New Windows 11 25H2 Build 26220.9343 – New Modern Design, New Personalization (Beta)

In this article, we will talk about the latest Windows 11 25H2 Insider Preview Build for the Beta Channel, which is the Build 26220.9343.

Microsoft is moving to two primary channels, with the advanced option to pick specific Windows core versions within those. The new channels are Experimental and Beta.

Beta is a refresh of the previous Beta Channel and previews what Microsoft plans to release in the next few weeks. The big change: Microsoft is ending gradual feature rollouts in Beta. When they announce a feature in a Beta update and you take that update, you will have that feature. You may occasionally see small differences within a feature as they test variations, but the feature itself will always be on your device.

New AutoPlay Dialog

Microsoft has updated the AutoPlay dialog that helps you choose the preferred experience when devices are connected to your PC, such as a phone, camera, or removable drive. Rebuilt with WinUI, the refreshed experience is more consistent with the rest of Windows, supports dark mode, and continues to provide the familiar AutoPlay actions you use today. The experience is also more responsive to text scaling and display settings. Notifications for this dialog are now docked in the notification center for easy access.

New Personalization Improvements

• Improved reliability of the Personalization > Background page in Settings.
• Added support for using DIB image files as desktop backgrounds.
• Improved reliability of desktop slideshow transitions on newly created accounts.
• Improved the resolution of previews when selecting a desktop background in Personalization > Background.
• Improved the desktop background preview display in Settings for users with portrait mode monitors.
• Improved reliability of processing desktop wallpaper changes when they happen in quick succession.
• Added support for using slideshow wallpapers with multiple desktops so that it won’t automatically switch you back to Picture.
• Fixed an issue that caused some Insiders to see their wallpaper go black after every reboot in the previous flight.

New Windows Recovery Features

• Microsoft is adding a new WinRE networking capability that allows the Windows Recovery Environment to automatically reuse eligible Wi-Fi profiles already saved in the main Windows OS, including supported certificate-based Wi-Fi networks. Previously, WinRE could automatically connect only to wired unauthenticated Ethernet or Wi-Fi networks that were separately preconfigured for WinRE, while users had to manually connect to other WPA2/3 networks by entering a password. With this update, WinRE can use saved Wi-Fi profile information when a recovery workflow requires connectivity, helping devices get online automatically during scenarios such as quick machine recovery or cloud rebuild without requiring users or IT admins to separately preconfigure Wi-Fi credentials in WinRE. By default, this capability is enabled. However, IT admins can disable this functionality if desired.
• Microsoft is also introducing Cloud rebuild, a new recovery option that restores a Windows 11 PC to a clean, known-good state by performing a full OS reinstall, even when Windows won’t boot. Unlike Reset this PC, Cloud rebuild downloads both the target Windows image and the device’s drivers from Windows Update, so the device comes back fully functional without USB media, without a custom image, and without depending on the health of the currently installed OS.
  

New File Explorer Improvements

• Address bar improvements
  • The address bar now supports paths containing double backslashes and quotation marks, for example, C:\Users\user or "C:\Users\user", improving compatibility with a wider range of inputs.
  • Improved reliability of the address bar suggestion dropdown so it now consistently closes after an item is selected.
• Refinements to the rename experience
  • Fixed an issue where text would be repeatedly selected while renaming items in folder views.
  • Fixed an issue where updated names with case-only changes weren’t immediately reflected in folder views across local and cloud storage.
• Improved keyboard navigation of File Explorer context menus in flyouts.
• File Explorer Home now preserves the state of sections (expanded or collapsed), so you can pick up where you left off.

New Camera Roll Backup

New entry points on the Settings > Home and Accounts pages help you set up Camera Roll Backup and automatically back up photos and videos from your mobile device to OneDrive.

New Magnifier

• Microsoft is giving Magnifier’s toolbar a modernized visual refresh.
• Updated icons. We’ve updated Magnifier’s toolbar icons to align with Windows 11 visual design, giving the tool a cleaner, more modernized feel.
• Refined spacing and padding. We’ve adjusted the padding and spacing across the toolbar for a more polished, consistent layout.
• What’s not changing: The way Magnifier works. Your views, zoom controls, keyboard shortcuts, and Read Aloud all behave exactly as they did in earlier versions.

New Emoji 17.0

• Microsoft is adding support for Emoji 17.0. This includes new emoji such as distorted face, fight cloud, and hairy creature. To try the new emoji, press the Windows key plus Period (.) to open the emoji panel and insert them from there.

• As part of this effort, we’ve also made some slight adjustments to the design of some of our current emoji to improve consistency across platforms. This includes the saluting face, face with peeking eye, goose, lotus, and kissing cat emoji.

New Fonts Improvements

Unicode has announced the encoding of two African writing systems in recent Unicode releases:

• Garay was encoded in Unicode 16.0, released in September 2024.
• Beria Erfe was encoded in Unicode 17.0, released in September 2025.

New Modern Print Management

• Microsoft is temporarily removing the modernized Print Management experience from Windows Insider Preview builds while we continue refining the experience based on feedback. The existing Print Management tools remain available and are unaffected.
• They plan to bring the updated Print Management experience back to Windows Insiders in a future build after additional improvements are complete.

For more information about this Build, 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.