Microsoft today released a new Dev channel build to Insiders with several improvements. Windows 11 Build 25188 adds new touch keyboard options, sets Windows Terminal as the default terminal app, and also comes with general fixes and improvements.
What's new in Windows 11 Build 25188
Touch keyboard
A new option in the Settings app appears under Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard and replaces the "Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached" switch. Instead there is now a drop-down menu with three options:
- Never never shows the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
- When no keyboard attached makes the touch keyboard appear when no hardware keyboard connected to your device.
- Always will show the touch keyboard regardless of the the hardware keyboard presence.
Microsoft rolls out this change gradually, so you may not see it instantly after upgrading to this build.
Windows Terminal
The app now acts as the default console on Windows 11. You can revert this change by opening Settings (Win + I) to Privacy & security > For developers.
The Settings app
The Settings app includes one small improvements. Now the VPN page has a link to open advanced network properties.
Besides the above improvements, this build comes with a noteworthy list of fixes.
Fixes in build 25188
Taskbar
- Fixed an issue related to the taskbar overflow which was impacting explorer.exe reliability.
Start menu
- Fixed an issue that was causing Start’s recommended to only show one column instead of two.
- Made a fix for Narrator mistakenly reading out the search box in Start twice.
- Fixed an issue where the access keys (underlined letters) in Win + X had duplicate definitions when an update was pending reboot.
File Explorer
- Fixed an issue causing a small percentage of Insiders to experience repeated explorer.exe crashes after attempting to access certain folders on their systems in the last couple Dev Channel builds.
- Fixed a recent issue where if File Explorer was open when you switched between light and dark mode, you could end up with some unreadable text / UI showing the wrong color.
- Fixed an issue that was causing explorer.exe to crash when opening folders with certain images.
- The up arrow should no longer be misaligned in File Explorer.
- Fixed an issue which could lead to not being able to unpin Desktop, Pictures, or Documents folders from Quick access.
- Fixed an underlying explorer.exe crash which could happen when File Explorer launch was aborted, for example if you were attempting to access a network share from the Run dialog, were prompted for credentials, and then clicked cancel instead of entering them.
- If the tab title is too long to display completely in the available space, hovering your mouse over it will now show a tooltip with the full name.
- Fixed an issue which could lead to explorer.exe crashing when File Explorer was closed.
- Fixed an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer sometimes.
- Removed the toolbar some people were unexpectedly seeing (with View / Edit / etc) after the introduction of tabs in File Explorer. As part of this, the “always show menus” option in Folder Options was also removed which didn’t do anything.
Search
- Fixed an underlying crash which could lead to search not launching.
- Searching for “detect displays” will now return Display Settings.
Input
- Made a number of updates to emoji keywords based on feedback, including fixing that searching for apple didn’t return the red apple emoji in Korean or Polish (in the respective languages), searching for trash or garbage in English should now return the wastebasket emoji, searching for roger in English should now return the saluting face emoji, and searching for bug will now return the ladybug emoji.
Settings
- Fixed an issue where in certain cases removing a printer from Settings wouldn’t work.
- Fixed an issue where the DNS suffix search list entry wasn’t displaying correctly in Settings.
- Fixed an issue where the buttons for changing current view in Settings > Apps > Installed apps might unexpectedly show arrows overlaid on top.
Task Manager
- Updated the positioning of the View button tooltip position so it shouldn’t block the close button in the title bar anymore.
- The arrow shown when sorting processes by CPU should no longer be black on black in certain cases when using dark mode.
- Updated the selection highlight color when you select rows on the Details or Services page to be less bright and more aligned with the other colors used with the updated Task Manager design.
Other
- Fixed an issue leading to missing / broken characters on the Bitlocker screen when using the Japanese display language.
- Fixed an issue where the Advanced Settings of an application pool on a remote IIS server would display a blank screen.
- Fixed an issue where Steps Recorder wouldn’t close when you pressed Alt + F4.
Traditionally, Dev channel builds come with known bugs and issues. Check out the official announcement to learn more about them.
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