Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 build in the Dev channel of its preview program. Build 25158 is a fairly minor one, but it comes with new features and improvements, so let’s get straight to it.
The big deal with this new build is the addition of notifications for widgets and different visual treatments for Search on the taskbar.
You can check out the announcement post for the full lowdown.
But getting down to the new features that arrive as part of this new package, we have a bunch.
First up, even more dynamic widget content that Microsoft is now rolling out to the taskbar. When you open the Widgets board, a banner will appear at the top of the board to provide more information on what triggered the notification badge.
Check it out below, with the weather widget being an example:
As you can see above, the breaking news notification is now being shown at the top of the widgets board so you get a clearer idea of what just happened.
Other than that, Microsoft is also testing different visual treatments for the search on the taskbar. This comes as a way for the company to test longer load features and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts in Windows 11.
There are three treatments that you might end up seeing, as evident below:
Another big change in this build is that Microsoft is ending the testing of lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop — if you have it, you will no longer have it on your next boot.
There is a long list of other changes and improvements that you will find in the announcement post, along with a fairly big array of known issues affecting everything from general to File Explorer to Widgets and Live captions.
Worth a reminder that this build is from the Sun Valley 3 development branch for Insiders, which will eventually become the version that is released in 2023.
Happy downloading!
