users can get as part of a Microsoft account on the Your Microsoft Account page. Users can access Office Web Apps directly, view OneDrive storage, or upgrade to a Microsoft 365 subscription to unlock premium benefits.
[Microsoft is starting to roll out this feature, so it’s not yet available to all betas, as Microsoft plans to monitor feedback and see how it goes before rolling it out to everyone.]
Device Settings (OOBE): Mobile Link
As part of Windows 11’s Device Setup (OOBE), users can now link their Android phone to their PC, and the link will provide instant access to everything on the phone from the PC. Instead of constantly diverting attention to the phone, users can use their favorite mobile apps, send text messages, make phone calls, and more on the computer with a full keyboard and mouse.
Smart App Smart App Control
Smart App Control (SAC) is a new security feature in Windows 11 that blocks untrusted or potentially dangerous applications. SAC can only be enabled on Windows devices with clean installs using the latest closed beta preview (Build 22567 and above). The SAC is first configured in evaluation mode. When the SAC is in evaluation mode, it will learn if it can help protect without hindering the user too much.
If appropriate, it will open automatically. Otherwise, it will close automatically. In evaluation mode, users can manually turn on SAC under the Application and Browser Control section of the Windows Security application. More details on this feature will be shared in the future.
Changes and Improvements
[General]
- Microsoft has updated the “Open With” dialog to match the design principles of Windows 11. The updated dialog has a light/dark theme. Microsoft has also simplified the experience, making it possible to update default apps with a single click. [Microsoft is starting to roll out this feature, so it’s not yet available to all beta testers.]
[Start Menu]
- There is now a small animated cue when hovering a pinned app icon over another, which will create a folder.
[Window]
- Microsoft is updating multi-touch gestures to include responsive and delightful animations to follow your fingers.
- Swipe down with three fingers and minimize all windows. Swipe up with three fingers to bring the window back.
[Voice input]
- Voice Typing can download the Voice Pack from the Microsoft Store for on-device speech recognition for better transcription performance and is now available to all beta testers on the Dev Channel. This has been rolled out since Build 22538.
- If users have multiple microphones connected to their computer, the ability to choose which microphone to use in voice typing is now available to all betas in the Dev Channel. This feature has been rolled out since Build 22557.
- Here are the new commands for voice input, now available to all betas in the Dev Channel. This feature has been rolled out since Build 22557.
[Set up]
- Microsoft has updated pages throughout the Settings app to incorporate WinUI controls for a consistent look and feel throughout the app.
- To make it easier to find settings in apps, Microsoft has made improvements to how search settings work behind the scenes. These improvements will provide users with a more accurate set of search results and bring more relevant search results to the top of the list.
- Users can now mute and unmute audio by tapping the volume icon in the volume’s hardware indicator.
[Task Manager]
- The redesigned Task Manager, introduced in Build 22557, is now available to all betas on the Dev Channel.
[Windows Sandbox]
- Windows Sandbox mapped folders now support relative paths. For example, ..\relative\folder..
Repair
[General]
- Fixed an issue where users could not hear the startup sound.
[Mission Board]
- Bringing an already running app to the foreground using the taskbar now works more reliably.
- Fixed an issue where the calendar popup would not update to reflect the date change if you changed the time zone.
- Items in the taskbar are now activated using the Narrator key plus enter or the Narrator touch gesture.
- Alleviates an issue that caused windows to draw on top of the taskbar after canceling the taskbar popup.
[Tablet optimized taskbar]
- Note: These fixes will only appear if the tablet-optimized taskbar is enabled on the device, a feature that has started rolling out to Windows Insiders and is not yet available to everyone.
- The taskbar setting has been changed to “Optimize the taskbar for touch interaction when this device is used as a tablet”.
- Microsoft has improved mouse click reliability for system tray icons.
[Start Menu]
- Fixed an issue affecting the reliability of the start menu opening.
