How to Enable New Hidden Features in Windows 11 23506 – New Start Menu Section, Settings Changes

In this article, I will show you How to Enable New Hidden Features in Windows 11 23506 – New Start Menu Section, Settings Changes.

Microsoft is continuing to improve the Windows 11 OS and in the Build 23506 from the Dev Channel, they are improving the Start Menu, the post-OOBE Experience, and also the Settings App. In this article, I will show you how to enable these features.

Thanks to PhantomOcean3 for discovering this, follow him for more hidden features!

Download ViveTool from Github

You will need to download ViveTool, which is a small app that will help us enable hidden features from Windows.

After you download ViveTool, you will need to extract the contents of the archive into the System32 location so that we can have full administrative privileges to the operating system.

Right-click on the archive and then click on Extract all. Select the System32 location and then click on Extract. You will also need to provide some administrative privileges.

After you’ve done that, you will need to open CMD as administrator and then copy and paste the following commands:

Enable New Hover Section in Start Menu:

vivetool /enable /id:44270738

Enable New Post-OOBE Experience:

vivetool /enable /id:43180950 /variant:X (0 or 1)

Enable New Settings Phone Link Section:

vivetool /enable /id:43729731

Enable New Settings Battery and Energy Usage Section:

vivetool /enable /id:44663396,44663406

You will now need to restart your computer, for the changes to take effect.

After the restart, you should notice the New Features enabled in Windows 11 23506.

New Hover Section in Start Menu

Details about a file when hovering over it in the Start menu’s Recommended section have been updated with a new look and thumbnails.

Thanks to callmemasfer and a_donglee for pointing this out.

New Post-OOBE Experience

Inside the Installation process of Windows 11, if you select Development inside the Let’s customize your experience section, the Dev Home App will be automatically opened after the installation.

New Settings Phone Link Section

Build 23506 includes a very slightly updated Phone Link setting in Settings > Bluetooth & devices (hidden). The button to open it now requires a toggle for Phone Link to be switched to On (automatically launches when toggled on)

New Settings Battery and Energy Usage Section

Battery usage in Power settings is becoming Energy (& battery) usage, will show energy usage data (per app as well) and on devices without batteries. Devices with batteries can switch between energy usage and battery level. Total energy usage/emissions data also shown.

For a more in-depth tutorial, you can watch the video below from the youtube channel.