Microsoft officially releases Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4945 to Beta Channel and Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281 to Dev and Beta Channels

By Estuti Bajpai Published on February 15, 2025, 15:28 IST

Microsoft yesterday officially released a new Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4945 to the Beta Channel to Windows Insiders who did not upgrade to receiving updates based on Windows 11 24H2.

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4945 to Beta Channel

Changes and Improvements are gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with a toggle on

General

This update includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.

Spotlight on the desktop

We’re beginning to roll out some additional changes to the Desktop Spotlight icon for Windows Insiders to help with discoverability including changes to the icon color/backplate and moving the icon to the bottom right position on your desktop.

Fixes are gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with a toggle on

File Explorer

Did some more work to improve the performance of extracting zipped files in File Explorer, particularly when you’re unzipping a large number of small files.
Fixed a few issues impacting File Explorer reliability for Insiders.
Fixed an issue where opening File Explorer from the command line may result in the address bar being empty and not displaying the current path.
Fixed an issue where you couldn’t select multiple files in the Recommended section of Home by holding Shift and clicking the files
Fixed an issue causing the see more “…” menu in the command bar to open in the wrong direction for some resolutions.

Input

Fixed an issue that could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening the input flyout sometimes.
Fixed an issue where when using the touch keyboard on the login screen to sign in to your PC, you may unexpectedly see two touch keyboards launch.

Lock screen

Fixed an issue in recent flights where if you tried to reset your password from the login screen, it wouldn’t work due to an underlying crash.

Microsoft is also investigating two known issues- an issue causing File Explorer to be very slow to close for some Insiders when closing using the X button and two new enterprise-specific device info and accessibility preferences cards showing up on non-managed PCs signed in with Microsoft accounts. Do note that the above preview build is for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel only and not the Dev channel.

Well, Microsoft has a new Preview build for Dev Channel as well. Yesterday the company also released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281 to the Beta and Dev channels.

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281 for Beta and Dev Channels

As a reminder, Microsoft is offering the same Dev Channel updates based on Windows 11, version 24H2 to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel. The insiders in Beta Channel will be offered the below updates as an optional upgrade.

New features are gradually being rolled out to the Dev Channel with a toggle on

Ability to seamlessly resume OneDrive files in 1-click from your phone to PC

The ability to seamlessly resume working on OneDrive files from your phone (iOS and Android) on your Windows 11 PC with a single click is being rolled out. With this feature, you will get a notification asking you if you want to pick up where you left off by editing a OneDrive file like a Word doc that you last viewed or edited on your phone within a 5-minute time window preceding unlocking your PC. Upon clicking on this notification, the same file that you were viewing or editing previously on your phone will open in your default browser on your PC.

Here are some important details about how this feature works:

This feature works only when signing into OneDrive with a Microsoft account. Work and school accounts are not supported. And you need to be using the same Microsoft account signing into OneDrive on your phone and signing into your Windows 11 PC.
This feature supports Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote notebooks/pages, and PDFs.
The OneDrive file must be opened on your phone when your PC is locked. If you then unlock your PC within 5 minutes of accessing the file on your phone, you will receive the resume notification as noted above.
For the best experience using this feature, you should be logged into OneDrive in your default browser on your PC.

This feature can be managed and turned off via Settings > Apps > Resume.

Changes and Improvements are gradually being rolled out to the Dev Channel with a toggle on

Recall (Preview)

Recall will be improved in the next update. This important update will improve your experience. As part of this upcoming update, your existing snapshots will be deleted.
Recall filtering options are now easily accessible via the Recall system tray flyout instead of having to set filtering directly in Settings.

Taskbar & System Tray

The ability to share files directly from the jump lists on the taskbar is rolled out, which appears when you right-click on an app with a jump list like Notepad the taskbar.

Snap

An improvement to Snap in Windows 11 aimed at driving contextual learning and discovery of the feature. Inline messaging will now appear when you accidentally invoke the Snap Bar when dragging an app to the top middle of your desktop or Snap Flyout when hovering over the Minimize or Maximize button of an app. This messaging is designed to guide snapping app windows and educating users on the keyboard shortcuts for quickly snapping app windows in the future. We are trying several variants of this experience.

