The Beta builds are in. And they are different this time around! Redmond has released the latest set of builds for Insiders enrolled in the Beta channel, following the Dev channel release of build 25211.
This time around, the company has made available build 22621.730 and build 22623.730, with the latter arriving as KB5017385.
Of course, both follow the newfound philosophy of one version having new features rolling out, with the other one having the new features off by default. As the announcement post clarifies, build 22623.730 is the one with new features on and build 22621.730 has them off.
Only in this case, build 22622 has been changed to build 22623.
Microsoft elaborated on this change below:
“Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts.”
Good change!
As for what’s new in build 22623.730, there is a few new things here. Its main highlight is the introduction of the tablet optimized taskbar that the company says is designed to make you feel more confident and comfortable using your device as a tablet.
We also have updates to the System Tray that now affect all device types, not just 2-in-1 machines. With this change, users will see a rounded focus and hover treatment on all icons in the lower right due to continued modernization of this experience.
Of course, this change makes it impossible to drag and drop or rearrange your system tray icons, but this is something that will be addressed in a future build.
Rounding things up is the usual array of bug fixes and known issues that are part of almost every Windows 11 build release.
But at least, they are not split across both Beta builds as was the case at the very start of the month.
