Microsoft Windows 11 Dev / Beta Preview Build 22593 Released

After a week's break, Microsoft has finally pushed out the latest preview release of Windows 11 for Insider members in the Dev and Beta channels, OS version number Build 22593 (NI_RELEASE), preceded by Build 22581, both of which correspond to the official update 22H2 in the second half of the year. This is a relatively minor release for developers and Beta channel insiders.

Main changes in Windows 11 Build 22593.

• Explorer

The Homepage in the left navigation bar is renamed Home, the Quick Access directory will include both local and OneDrive fixed and frequently used folders, and a new "Favorites" section will be added, including documents and files from OneDrive and Office 365 collections.

In addition, Explorer search will include not only local, but also OneDrive folders that have been fixed and shared Office 365 documents.

Unfortunately, the previously promised multi-tab feature is not live in this version.

• Input

Microsoft hand-drawn application Journal starts to appear by default in the bottom right corner within the stylus icon, if the program is not installed locally, it will jump to the store to download after clicking.

• Window

WIN+Z adds a new marker when opening the multitasking split screen layout so that you can use the number keys to make a selection now.

• Security

Adds "Memory integrity" (memory consistency) check function under Windows Security > Device Security > Core isolation to avoid malicious attacks.

About desktop watermark

Microsoft has received a lot of feedback about desktop watermarks from Windows Preview Experience members in the Beta channel. After updating to the latest pre-release version, it is normal to see this watermark on your desktop. It does not change the license of your device. However, please note that these are pre-release versions that will expire, so it is important that you stay up to date with the latest versions.

About Dev and Beta channels

As a reminder, Microsoft is improving the way it develops and releases to Insiders. Among other things, the Dev Channel will be where they try out different concepts, incubate new ideas, and work on long-leading projects that may not be released to regular customers. the Beta Channel is where preview experiences that more closely resemble the experiences that Microsoft will deliver to regular customers. But that doesn't mean that all the features tried out in the Beta channel will be released.

Since the Dev and Beta channels are receiving the same release, insiders will open a limited window to switch channels if you wish to follow these simple steps.

1. Open Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program.

2. Click Choose your Insider settings.

3. Select the Beta channel.

The next time you receive an update, it will be for your new channel.

Note: This window will close once Microsoft releases a version with a higher version number to the development channel. If your device stays in the development channel and receives a version number higher than the one in the Beta channel, you must have a fresh install of the released version of Windows 11 on your device to switch to the Beta channel.

Changes and improvements in Windows 11 Build 22593

[General]

Note: As Microsoft describes, Windows Insiders using the Dev channel may be able to try out new ideas, long-term leading features, and experiences that may never be released. In this build, a small number of Insiders will see these experimental features first, as Microsoft explores more ways to help people discover and quickly access content they care about on the web through the Windows search box.

• Updated WIN + X. If Windows Terminal is installed, the menu will include a Terminal entry that will display Windows PowerShell in the event that Windows Terminal is uninstalled.

[File Explorer]

• The default home page of File Explorer is now called Home. The name Quick Access has been reused in the Fixed / Hot Folders section, and Fixed files are now called Favorites to be consistent with Office and OneDrive.
• Recent and fixed files displayed in the Home page can now be searched using the search box in File Explorer, even if they are not local files, so users can find recent Office files shared with them.

[Enter]

• Microsoft Journal is now pinned to the Pen menu by default. If the user does not have the app installed and selects it on the Pen menu, it will be installed from the Microsoft Store.

[Windows]

• If you press WIN+Z to open snap snap layouts, all layouts will now display the associated number, so users can quickly use the number keys to select the desired layout.

[Focus]

• Added a 5-minute increment to the Focus Session Length option for everything under half an hour.

[Windows Security]

• Memory Integrity is a feature in Windows 11 designed to prevent attacks that insert malicious code into high-security processes. This feature can be found in Windows Security under Device Security > Core Isolation. In recent Insider preview builds, Microsoft will notify users that the feature is currently turned off so that action can be taken to allow users to turn it back on so that their devices are as safe as possible from malicious attacks.

[Input]

• Updated the ADLaM keyboard layout to include access to brackets and ADLaM Hamza. Access to these is available.