- Fixed an issue where dragging pinned app icons did not work between pinned app pages.
- Fixed alignment issues with more buttons.
[File Explorer]
- Clicking the button in the new OneDrive popup now brings these objects into foreground focus.
- Support for starred files (eg mp4 files) works again.
- Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause explorer.exe to crash when opening the context menu.
- Improved the performance of displaying the contents of the Recycle Bin when there are many files.
- Addressed a potential crash that occurred when trying to initiate a search from File Explorer, affecting the ability to search.
- Fixed a rare issue for small screen users where the context menu in File Explorer would animate down, disappear, and then immediately reappear, animating up.
[Enter]
- Improved input switching responsiveness when using WIN + Space.
- Fixed an issue that caused some beta testers to see black text on dark backgrounds in the input switcher.
- Resolved an issue where the Japanese IME toolbar could become transparent and the IME candidate window clipped or not displayed at all.
- Text now displays in the correct orientation if using the Japanese IME with the vertical candidate list.
- Updated the icon used to hide the visual effects of keys in the touch keyboard when the focus is set on the password field to help make it easier to understand.
- Fixed an issue where the new “Press Backspace” command didn’t work in Japanese when voice typing.
- Resolved an issue that caused Narrator’s focus to get stuck in the wrong place after inserting an emoji and closing the emoji panel.
[Set up]
- Items in the Apps list under Apps > Installed Apps no longer overlap each other.
- Fixed an issue where the Restart Now button could not be selected by touch in Settings > Windows Update.
[Window]
- Explorer.exe no longer crashes when dragging windows between monitors.
- If you hover over a desktop thumbnail in task view, the tooltip should now actually match the hovered thumbnail.
- Fixed an issue where Snap Assist could trigger unexpectedly when there was already a window grabbed in the area.
- Improved reliability of invoking Snap snapshot layouts at the top of the screen.
- If the task view is invoked while the taskbar’s search popup is open, it now launches successfully, rather than disappearing immediately after being invoked.
[Voice access]
- Fixed an issue that would cause Outlook to scroll to the beginning of an email if voice access was enabled and you started speaking.
- Button text in voice access will no longer be cut off when changing text size.
- Fixed an issue preventing Voice Access from launching on ARM64 devices.
- Voice access will no longer be turned on after the user logs in, unless the Voice Access setting is also turned on.
[Live subtitles]
- Live Caption now handles audio device switching more smoothly.
- Changing the size of live captions will no longer cause white flickering in dark mode.
- Live Captions can now be searched to find their page in settings.
- The Accessibility homepage in Settings now lists “Live Captions” under Captions.
- In the Live Captions window, the Settings bar can now be disabled.
[Narrator]
- Fixed an issue that caused high CPU usage when using Narrator.
- Narrator now announces topics and the selection status in Settings > Personalization > Text Entry > Themes.
- When the dialog pops up, Narrator now continuously announces that it was read from the dialog while reading its message.
- When using Microsoft Edge’s history page, Narrator will now correctly announce the page’s name and emphasis elements.
- Fixed a potential issue affecting Narrator keyboard navigation in webview2 in some applications.
- Updated the Braille Display Input and Output Table Type dropdowns in Settings so that it now has a default value.
- Fixed an issue that could cause Narrator to hang when using Norton Power Eraser.
- The narrator will now correctly read the Errors, Warnings, Tips and Smart Services sections if Review > Check Accessibility in Excel.
[Task Manager]
- The Pause and Productivity Mode icons in Task Manager are no longer clipped at high DPI.
- Fixed an issue where column preferences were not being preserved.
- The default start page and always on top settings now work.
- When there is nothing to show under the “…” menu, it will now not show.
- Resolved a crash that sometimes occurred when trying to launch Task Manager.
- Fixed an issue where the efficiency mode icon was missing in some subprocesses.
- Fixed some settings options not being preserved.
- Fixed an issue where the pause and efficiency mode icons were clipped when displayed on monitors with high DPI settings.
