In this article, we will talk about the latest Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 Insider Preview Build for the Release Preview Channel, which is the Build 26200.8514 or KB5089573.
New Features in this Update
- [Shared audio] New! Shared audio enables two people to listen to the same audio from a single Windows 11 PC at the same time. It uses Bluetooth® LE Audio broadcast technology to make sharing easy. For example, you can watch a movie while traveling or listen to music while studying together. To start sharing audio, open Quick settings from the taskbar, select Shared audio, choose two supported, paired, and connected devices, and then select Start sharing. To learn more about Shared audio, see Extending Bluetooth® LE Audio on Windows 11 with shared audio.
- [Magnifier in Windows]
- New! Magnifier now provides clearer and more consistent announcements when working with a screen reader. You’ll hear helpful announcements when you zoom in or out, switch views, turn color inversion on or off, or turn Magnifier on or off. This makes it easy to stay oriented while you work.
- New! Magnifier now supports magnification of permitted protected content.
- This update improves smoothness when moving Magnifier in lens mode.
- [Task Manager]
- New! Task Manager now offers improved visibility into NPU usage on PCs with an NPU. New optional NPU and NPU Engine columns are available on the Processes, Users, and Details pages, along with NPU Dedicated Memory and NPU Shared Memory optional columns on the Details page. Neural engines that are part of a GPU now appear on the Performance page, providing a more complete view of AI‑related activity. A new optional Isolation column on the Processes and Details pages shows which apps are running in an AppContainer. You can add any of the new columns by right‑clicking a column header in Task Manager and selecting them from the menu.
- This update improves CPU speed display on the Performance page of Task Manager for VMs, so it doesn’t show higher than unexpected numbers after resuming from hibernate.
- [Camera] New! Windows 11’s Multi-App Camera feature allows multiple applications to access your camera stream at the same time. Basic Camera mode in Windows 11 enables simplified camera functionality, useful for troubleshooting or improving stability when your camera is not working correctly. Enterprise admin can now set Multi-App Camera mode or Basic Camera mode through Group Policy, under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Camera > Configure Camera Options.
- [General Performance] This update accelerates app launch and core shell experiences such as Start menu, Search, and Action Center.
- [Windows Hello]
- This update optimizes the WinBio service to help reduce latency when resuming after Modern Standby.
- This update reduces Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security authentication unexpected blocks by resolving missing secure enrollment metadata.
- [Storage]
- The dialog is updated when creating a Dev Drive to now support specifying the size in GB instead of only MB. This has also been added when changing the size of volumes under Settings > System > Storage.
- Updated Settings > System > Storage, so rather than seeing a UAC prompt immediately when you go to the page, you’ll only see it when going to view temporary files.
- [Personalization] This update improves:
- Color selection accuracy when adjusting your accent color to match your wallpaper when the automatic accent color selection is enabled in Personalization settings.
- Wallpaper persistence reliability across restarts and upgrades, including better support for large‑resolution wallpapers and other scenarios to prevent solid color wallpaper fallback.
- [USB]
- This update improves reliability for displays attached to USB4 docks and hubs. These displays now light up more consistently, particularly when coming out of standby.
- The USB3 stack is updated to have additional resiliency and recovery measures in place against certain unexpected hardware faults and conditions. Users will experience higher reliability with USB devices.
- [Sensors] This update Improves resiliency against apps that could keep the sensor hub powered on and drain power, impacting battery life.
- [HID Devices] This update improves battery life related to the HID / Input stack for failed HID devices. Power hygiene is also improved against applications that may initiate HID transfers during standby.
- [Input] The update improves:
- Reliability of invoking the touch keyboard on the login screen, when inputting your password to sign in, or changing your password.
- Reliability of explorer.exe when closing the input switcher.
- Performance of invoking or navigating to clipboard history.
- [Fonts] The Times New Roman font family is updated to improve the rendering of combining diacritical marks across Greek and Cyrillic scripts. This update provides more accurate and visually consistent text by addressing mark positioning issues. As a result, readability is improved, rendering inconsistencies are reduced, and support for global language users working with Greek and Cyrillic text is strengthened.
- [Task Scheduler] Task Scheduler will now persist column width adjustments in task list view across sessions.
- [Desktop icons] This update improves reliability of loading desktop app icon shortcuts.
- [Microsoft Store]
- This update includes underlying changes to improve download performance and bandwidth usage
- This update improves error reporting when downloads fail because of Windows Update group policy being enabled.
- [Reliability] This update improves Windows reliability on the sign-in and lock screens, in File Explorer, when using touch gestures on touchscreen devices, and when changing themes in Settings.
- [Secure Boot] With this update, Windows quality updates include additional high confidence device targeting data, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout.
For more information about this Update, you can check this article from the Microsoft Blog.
For a more in-depth presentation of the New Build, you can watch the video below from the YouTube channel.
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