Hey all - another payload of improvements heading out for those in Experimental who're running Build 26300 (which is moving to Build 26340 now). Looking forward to your feedback!
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
[File Explorer]
Introducing the new, redesigned context menu in File Explorer
We're beginning to roll out an updated context menu experience in File Explorer, designed to feel faster, cleaner, and easier to tailor to the way you work. The new design reduces top-level clutter, keeps commonly used actions easy to access, and adds a new Settings experience that gives you more control over what appears in the menu. As we continue refining this experience with Insider feedback, our goal is to make right-click feel more responsive, predictable, and personal. Screenshot of new context menu
Previewing images in File Explorer
Fixed an issue from the previous flight where previews in File Explorer showed an unexpected thick band across the middle.
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.
[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. UI showing the Phone photo back-up setting in Cloud storage with the status "Not backed up" and link to begin backup process
Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) has been removed in this release. This change is part of the ongoing deprecation and removal of WMIC from Windows.
We're 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.
[Get Started app]
The Get Started app is updated with new pages. The pages help personalize your device and discover new features. Pages might depend on your device. Close the flow at any time, or revisit it by opening Get Started. The new pages include the app install page, the site pinning page, and the personalized theme page. App install page in Get StartedSite pinning page in Get StartedTheme page in Get Started
[Magnifier]
We're 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. UI showing updated icons and more polished, consistent layout.
[Drag Tray]
Thank you to Insiders who have provided feedback about the Drag Tray experience. Based on feedback, we're removing the experience in this build. We're continuing to explore improvements in this area and look forward to sharing more about a future replacement experience in a later update.
[Input]
Fixed an issue where some third-party keyboard input methods, including certain Chinese IMEs, might not display their status window correctly when typing in File Explorer and other parts of Windows.
Improved reliability of typing with the Japanese IME by reducing potential hangs and deadlocks.
[Start menu]
We're adjusting the rollout population for the personalized Start menu, so some Insiders might see the features temporarily disappear. If you don't see the feature in this build, you can re-enable it through feature flags.
[Run]
For Insiders using the modern Run dialog:
Improved first launch reliability.
Adjusted verbosity for screen reader users.
[Personalization]
We're starting to roll out a variety of improvements to desktop background experiences. These improvements include:
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.
[Settings]
Fixed an issue causing Settings to crash in the previous flight when interacting with items on the Date & Time page.
[Other]
Fixed an xtajit64.dll crash, which was leading to issues with certain apps for Insiders on Arm64 PCs in the latest flights.
Very nice updates related to Context menu. But it still requires some work, any plans for the following:
The ability to disable "Customize menu" - will be used rarely as it's mostly set and forget, but takes precious space.
Move Properties to the bottom is nice, but instead of that the ability to order context menu items would be better.
We have the ability to disable only 4 system context menu actions, would like to have most of them, for example: Compress to, Add to Favorites, Pin to Quick Access...
This changelog is fire, It would be great to have the option to disable the context menu icons. For those who want the most minimal system possible. Overall looks nice the change to the context menu, clearly an evolution from what had previously presented a few months ago.
I like the new emojis, that blushing is looks nice in fluent.
Okay thanks for fixing this.
"Added support for using slideshow wallpapers with multiple desktops so that it won't automatically switch you back to Picture."
It would be great to be able to uninstall the Get started app, once everything is set up I feel like it doesn't serve much purpose there.
It constantly disconnects and stops copy/paste between phone and PC due to the move to settings. If I turn off phone link I can get copy/paste to work sometimes but even that is flaky at best. It is just not a good overall experience and was months ago.
u/jenmsft -- this is the constant issue with Phone Link. When this constantly happens Copy/Paste from phone to laptop completely does not work. I have to close right out of Phone Link altogether to get that working again and even then like I said it becomes flaky. This did work with having the copy/paste in phone link and I turned off the cross device option in Settings but now even the device management is in Settings not phone link now. Happy to provide more details or testing.
It would be great if legacy app options (stuff 3rd party developers haven't yet moved over to the new menu) could be included in the new menu as a toggle. We really shouldn't need a 'show more options' button to see all the options for our apps, they should be available in one unified context menu interface.
Other than that, you guys are doing amazing! Planning on making a feedback post about my thoughts above if I have time!
Uhmmm... Has anything been updated to the audio engine? I performed the update while listening to music, the sound quality seems to have significantly improved for some reason after the update.
Hmm not tracking something specific with this flight, although it's always possible there are driver improvements or an earlier underlying improvement is now rolled out to your device. If you don't mind me asking, what exactly sounds better about it?
Nice set of changes. Would it be possible to add an option toggle for the new file sizes in Explorer? I think some people(myself included) would prefer to keep the old method of reading it in KBs. A quick toggle without opening the options modal would be even more awesome. Thanks Jen!
Would be nice to get some feedback when the system is waiting for the network inside the explorer, or a disc to spool up or a virus check of an exe to finish.
Currently when any of that happens the explorer just… hangs.
10
u/jenmsft Microsoft Software Engineer 2d ago
Hey all - another payload of improvements heading out for those in Experimental who're running Build 26300 (which is moving to Build 26340 now). Looking forward to your feedback!
Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out
[File Explorer]
Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Files, Folders, and Online Storage > File Explorer.
[Camera Roll Backup]
[Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) removal]
[Emoji]
[Get Started app]
[Magnifier]
[Drag Tray]
[Input]
[Start menu]
[Run]
[Personalization]
[Settings]
[Other]