Today, Microsoft is releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview build 25136 to the Dev channel. This time, it actually comes with a couple of key new features. Most notably, it comes with tabs in the File Explorer.
This is a feature that leaked in an earlier build, and then Microsoft announced later on. Now, it's finally going live. Unfortunately, assuming that the features require a new build of Windows 11, this won't arrive in this year's 22H2 update. It's possible that it could arrive via an experience pack or one of the many ways that Microsoft delivers Windows features these days.
There's also new navigation, which you'll notice if you take a look at the left panel of the File Explorer. Known folders have been split out from the This PC section and into their own. Also, known folders that are backed up to OneDrive will display the correct path.
Next up is new widget functionality. As you can see in the bottom-left corner of the screenshot above, it's showing information from the Finance widget. Right now, that space is reserved for weather information, so in this new build, it's going to show information from other widgets like Finance and Sports. The blog post didn't say anything about being able to customize what appears there.
As always, these new features aren't available to everyone. Even though Insiders in the Dev channel are explicitly sacrificing the stability of their system when they enroll in the Dev channel with the promised exchange being the ability to test new features, Microsoft only delivers those features to a lucky few.
As always, there are a bunch of fixes and known issues.
Windows 11 build 25136 fixes
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We are beginning to roll out the ability for Insiders to report animated gifs they feel are inappropriate from the emoji panel (WIN + .)
Fixes
[General]
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Addressed an issue which was leading to some PCs being erroneously detected as tablets. When this happened, compact mode and the option to hide checkboxes in File Explorer wouldn’t take effect.
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Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to experience a SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION bugcheck in recent Dev Channel builds.
[Taskbar]
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Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing taskbar apps to overflow with the system tray icons.
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When you hover on an app in the system tray, its notification will no longer flash.
[Start]
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Fixed an issue that could cause Start to only show one column of recommended items.
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If you’re pinning a large number of apps to Start, it should now refresh to show them more reliably.
[Settings]
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Fixed an issue from the previous flight where Disks & Volumes section of System > Storage wasn’t displaying any disks or volumes.
[Windowing]
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We made a fix to help with a rare issue which was causing title bars to sometimes go transparent or missing sometimes in certain apps.
[Windows Update]
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Fixed an issue where Windows Update might unexpectedly show error 0x00000000 when there wasn’t anything wrong.
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Fixed an issue which was leading to some devices bugchecking with HYPERVISOR_ERROR when trying to upgrade to a new build.
[Task Manager]
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Fixed an issue which was causing Task Manager to crash on launch sometimes after switching between light and dark mode or changing accent color.
[Other]
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Fixed an issue which could lead to increased latency or stutter in games when v-sync was used.
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Fixed an issue which could cause some PCs to freeze after running the wsl –shutdown command.
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.
Windows 11 build 25136 known issues
[General]
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Windows Insiders on Surface Pro X devices will hit a black screen attempting to resume from hibernate on this build. You will need to power cycle (long power button shutdown) to get back into the device. It is recommended Insiders on these devices pause flighting until we release a build with this fix.
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[NEW] We are investigating reports that the Mica material and Acrylic blur effect is not rendering correct in OS surfaces like the Start menu, Notification Center and other areas.
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We’re investigating reports that shutting down via the Start menu isn’t working for some Insiders and is unexpectedly rebooting instead.
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Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
[File Explorer]
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[NEW] The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
[Live captions]
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Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
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Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.
As always, you can et the build via Windows Update. If you're not on the Dev channel, you can enroll by going to Settings -> Windows Update -> Windows Insider Program.
Source: Microsoft