In this article, we will talk about the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build for the Canary Channel, which is Build 27695.
Things that you need to keep in mind in the Canary Channel:
- The builds that Microsoft releases to the Canary Channel represent the latest platform changes early in the development cycle and should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and features and experiences included in these builds may never get released as they try out different concepts and get feedback. Features may change over time, be removed, or replaced and never get released beyond Windows Insiders. Some of these features and experiences could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready.
- Many features in the Canary Channel are rolled out using Control Feature Rollout technology, starting with a small subset of Insiders.
- Some features may show up in the Dev and Beta Channels first before showing up in the Canary Channel.
- To get off the Canary Channel, a clean install of Windows 11 will be required. As a reminder – Insiders can’t switch to a channel that is receiving builds with lower build numbers without doing a clean installation of Windows 11 due to technical setup requirements.
- The desktop watermark shown at the lower right corner of the desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.
New Widgets position on the Taskbar
Microsoft is beginning to roll out a new position for the Widgets entry-point on left-aligned taskbars. The taskbar entry-point will move to the left of the systems tray and will be wider so you can see richer content from Widgets on your taskbar. When you launch the Widgets board, it will fly out from the right side instead of the left side.
Windows LAPS: Retrieve encrypted passwords during Active Directory recovery situations
Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) has been improved with a new ability to recover encrypted passwords from Active Directory (AD) backup media even when there are zero AD domain controllers running.
For more information about this, you can check this article from the Microsoft Blog.
General Improvements
- Insider Preview Build Expiration: The expiration date for Insider Preview builds flighted to the Canary Channel has been updated to 9/15/2025 starting with Build 27691. Please make sure you are updated to the latest build in the Canary Channel.
- Some Insiders in the Canary Channel will begin to see an estimated time for how long their PC will be offline to install Build 27695. This estimate will be shown on the Windows Update settings page and via the Start menu power button.
Notifications
If desired, there’s now an option to turn off the suggestions to disable notifications from certain apps. You can now press the “…” within the notification to disable the notification, as you can with other notifications, or you can go to the list of notification senders in Settings > System > Notifications and turn it off from there (called “Notification Suggestions” in the list). Note – this entry will only appear in the senders list after you have received one.
Windows Share
Microsoft is rolling out the ability to easily share content to an Android device from Windows share window. The feature requires you to pair your Android device to your Windows PC using the Link to Windows app on Android and Phone Link on your PC.
Widgets
Microsoft is rolling out an update to the Widgets Board to improve security and the APIs for creating widgets and feeds for users in EEA regions. As part of this update, the Microsoft Start Experiences app will power the Microsoft Start widget and feed experiences. Also, as part of this update, some existing widgets will be removed and others will be modified, temporarily affecting their functionality. This update sets the foundation for new widgets and other features in development, set to roll out soon.
New Settings Dialog UI
The Wi-Fi password dialog in Settings has received an updated design in build 27695, which is more consistent with Windows 11’s UI.
The Wi-Fi password dialog in Settings has received an updated design in build 27695, which is more consistent with Windows 11's UI. (This is not mentioned in the blog post.) pic.twitter.com/aAvBbnYeJ9
— phantomofearth 🌳 (@phantomofearth) August 30, 2024
Fixes in this Build
File Explorer
- Fixed an issue where when pressing WIN + E, a screen reader might unexpectedly say a pane had focus, or focus may not be set within File Explorer at all.
- Fixed an issue which was causing CTRL + F to sometimes not start a search in File Explorer.
- Fixed an issue where keyboard focus might get lost sometimes when doing Shift + Tab in File Explorer.
- Fixed an issue causing screen readers to not announce when you were opening or navigating items in the breadcrumb flyouts of the open or save dialog.
- Fixed an issue causing screen readers to not announce anything when opening or navigating items in the column header flyout in File Explorer.
Task Manager
- Fixed an issue where the colors in the Performance section weren’t displayed correctly in dark mode.
Windows Sandbox
- Fixed an underlying issue which could cause Windows Sandbox to fail to launch with error 0x80070005 sometimes.
Other
- Fixed an issue where when installing Windows by booting from recent install media, it wouldn’t make itself the default partition if another version of Windows was installed.
- Fixed an issue underlying issue causing dfrgui.exe (Defrag and Optimize drives) to fail in the previous flight with a pop up saying SXSHARED_UCRT.dll was not found. This is also believed to be the cause of seeing an error saying “the specified module could not be found” errors in that flight when trying to use the backup options in Control Panel.
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.
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