Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25201

Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25201

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25201 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR

• We are releasing ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.
• We are beginning to rollout expanded view for Widgets. We’re beginning the roll out to a small set of Insiders in the Dev Channel first so not everyone will see it right away.
• We are also beginning to roll out an update to the Game Pass widget that supports signing in with your Xbox profile and shows your recently played games from the Game Pass library.

What’s new

Expanded View in Widgets

Need more space in your widgets board? Can’t quite see everything at a glance? We’re trying out some changes that will allow you to expand the size of your widgets board.

Use the expand and collapse button in the top right corner of the board, next to the add widgets button, to expand or collapse the size of your widgets board.

The size of your board is remembered, so if you prefer your widgets board to always show you more content and leave it expanded then that’s how it will be the next time you open it.

[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

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

Game Pass Widget Improvements

Last month we introduced the preview of the Game Pass widget without a sign-in experience to your Xbox profile. Today, we’re beginning to roll out and update for the Game Pass widget that introduces the ability to sign-in with your Xbox profile. If you have already signed into your Xbox app on PC, the Game Pass widget will be signed-in with your Xbox account. Once signed-in, the widget will  show the full range of Game Pass games available to you.

Additionally, the widget will also show the most recent set of PC Game Pass titles you have played. It gives gamers a quick way to get right back into the action.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts on how the team can make Game Pass widget better and more personalized for you. Please share your feedback!

[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

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

Changes and Improvements

[General]

• Thank you to all the Insiders who gave us feedback on the different visual treatments for search on the taskbar! Starting with this week’s flight, we are concluding the exploration of these treatments, so if you received this experience, it will be removed on your next reboot.

[File Explorer]

• File Explorer search will now show results as you type. The full search results page will update live without needing to press enter. We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet.
• We’re experimenting with adding more cloud files to search results from Home.

Fixes

[General]

• Fixed the issue in the last few flights causing a bugcheck when moving your mouse in certain games.

[File Explorer]

• As a one-time change to help people find their folders with the navigation pane updates, if the default folders pinned to File Explorer’s navigation pane had been unpinned, they will be re-pinned after upgrading.
• Fixed a memory leak which was happening when closing File Explorer windows.

[Taskbar]

• The apps in the taskbar overflow flyout should now be in the correct order when using an Arabic or Hebrew display language.

[Input]

• Fixed an issue where if you hadn’t already opened OneNote once, using the pen click to invoke OneNote wouldn’t work.
• Made a change to help address an issue where it wasn’t possible to use the Pinyin IME to type in the chat box of certain games.

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue which was causing sporadic Settings app crashes.
• Removed an erroneous white pixel in the icon animation when clicking the Apps category in Settings.

[Widgets]

• We have fixed the issue where in some cases, the notification banner for some badging would not appear in the widgets board.

[Windowing]

• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing if you dragged a snap group in Task View and dropped it into another Desktop.
• Fixed an issue related to interacting with the Desktops flyout in the taskbar which was causing periodic explorer.exe crashes.
• Fixed a DWM crash in the last few flights which could lead to a brief black screen when rotating a tablet.
• Fixed a rare issue which could cause a DWM crash when watching videos in certain UWP apps in recent builds.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue impacting Task Manager reliability.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to unexpectedly get the message “it is not possible to connect to this network” when connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks recently, although the network was working with other devices.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to Windows Sandbox opening to just a black window on certain PCs.

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.

Known issues

[General]

• We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
• We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
• We’re investigating reports that some Insiders are seeing OneDrive setup asking for permission to set up every time their PC reboots.

[File Explorer]

• We’re working on the fix for an issue where command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin may unexpectedly not be enabled when they should be.

[Settings]

• We’re investigating some issues where uninstalling certain apps using Settings > Apps > Installed apps isn’t working correctly.

[Tablet-optimized taskbar]

• The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
• When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
• When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.

[Widgets]

• [NEW] In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.

For developers

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk.

SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

• .NET TFM packages for use in .NET apps as described at ms/windowsinsidersdk
• C++ packages for Win32 headers and libs per architecture
• BuildTools package when you just need tools like MakeAppx.exe, MakePri.exe, and SignTool.exe

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integration in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features.

These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight.

Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently.

ALSO: Because the Dev and Beta Channels represent parallel development paths from our engineers, there may be cases where features and experiences show up in the Beta Channel first.

The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links

• Want to learn how we made Windows 11? Check out our Inside Windows 11 website to hear and meet our makers from Engineering, Design and Research to share their insights and unique perspectives throughout this journey.
• You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here.
• Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.

Thanks,
Amanda & Brandon
Source: Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25201