1. Right Alt + \ will now type "
2. Right Alt + | will now type "
3. Right Alt + Shift + [ will now type {
4. Right Alt + Shift + ] will now enter }
5. Ctrl + Shift + ; will now enter the Hamza character

• The keyboard layout for Afghan Pashto has been updated so that you can now find the ئ and ې directly on the keyboard. ظ and ط can now be accessed by holding down the Shift key and pressing the above letter.

Fixes in Windows 11 Build 22593

[General]

• Fixed some issues that affected explorer.exe reliability in recent flights.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed an issue where the app icon was unexpectedly animated from the top left corner when launching a new app.
• Improved the performance of rearranging taskbar icons.
• Resolved an issue in the previous version that caused duplicate application icons after closing and reopening applications.
• If you have many applications open, the icons should no longer overlap with the date and time on the secondary display.
• The taskbar will no longer disappear when you type a search in a full-screen window.
• Fixed an issue that caused the icon spacing to be inverted, so it would get bigger when it should be small and vice versa when switching to the tablet-optimized taskbar.
• The tablet-optimized taskbar now stays visible in full-screen apps when expanded, and is only hidden when you collapse it.
• If you have multiple keyboards for your current language, the input indicator will now only show one line of text when the tablet-optimized taskbar is collapsed, so it will not be clipped.
• Fixed a crash that caused the taskbar to get stuck in the tablet-optimized taskbar view.
• Settings will now more consistently remember the taskbar's auto-hide setting.
• Mitigated an issue where some application icons in the system tray that were expected to blink did not do so.
• Fixed an issue that caused the system tray icon to remain stuck there even after closing an application.
• Fixed an issue where some mouse-over events were not being passed to applications to get icons in the system tray.
• Addressed an issue that caused the Notification Center to launch less reliably for recent flights.
• Mitigated an issue that caused the Notification Center and its context to sometimes display the wrong color text for the system theme, making it unreadable.
• Updated the names of certain months in the Chinese Simplified and Traditional lunar calendars to be more accurate.

[Start Menu]

• Updated the design of the folders in Start to make them a bit larger, making it easier to view the highlighted application icons without opening the folder.
• Fixed an issue where the old name was displayed if you created a folder in Start that was in the same location as a deleted folder.
• If you use the keyboard to name a folder in Start, you can now exit without having to press Esc.
• Fixed an issue where the option to select WIN + X after using the keyboard did not work. Firing WIN + X should now be more consistent.
• Fixed an issue where the prompt did not appear at the top when starting Windows Terminal as administrator from the Start right-click context menu (WIN + X).
• The search icon in the taskbar should no longer blink unexpectedly when closing the Start menu.

[Search]

• Some improvements have been made to help users with a large number of indexed items search for indexer threads and memory usage.
• Fixed an issue that affected search reliability in recent flights (you could type in the search window or in Start, but nothing would happen).
• Another fix was made to help resolve an issue where the search search pop-up window could get stuck in a transparent area of the screen.

[File Manager]

• Improved the performance of loading the home page in File Explorer.
• Fixed a scaling issue that could occur with unexpected sizes when invoking the context menu on systems with mixed DPI monitors.
• Resolved an issue where the "Show more options" entry in the context menu did not apply to items in the File Explorer navigation pane (for example, if you were to right-click on this PC).
• Did some work to help reduce the chance that you will see the application entry "Loading" in the context menu.
• Fixed an issue that caused secondary users to accidentally lose the "Open in Windows Terminal" context menu option in some cases.
• The suggested results that open when entering search terms in the search box in File Explorer should now work as expected.
• Mitigated a potential issue that caused the address bar to be inaccessible in some cases.
• Mitigated an issue that caused an increase in startup time for certain file types in the previous version.

