Microsoft has released a new build of Windows 11 to Insiders enrolled in the Dev channel, as tends to happen every week. This time, we're getting Windows 11 build 25197, and it's arriving a day later than the usual Wednesday schedule because of the Labor Day holiday this past Monday. As per usual, this new build doesn't include a ton of big new changes, but it does bring back some things we've seen in the past that were later removed, such as the tablet-optimized taskbar.

If you don't remember it, the tablet-optimized taskbar is a version of the taskbar that's much smaller to make more room for the main content on the screen and improve touch navigation. With this redesigned taskbar, icons for apps are no longer visible, and you can only see basic information such as the internet and battery icons. If you want to see the full taskbar, you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring it up. Of course, this design only appears when using a touch-enabled device without a keyboard connected, so if you have a laptop or desktop PC, this won't affect you.

Windows 11 tablet taskbar modes

Microsoft actually tested this change for a while during the development cycle for Windows 11 version 22H2, but it was removed before making it to the finalized version of that specific update. Microsoft said it was going to make improvements and hopefully bring it back later, and indeed, that seems to be the case.

Another change that's being brought back has to do with the system tray next to the taskbar, and this change affects all devices. These are mostly visual changes, with a rounded focus and hover effect on all the system tray elements. But they also come with a big downside, which is the inability to drag and drop icons in the system tray area into the overflow menu. This was already a problem with the previous implementation, and Microsoft says it's working to make improvements, so hopefully that will be addressed in a future build.

Finally, one last visual improvement has to do with the Settings app. When you switch between the categories on the left-side menu, you'll now see that the icons are animated for a couple of seconds, making the experience a bit more lively.

While it's not necessarily part of this build, Microsoft also noted that it's rolling out a couple of app updates for Inisders in the Dev channel. For one thing, the Calculator app now runs natively on Arm64 devices like the Surface Pro X and Lenovo ThinkPad X13s. Meanwhile, the Media Player app now has an option to edit a video with Clipchamp when you right-click a video in your library or use the "more options" button in the corner while playing a video.

Aside from that, this build is mostly about fixes, though Microsoft does note that a previously-announced improvement to the touch keyboard, which increases the key repeat rate when holding a key, is now available to everyone after an initial phased rollout. The full list of fixes in this build is below:

And of course, there are still some known issues, which you might want to take a look at before upgrading:

Since Microsoft has been reported to be changing the release schedule for Windows 11 feature updates, you can probably expect these changes to arrive a few months after Windows 11 version 22H2 launches. They'll likely be included in what we currently know as "moment" updates, though there are still no details as to how often these updates will happen or how big they will be.

Source: Microsoft