[Lock screen and login]
- Fixed an issue that caused accessibility popups on the lock screen to flicker.
- The placement and spacing of accessibility icons on the lock screen are now centered and consistent with the design of other options on that screen.
- Fixed borders for accessibility popups on the lock screen to display correctly in high contrast mode.
- Resolved an encoding issue with the info text when logging in with a security key.
- Alleviates an explorer.exe crash that some beta testers were seeing when logging into their PCs.
[Other]
- Notification Center will now close when starting a focus session and the focus timer will turn on instead of having to dismiss it.
- Fixed an issue affecting the ability to open Quick Settings and Notification Center when animations are disabled.
- Quick Settings and Notification Center should now close more reliably if they were invoked using gestures before trying to close them.
- Fixed an issue related to the UiaDisconnectProvider API that would cause some applications to crash.
- Mitigated a bug check that occurred in recent builds of Insiders with more than 8 monitors connected.
- If an app is pinned to the taskbar within Windows Sandbox, clicking on the app to launch it will now really work.
- Note: Some of the fixes noted here for Insider Preview builds from active development branches may make their way into a servicing update for the October 5, 2021, generally available Windows 11 release build.
Known Issues
[General]
- Users running Windows 10 may encounter installation failed with error code 0x8007007f if they try to upgrade directly to Build 22563 in the Dev Channel. To bypass this issue, join the Beta channel, install the Windows 11 build provided there, then switch to the Dev Channel to receive the Build 22563 update. Microsoft is aware of this issue and will fix it in an upcoming release.
- When going through the Device Setup Experience (OOBE) on the Enterprise Edition, the Network Add screen will be skipped on the first try. As a workaround, when the user sees the “Name your PC” option, reboot and restart OOBE. The network add interface will now appear as expected.
- Microsoft is investigating reports from beta testers that Windows Mixed Reality has not worked since the last version, due to repeated crashes of explorer.exe.
- Scrollbars do not render properly on some Win32 applications. This bug is only visual, as the user is still able to click/drag the scrollbar as expected.
[Mission Board]
- explorer.exe may crash if you right-click the Start icon or press WIN+X in this build. If you use this menu to start the task manager, temporarily use CTRL + Shift + Esc.
[Tablet optimized taskbar]
- The taskbar didn’t always collapse automatically after launching an app or tapping outside the extended taskbar on the 2-in-1.
- Some areas of the OS don’t yet track the height of the extended taskbar on 2-in-1s, so you may see overlapping components like widgets overlapping the taskbar.
[File Explorer]
- When entering a search term in File Explorer’s search box, opening the suggested results displayed may not work
- Microsoft is working to fix issues with icon sizes, visual bugs, and text clipping showing the OneDrive storage popup.
[Widget]
- Sometimes when pinned from a feed stream, pinned widgets are placed on top, rather than below other pinned widgets. If this happens, this will automatically correct within 30 minutes, moving the most recently pinned widget to the expected default position. Or you can log out of the widget panel, and log back in immediately, which should correct the problem.
- After rearranging the widgets in the widget panel, some users experienced an issue where widgets in fixed sections were not rendering correctly. If this happens, logging out of your widget panel and logging in now should correct the problem.
[Focus]
- Taskbar icons and tooltips may not match the focus state.
- The Clock application has not updated the Windows focus state when the focus session is configured within the application. This will be resolved in a future app update.
[Live subtitles]
- Some full-screen applications, such as video players, prevent live captions from being displayed.
- Some applications located near the top of the screen, closed before running Live Captions, will be restarted behind the Live Captions window at the top. When an application has focus, use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) to move the application’s window further down.
- When Live Caption is on top, the very top of a maximized application (for example, the title bar’s window management buttons) cannot be touched by touch.
[Task Manager]
- Some tooltips did not accurately display preferred visual settings when Task Manager was configured for dark mode.