File Explorer

When “Restore previous folder windows at logon” is enabled in File Explorer, we will also now restore all the extra tabs that you previously had open in each File Explorer window. As part of this work, we have also updated the logic for the “Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in” setting via Settings > Accounts > Sign in options so that when you enable this, we will automatically enable the File Explorer specific setting for you too.
A new option to snooze or turn off the “Start backup” reminder in the File Explorer address bar, for those who aren’t already backing up their Documents, Pictures, or Desktop folders. This option is available when you right-click “Start backup”.

Spotlight on the lock screen

A few different treatments for the top right hotspot (“Like the image that you see”) on the lock screen are tried out. You can now learn more about the spotlight image on your lock screen by clicking on the “Like icon” that takes you to the Spotlight landing page.

Spotlight on the desktop

Some changes to the Desktop Spotlight icon interaction model for Windows Insiders are rolled out. You can now quickly and easily discover more information about your background image by simply hovering over or clicking on the “Learn about this picture” icon on your desktop.
Some additional changes to the Desktop Spotlight icon for Windows Insiders to help with discoverability include changes to the icon color/backplate and moving the icon to the bottom right position on your desktop.

Settings

Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers coming to the Settings homepage will begin to see a new card for referring a PC Game Pass subscription to their friends to try PC Game Pass for free. This new card will only appear on the Settings homepage if you’re signed into your PC with your Microsoft account and meet the required eligibility criteria.
The settings homepage for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator which began rolling out with Build 26120.3073 is temporarily disabled.

Other

The location History feature, an API used by Cortana to access 24 hours of device history when the location was enabled is removed. With the removal of the Location History feature, location data will no longer be saved locally, and the corresponding settings are also being removed from Settings > Privacy & security > Location page.

Fixes are gradually being rolled out to the Dev Channel with a toggle on

General

Fixed the issue causing unexpectedly high DCOM CPU usage for some Insiders after opening the Performance section of Task Manager

Lock screen

Fixed an issue in recent flights where if you tried to reset your password from the login screen, it wouldn’t work due to an underlying crash.

File Explorer

As part of an ongoing commitment to improving File Explorer accessibility, this release includes increased support for text scaling (via Settings > Accessibility > Text size) across File Explorer, File Open/Save dialogs, and the copy dialogs.
Fixed an issue causing the see more “…” menu in the command bar to open in the wrong direction for some resolutions.

Taskbar & System Tray

Fixed an issue when using multiple monitors, where the distance between the date time, and edge of the screen wasn’t consistent.

Improved Windows Search

The following fixes are rolling out for improved Windows Search on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs:

Fixed the issue where the AI sparkle and underline animation in the File Explorer search box were not present.
The search box on the taskbar now has the AI sparkle and underline animation just like the File Explorer search box has.
Fixed the issue where In some rare cases, improved Windows search experiences may not be available and may require a reboot to start working.
Fixed the issue where in some rare cases, File Explorer search might be unresponsive and may require a reboot to start working.
Fixed the issue where the tip about the new search improvements would appear whenever you set focus to the search box in File Explorer, rather than only once.

Input

Fixed an issue where if you were using a non-default mouse color (enabled in Settings > Accessibility > Mouse pointer and touch), it may unexpectedly revert back to white when you encountered a UAC dialog.

Settings

Fixed an issue causing Settings to crash on launch for some Insiders.

Other

Fixed an issue for Shared PC users, where when signing in with a Guest account using Shared PC, the sign-in may fail. This happened if DeviceLock password policies were configured.

Changes and Improvements are gradually being rolled out to everyone in the Dev Channel

File Explorer

We are disabling account-based content in File Explorer under Recent, Favorites, Details Pane, and Recommended for Entra IDs in the European Economic Area (EEA).

There are also some known issues mentioned in the blog post among which some will be fixed in future updates.