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Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22489

Written By published October 27, 2021

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22489 to the Dev Channel.

TL;DR

  • We are beginning to slowly rollout a new “Your Microsoft account” settings page that will give you quick access to information related to your Microsoft account directly within Settings in Windows 11. We are beginning the rollout with a small set of Windows Insiders so you may not see this page right away.
  • We are expanding on the DNS over HTTPS feature in Windows 11 by adding support for Discovery of Designated Resolvers – details below.
  • We are releasing new SDK and NuGet packages for developers with this build – details below.
  • Please read the known issues below. We’ve added a known issue for the Windows Update settings page that will impact how you check for updates on this build.
  • FINAL Build Expiration Reminder: We have updated the build expiration for Dev Channel builds to be 9/15/2022. Previous Dev Channel builds from the RS_PRERELEASE branch will expire on 10/31/2021. To avoid hitting this expiration, please be sure to update to the latest Dev Channel build today.

What’s new in Build 22489

Your Microsoft account setting page

We are beginning to roll out a new entry point for “Your Microsoft account” under Settings > Account. Clicking this new entry point brings you to a new settings page that displays information related to your Microsoft account, including your subscriptions for Microsoft 365, links to order history, payment details, and Microsoft Rewards. This allows you to access your Microsoft account directly within Settings in Windows 11. We are beginning this rollout to a very small set of Insiders at first and then will ramp it up over time.

The new Your Microsoft account settings page.
The new Your Microsoft account settings page.

Over time, we plan to improve the Your Microsoft account settings page based on your feedback from Feedback Hub via Online Service Experience Packs. These Online Service Experience Packs work in a similar way as the Windows Feature Experience Packs do, allowing us to make updates to Windows outside of major OS updates. The difference between the two is that the Windows Feature Experience Packs can deliver broad improvements across multiple areas of Windows, whereas the Online Service Experience Packs are focused on delivering improvements for a specific experience such as the new Your Microsoft account settings page. For example, under Windows Update this would  appear as “Online Service Experience Pack – Windows.Settings.Account” with a version number. Right now, we’re testing this mechanism out with the new Your Microsoft account settings page first.

Changes and Improvements

  • We’ve added support for Discovery of Designated Resolvers which allows Windows to discover encrypted DNS configuration from a DNS resolver known only by its IP address. See this blog post for more details.
  • To improve consistency, we’re updating the name of the Connect app to now be “Wireless Display”. This app is a feature-on-demand (FOD) and can be enabled by going to Settings > Apps > Optional features > Add an optional feature.
  • We’re splitting up “Apps & Features” in Settings into two pages under Apps, “Installed Apps”, and “Advanced app settings”.
  • In case you missed it last week, just a reminder that Windows Sandbox now works on ARM64 PCs!
  • [ADDED 10/28] Insiders have noticed we have added the ability to view installed apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps by list, tiles, or grid.

Fixes

[Taskbar]           

  • App icons on secondary monitors should draw more reliably now instead of being blank.
  • Stopped an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when using the Desktops flyout context menu.
  • Fixed an explorer.exe crash that was happening sometimes when dismissing the Desktops flyout.

[File Explorer]

  • Pin to Quick Access is a top-level option now when right clicking a drive in File Explorer.
  • We improved context menu launch performance.
  • Made a few fixes to help improve explorer.exe reliability when using File Explorer.

[Windowing]

  • Closing windows in Task View should look less jumpy now.
  • Did some work to help address an issue that was causing flickering in the app window when resizing certain apps in recent Dev Channel builds.

[Settings]

  • Addressed an issue that was causing Settings to crash in certain cases after going to Windows Update.
  • Added a space that was missing in the search results when searching for Touch Keyboard settings.
  • Fixed a Settings crash when trying to customize options in Wheel Settings.
  • If animations are turned off, dismissing a notification using the X will no longer have an animation.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the media controls to not show up in Quick Settings sometimes when music was playing recently. Also believed to have impacted hardware media key usage.
  • The tooltip for the Wi-Fi option in Quick Settings should no longer fly to the top of the screen.

[Other]

  • Mitigated an underlying issue that was causing the Processes tab in Task Manager to be blank sometimes. This is also believed to be the same root cause causing UAC to open very slowly recently.
  • Addressed an issue Xbox Game Pass games are failing to install with error 0x00000001.
  • Fixed an issue where get-winevent in PowerShell was failing with an InvalidOperationException (Issue #60740).
  • Mitigated a high hitting mousocoreworker.exe crash in the last few flights.
  • Did some work to try and improve the layout of the text in notification buttons in cases where there’s both an icon and text.
  • The Get Started app will no longer crash if the Tips app has been uninstalled.
  • Fixed an issue causing some devices to bugcheck with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCPTION when updating on previous builds.
  • Made an underlying change to help fix an issue causing some users to see an unexpected “bad image” error message dialog on boot.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11 that became generally available on October 5th.

Known issues

[General]

  • In this build, you will notice links to Windows Update, Recovery and For developers under the main Windows Update Settings page. You will need to click on Windows Update a second time to check for updates. The Recovery and For developers links should not appear under Windows Update in settings. These issues will be fixed in a future build.
  • Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message: The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing. If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
  • Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.

[Start]

  • In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

[File Explorer]

  • Trying to rename items on the desktop isn’t working properly in this build. It should work if you open File Explorer, navigate to the Desktop folder, and try to rename from there.

[Taskbar]

  • The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
  • We’re working on the fix for an issue causing tooltips to appear in an unexpected location after hovering over the Taskbar corner.

[Search]

  • After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

[Quick Settings]

  • We’re investigating reports from Insiders that the volume and brightness sliders aren’t displaying properly in Quick Settings.

For developers

You can download the latest Windows Insider SDK at aka.ms/windowsinsidersdk.

SDK NuGet packages are now also flighting at NuGet Gallery | WindowsSDK which include:

These NuGet packages provide more granular access to the SDK and better integrate in CI/CD pipelines.

About the Dev Channel

We have moved the Dev Channel back to receiving builds from our active development branch (RS_PRERELEASE). These builds are from the earliest stage in a new development cycle with the latest work-in-progress code from our engineers. These aren’t always stable builds, and sometimes you will see issues that block key activities or require workarounds while flighting in the Dev Channel. It is important to make sure you read the known issues listed in our blog posts as we document many of these issues with each flight.

These builds are also not matched to a specific release. New features and OS improvements from these builds could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready, and we may deliver them as full OS updates or servicing releases.

Build numbers are higher in the Dev Channel than the Windows 11 preview builds in the Beta and Release Preview Channels. You will not be able to switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta or Release Preview Channels without doing a clean install back to the released version of Windows 11 currently.

Are you not seeing any of the features listed for this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re in the Dev Channel. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected.

The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Important Insider Links

Thanks,
Amanda & Brandon

Tags:
Windows Insider Program