[Widgets]

• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused fixed widgets to be placed at the top instead of below other fixed widgets when pinned from the Feed.
• Fixed an issue where some users encountered incorrect rendering of widgets in the fixed section after rearranging widgets in the widget panel.
• [Input].
• Fixed an issue preventing multiple input UI surfaces from displaying the following explorer.exe crashes on recent flights - this includes the Emoji panel, Candidate window, Clipboard history, and Touch keyboard.
• Mitigated an issue that caused the narrator to remain silent when launching the Emoticons panel in certain situations (e.g., if the search box is not displayed).
• Fixed an issue that caused custom theme changes in Settings > Personalization > Text input to sometimes not be saved correctly.
• Addressed additional color issues with the touch keyboard, including the possibility that the touch keyboard would end up with a mix of dark and light colors after changing from dark to light mode.
• Updated the touch keyboard button so that pressing it always shows the touch keyboard, rather than hiding it when it is visible.
• Returned the backspace key to the small layout of the touch keyboard when using Chinese (Traditional Chinese).
• Improved the reliability of launching the touch keyboard on the login screen.
• You should now be able to use the context menu of Japanese IME to change the conversion mode on the login screen.
• Fixed an issue where the Chinese (Traditional) IME only showed 5 suggested related phrases when it should show 9.
• Fixed an issue where if you set a custom background image under Settings > Personalization > Text Input, the preview would not show how it would look in the Chinese (Simplified) candidate window. Problem.
• Fixed a rendering issue in the corner of the IME toolbar.
• Fixed an issue where the IME toolbar was not hidden and displayed correctly when using previous versions of Japanese IME.
• Improved the reliability of voice input.
• Updated the voice input error message "This application restricts voice input" to "Some voice input features may not be available in this application", so basic voice input still works more clearly.
• Fixed an issue that caused some voice input commands to not work, such as "Scratch it" in Chinese (Simplified).
• Resolved the "Disable Touch while using Pen" setting under Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Pen & Windows Ink sometimes arbitrarily did not work when first launched on a recent flight.
• Fixed an issue that caused Get-InstalledLanguage and Install-Language PowerShell commands to unexpectedly fail with error 0x8007023E for some languages.

[Settings]

• If the keyboard focus is on the V-shape of a collapsible area on the settings page, for example, the Snap windows section under System > Multitasking, you can now use the left and right arrows to expand and collapse the area.
• Fixed an issue that affected the reliability of System > Power & Battery.
• When using a custom color picker on Personalization > Colors, it should now appear in the center of the window frame instead of randomly off to the side.
• Setting the background image to "Fit" under Personalization > Background should no longer cause the background image preview to change to a solid color.
• Resolved another issue that could cause Windows Spotlight to stop updating unexpectedly for long periods of time.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Settings app to crash when doing focus settings.
• Fixes an issue that caused the keyboard focus to go to an element in the comparison theme preview in Accessibility > Contrast Themes, which is not interactive.
• Fixed an issue where leaving the Compare Theme Editor in Settings by selecting Breadcrumbs would clear the dropdown selection, but the button would still work as if the theme was selected.
• Updated the text description for voice input under Accessibility > Voice to make more sense when using the Japanese display language.
• Resolved an issue that prevented Quick Settings from launching with the new touch gesture.
• Quick Setup will now display the correct icon to represent your audio output device again.

[Open Window]

• Mitigated an issue that could cause explorer.exe to crash when using ALT + Tab.
• Fixed an issue where the keyboard focus outline in ALT + Tab was sometimes smaller than the displayed thumbnail.
• Addressed a potential DWM issue that caused crashes when using touch gestures from the side of the screen.
• Fixed a DWM crash when rotating the screen.
• Mitigated an issue that caused some lag when resizing two applications aligned side-by-side in some cases.
• Fixed an issue where the capture assist could close unexpectedly if the initial window did not fit the selected area size. Now, when the minimum window size of the initial capture window is larger than the selected area, the capture assist area will be resized accordingly.
• If you invoke the task view by touch, the close button should no longer overlap the window title.
• Hovering over a tooltip with a desktop name will no longer accidentally make the desktop popup button disappear.
• Reordering the desktop using drag and drop via the desktop popup button should no longer jam the thumbnail of your moved desktop on the screen.

[Voice Access]

• Fixed a crash that affected the reliability of voice access.
• Resolved an issue that prevented voice models for Voice Access from downloading correctly.

