A new update is coming to the Dev channel of the Windows Insider program. This time comes Build 25290 full of news. More third-party widgets are coming, and a lot more cool stuff is coming. Let’s see what they’re working on.
New week, new build! another #Windows11 preview build 25290 is now available for #WindowsInsiders in the Dev Channel. Check the latest blog for all the details! ^JHhttps://t.co/Tp7pDMGsyZ pic.twitter.com/pWbOgY0XbD
—Windows Insider Program (@windowsinsider) February 1, 2023
What’s new in Build 25290
New Spotify widgets and Mobile Link
Last week a beta of the widget was promoted for the Messenger application. Spotify and Mobile Link are also releasing preview versions of their widgets. To try them out, go to the Microsoft Store widget collection and update to the latest version of the apps. Next, open the widget dashboard and navigate to the widget selector by clicking the “+” button at the top right of the dashboard to pin your widgets.
When you try these and other new widgets, please leave your feedback via the widget feedback link in the widget selector. You should expect to see additional new widgets as more developers create and publish widgets for their apps.
With the release of the Windows App SDK 1.2, developers can now create widgets for their apps. Users can access these experiences on their Windows 11 widget dashboard in current Dev Channel Insider Preview builds.
Build 25290 Changes and Improvements
Start Menu
In October, with build 25227, they began testing a small change to the Start Menu where some Insiders would see a flag on their user profile notifying them to perform certain actions. That initial exploration has been completed in November. Starting today, a new exploration of notifications in the Start menu begins with two new treatments that some registered users in the dev channel will see. If you see one of these, give us your feedback. As a reminder, it’s normal for them to test different concepts in the dev channel for feedback.
Build 25290 fixes
General
- Fixed issue where Arm64 devices would not resume from sleep/hibernation when running build 25281 and would get stuck on OS boot logo.
- Fixed an issue where some advanced users might have trouble accessing websites and other resources over VPN connections. If you used the solution documented in this forum post, please revert the changes once you have this new build installed.
- Fixed an issue where some registered users experienced crashes when using the browser and other apps in recent builds of the dev channel.
Taskbar and system tray
- Fixed a bug in explorer.exe that could cause the taskbar to fail to load for some logged in users.
Search in the taskbar
- The fixes only apply to Windows Insiders who received one of several different treatments for the search look on the taskbar that began rolling out to Windows Insiders with build 25252:
- Fixed an issue where the search box would sometimes randomly disappear when clicked (leaving a blank space on the taskbar).
- Fixed an issue where the search box would scroll slightly to the side when clicked.
Task Manager
- Fixed an issue where the data content area of the Processes page could blink once when applying theme changes in the Settings page of Task Manager.
- Mitigated an issue where some dialogs were not displayed in the correct theme when applied from the Task Manager Settings page.
- Fixed an issue where properties in the Memory section of the Performance page were truncated even though there was room to display them.
- Reduced transparency of chart colors on the Performance page and tweaked the borders to make them stand out more.
- Fixed some issues that caused the Task Manager to crash.
- Typing F in the search box should work again.
- Now it shouldn’t be necessary for the Task Manager to be as wide for the navigation pane to appear.
- With the text scaled up, the search box should no longer overlap the title bar text.
- Made some tweaks to fix cases where text in dialogs would get cut off when scaling the text up.
- Fixed an issue where certain parts of the title bar could not be used to drag the window.
Windows Spotlight
The following fixes only apply to Windows Insiders who received one of the different Windows Spotlight treatments that started rolling to Insiders with Build 25281.
- Fixed issue where some people were not getting a consistent image update daily.
Setting
- Fixed an issue where the Sans Serif collection preview in Personalization > Fonts would show broken glyphs.
Others
- Fixed an issue that prevented Narrator from announcing dropdown lists in Excel.
- Fixed an underlying issue that could cause Clipping screenshots to stretch and distort in later versions on multiple monitors.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Open With dialog to crash on startup.
- Fixed an issue where the File Open dialog would hang if it was clicked while using an IME after selecting “Choose an app from your PC” in the Open With dialog.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Group Policy Editor to unexpectedly display “The script on this page has failed” with an invalid character error when editing a Group Policy.
- If you have configured OpenSSH Server to start at boot (rather than manually), this preference will be remembered across all OS upgrades. Note that you must be on a build with this fix for it to take effect on your next update.
Known bugs in Build 25290
General
- [NUEVO] The Update History page in Settings > Windows Update > Update History is blank for some users after installing Build 25290. This will be fixed via a new Update Stack package delivered via Windows Update when available.
- [NOVEDAD] Reports that some Insiders are experiencing repeated bugchecks after updating to Build 25284 are being investigated.
- [NUEVO] Launching Group Policy Editor may display an error about a missing displayName attribute.
- Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. One solution is to use the Hello PIN path.
- Some users are experiencing longer than expected update times when installing recent versions. We are actively investigating this issue.
Widgets
- [NUEVO] The link to “Find more widgets” in the widget selector is currently broken. In a future update it will be fixed and linked to the store collection.
- Third party widgets may occasionally disappear from the widget board. They can be added back by clicking Refresh or re-added from the widget selector.
- Third-party widgets may occasionally become unpinned when using your Microsoft account to sign in on multiple Windows 11 devices.
- The undo button on the pinned/unpinned widget notification sometimes doesn’t work.
Taskbar and system tray
- [NUEVO] App icons on the taskbar may appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.
- The taskbar is sometimes cut in half when using the tablet-optimized taskbar. This problem can also appear on secondary monitors.
Search in the taskbar
The following known issues only apply to Windows Insiders who received one of several different treatments for the search look on the taskbar that began rolling out to Windows Insiders with build 25252:
- In some cases, it is not possible to change the search box on the taskbar to display only as an icon through the taskbar settings. To fix this issue, first switch to a different option, and then you should be able to choose to show as icon only.
Windows Spotlight
The following known issues only apply to Windows Insiders who received one of the different Windows Spotlight treatments that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:
- Clicking on a secondary monitor does not dismiss the full screen experience.
Spotlight wallpaper does not display the correct resolution on multiple or mixed resolution monitors.