Although the Redmond giant warned about the lack of new features in the next builds, this one comes with a few new interesting elements and some important bug fixes. The announcement also came with a reminder about the expiration date for Dev Channel builds:

What’s new in the Windows 11 Preview Build 22468?

As we mentioned in the title, there are two important new features and the most interesting one is that you will be able to stop showing the recent searches. So, you won’t be bothered with the last searches when you hover your mouse over the Search icon on the Taskbar. As you can see from our screenshot, now you can see a popup with the latest searches but you will be able to change that from the Taskbar behaviors from Taskbar Settings. Another change is that when you click a VPN connection from VPN Settings, you will be able to see the connection stats.

What are the other improvements and fixes in the new build?

We will outline the latest fixes and known issues reported for the Windows 11 22468 Dev build as they were listed by Microsoft.

Fixes

➡ Taskbar

Mitigated a rare explorer.exe initialization hang related to loading the network icon.

➡ Search

Improved reliability of showing the flyout when hovering over the Search icon in the Taskbar. If you navigate to the Search icon in the Taskbar using the keyboard, navigating away will now dismiss the recent searches flyout. The options when right clicking recent files displayed when searching for certain apps like Word should work now when you select them.

➡ File Explorer

If you right click files in OneDrive locations in File Explorer, the context menu will no longer unexpectedly dismiss when you hover over entries that open sub-menus, like Open with. Double clicking a network folder to open it will no longer unexpectedly try to pin it to Quick Access instead of opening it.

➡ Input SPONSORED

Addressed an underlying font issue that was making the right hand of the shruggie kaomoji ¯_(ツ)_/¯ not display in the correct position, as well as apostrophes in certain cases.

➡ Settings

Your preferred microphone input format setting (as configured in Sound Settings) should persist upgrade now. Addressed an issue where certain drives were unexpectedly not displaying in Defragment and Optimize Drives.

➡ Other changes worth mentioning

We’ve resolved the issue preventing MDM enrolled PCs from successfully updating to the previous build. These devices are now unblocked from updating to the latest build. Fixed an issue that could cause unexpected flickering in certain apps such as Microsoft Edge when using multiple monitors with different refresh rates. Mitigated a display related issue that was causing some Insiders to experience an increase in bug checks in recent flights. Did some work to address an issue where the Windows Update icon in the Taskbar might display but suddenly disappear when you hovered over it. Addressed a rare issue with certain devices after sleep where Wi-Fi would get stuck in an off state and trying to toggle it back on wouldn’t work. Mitigated an issue for certain devices that could cause the system to freeze in some scenarios.

Known issues

➡ General

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.

➡ Taskbar

The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods. We’re investigating reports that Notification Center will get in a state in recent builds where it doesn’t launch. If you are impacted by this, restarting explorer.exe may resolve the issue for you.

➡ 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. Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.

➡ Widgets

The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again. Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.

In the same announcement, Microsoft also talked about the new Paint version for Windows 11 but we already know all about that. What do you think about the new features and bug fixes? Leave us a line with your thoughts in the comment section below.

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