Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Windows 11 Build 25247 contains a lot of hidden features that have not yet been officially announced. There is the ability to enable seconds for the taskbar clock, and the updated "Go back to earlier build" and "Startup" pages in the "Settings" app. In addition to these, it is now possible to enable an overlay icon for the network indicator when a VPN connection is active.

Microsoft continues to polish the inbox Settings app by adding more consistent dialog. The app is getting more solid appearance of the Fluent Design style. The most recent Windows 11 Build 25247 released to the Dev channel contains two updated pages, Startup and Go to the earlier released build. Both are hidden, but you can activate them to learn how they will look in the near future.

Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Subsystem for Android for Windows 11 (2210.40000.7.0) to Windows Insiders on the Dev and Beta channels. This update improves the stability and performance of the subsystem, and fixes security issues.

Microsoft has released a new preview of Windows 11, build 25247 to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel. It features Windows Studio Effects from the Quick Actions Menu, Energy Saving Recommendations in the Settings app, Task Manager with search for processes and a better dark theme. Besides, there is a new "Suggested action" that allows directly searching for selected text in Bing. Also in Settings you will see a reminder if you are running out of free OneDrive space. For the clock in the taskbar, you can enable seconds. Finally, the Start menu now shows recently visited websites in the Recommended section.

Microsoft released a new build of Windows 11 to Insiders running the OS in the Release Preview channel. It is out with the KB5020044 update, and raises the OS version to Build 22621.898. It comes with a few new features, including low disk space notifications and storage capacity in Settings, a new Windows Spotlight theme, and more.

Microsoft has updated the Windows 11 taskbar, so it can finally show seconds in the clock. Such a feature was available in Windows 10, but required you to apply a Registry tweak. With Windows 11, Microsoft significantly improved it and added an option to the Settings app. Enabling seconds is now a matter of few clicks.

The taskbar in Windows 11 lacks many of the useful features that previous OS versions used to offer out of the box. One of them is the ability to ungroup app buttons and show their text labels. This may change soon, with this feature coming back to the taskbar in Windows 11.

If you always wanted to have a way to turn on the dark theme in Windows 11 faster, this may become possible in the near future. Microsoft is internally testing a new quick access button that will allow you to turn off the light in the OS with two clicks or taps.