[Live Captions]

• Resolved a potential issue that caused Live Captions to display a download error even if the download had actually completed successfully.
• Live Captions will now remember the cross-session location setting you selected.
• Resolved an issue where the Live Caption position became floating when going to full screen, but the setting was incorrectly still showing the last position.
• Removed notification about Live Caption playing audio from multiple apps, as it popped up repeatedly during use.
• The border of the live caption window will now match the style of all other borders in the comparison theme.

[Narrator]

• Fixed an issue that caused the natural voice to occasionally break in recent versions.
• The narrator will now read out the word "minutes" and the duration listed in the focus options settings.
• Fixed an issue that caused the narrator to incorrectly read dialog buttons in scan mode.

[Task Manager]

• The back panel (colored square) removed from the UWP application icon is displayed in the Task Manager.
• Mitigated an issue where the side of the "View" button did not seem to perform any action.
• Fixed an issue that caused the live update speed to set itself to pause. Please note that if you are affected by this, you will need to make a one-time change after upgrading to this version to set the settings back to your preferred update speed.

[Other]

• Addressed an issue that caused a black screen (albeit interactive) when playing certain full-screen games with Auto HDR enabled.
• Fixed a memory leak in the connected device platform user service.
• Volume and brightness pop-up buttons obtained when using hardware keys will no longer display the focus window outline at the top of them.
• If WIN + Alt + K is pressed while a supported application is not running, the popup text displayed will now show "No supported applications are using microphone mute" instead of "Microphone mute is not available", so it is clearer.
• Resolved an issue that caused an unexpected error to be displayed in the event viewer when activating conhost.exe.

Note: Some of the fixes mentioned here in the Insider Preview release from the active development branch may make it into the service update for the released version of Windows 11 that is generally available on October 5, 2021.

Known issues in Windows 11 Build 22593

[General]

• Microsoft is not making the new release available to Windows Preview Experience members in China on Lenovo PCs.
• Windows Preview Experience members running Windows 10 who join the Dev or Beta channel to get the latest version may encounter download error code 0xc8000402 when trying to download the latest version. as a workaround, please first join the Release Preview channel and install Windows 11 from there (Build 22000.xxxx), then switch to the Dev or Beta channel to receive the latest Insider Preview version. This issue is understood and will be fixed in an upcoming release.
• Microsoft is investigating an issue that some insiders are experiencing where explorer.exe is repeatedly crashing and failing to load successfully in the latest release loop. This release contains a mitigating measure that may help some insiders experiencing this issue.
• When opening the Group Policy Editor, an administrative template error pops up. Click OK to close and continue using Group Policy Editor normally.
• In this release, devices using Windows Information Protection (formerly known as EDP) policies will not be able to access controlled data through protected applications such as Outlook, Word, Microsoft Edge, etc. Users are advised to temporarily suspend updates under Settings > Windows Update until a new Insider Preview version with fixes is released. If you already have Build 22593 installed, you can roll back to the previous version to restore expected data access.

[Taskbar]

• The taskbar does not always automatically collapse after launching an application or clicking outside of the extended taskbar on a 2-in-1 device.
• Some areas of the operating system do not yet track the height of the extended taskbar on 2-in-1 devices, so you may see overlapping components.
• Microsoft is working to resolve an issue where previews or tooltips are not displayed on certain application icons hovering in the system tray.

[File Manager]

• Microsoft is working to resolve issues related to icon size, visual errors, and displaying text clips in OneDrive stored floating controls.
• Renaming a file using the right-click option in File Explorer will cause explorer.exe to crash. As a workaround, please click to highlight the file and use the Rename button in the File Explorer command bar to complete the renaming process.

[Widgets]

• The widget panel may not open successfully when using gestures from the side of the screen. If you are affected, please click on the widget icon in the taskbar temporarily.

[Network]

• Microsoft is investigating reports of Internet connectivity issues that occurred the last time connected to certain VPNs.

[Live Captioning]

• Some full-screen applications (such as video players) prevent live captions from being displayed.
• Some applications that are located near the top of the screen and closed before running live captions will restart behind the live caption window located at the top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) to move the application window further down when the application has focus.
• When live captions are at the top, the topmost part of the maximized application cannot be reached by touch (for example, the title bar window management button).