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Microsoft has once again released a new build of Windows 11 to Insiders enrolled in the Dev channel, and it's packing a couple of notable changes. This week's build is 25300, and the highlight is the addition of support for live captions in more languages.
Live captions in seven new languages
Live captions were initially added in Windows 11 version 22H2, but they only support US English. This feature creates captions for all audio coming out of your PC, so if you have a hearing impairment, it can greatly help make videos and audio more understandable.
With this build, Microsoft is adding support for live captions in other English dialects, along with seven new languages, including Chinese (simplified or traditional), French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.
Snap Layout updates
Other noteworthy changes in this build have to do with Snap Layouts, a feature that was first introduced with Windows 11, though they're not available to everyone. Microsoft is reducing the time you need to hover the mouse over the maximize/restore icon before the Snap Layouts flyout appears, and you'll also see the app icon for your current app inside the layouts when selecting one.
Microsoft says it will keep experimenting with this, so there may be other changes in future builds.
Other improvements
Aside from these bigger changes, this build comes with some other improvements. For starters, Microsoft has finished rolling the ability to sync voice typing settings across devices, including the settings for automatic punctuation and the voice typing launcher.
This update also makes it easier to access more information about the apps in the Startup page of the Settings app. Additionally, when you right-click a Win32 app in the Start menu to uninstall it, you'll now be taken to the Settings app instead of the old Control panel. Finally, Microsoft has improved the behavior for the new Windows Subsystem for Linux, so it automatically prompts you to install the new Store version when you try to run it.
Of course, there's the usual list of fixes, and it's a very long one this week. You can read the list below if you're interested:
[General]
- We fixed the underlying issue related to combase.dll, causing crashes with multiple apps using GetKnownFolder APIs after upgrading to Build 25290, including Notepad and Windows Terminal for IME users. This issue is also believed to be the root cause of some Insiders finding that certain actions in File Explorer were taking minutes to complete in these builds.
- We fixed the issue causing rendering issues and difficulty using Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).
- Fixed an issue where some users experienced issues authenticating into enterprise websites that require windows integrated authentication.
[Taskbar & System Tray]
- The ability to show seconds in the clock on the system tray, first introduced with Build 25247, should return after updating to Build 25300 if it had disappeared for you after updating to Build 25295 last week.
- Fixed an issue that was causing taskbar to be cut off after resolution changes.
- We fixed an issue where when hovering over app icons on the taskbar could switch window focus unexpectedly.
[Widgets]
- As a result of fixing the issue causing third-party widgets to get unpinned when signed in with a Microsoft account across multiple Windows 11 devices, the most recent Widgets update in the Dev Channel will unpin third-party widgets. Insiders will need to go back to their widgets board and re-pin these widgets again. If you still see issues where widgets are being unpinned unexpectedly – please file feedback.
- The link for “Find more widgets” in the widgets picker currently is no longer broke and will point to the Store collection here.
[Input]
- We are beginning to roll out a fix for an issue where the IME candidate window and IME toolbar weren’t shown or cropped sometimes.
[File Explorer]
- Drag and dropping files and folders across tabs should work again.
[Task Manager]
- Process names typed into the search box should no longer unexpectedly get spellchecked.
- Fixed a couple of issues with how Narrator was reading out content in Task Manager.
- Fixed an issue where the dropdowns in settings might not match your currently selected theme.
- When using search on the App History page, results should no longer suddenly disappear.
- If you open the Default Start Page dropdown in settings, clicking the Task Manager window should make the dropdown disappear now.
- Dragging the window using the search box area should work now (like other areas of the title bar).
- Fixed an issue where ending processes in the Details tab wasn’t showing a confirmation dialog.
- Increasing the text scaling should no longer result in a “see more” button appearing with no contents.
- If you do a search and then press the down arrow, keyboard focus should now move from the search box into the results.
- If you have a contrast theme enabled and select one of the rows in the Processes page, that row should now show that it’s selected.
- Fixed an issue where focus might not get set properly to search, leading to Narrator not saying that focus was on the search box.
[Other]
- Fixed an issue where Narrator’s focus wasn’t going back to the Quick Settings’ window correctly when using the back button in the Cast page.
Despite the long list of fixes, there are still a few known issues to look out for. The list is fairly long, and if you're looking to use the new live captions capabilities on an Arm64 device, you may have some trouble doing so. You can find more information below:
[General]
- We are investigating an issue where some users are experiencing longer than expected update times installing recent builds. If you experienced this issue, please submit a new feedback item with logs in Feedback Hub.
- Some AAD (Azure Active Directory joined users are now seeing “Getting ready for you” screens when signing into Windows after updating the latest builds. We are investigating the issue.
- Launching Group Policy Editor may show an error about a displayName attribute not being found.
- Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. A workaround for this is to use the Hello PIN path.
- We are investigating reports that the Windows Insider Program settings page is showing that a newer build is available in Windows Update even though they are on the latest available build in the Dev Channel.
- [NEW] We’re investigating reports that the New button in Snipping Tool isn’t working for some Insiders after upgrading to Build 25295. If you are impacted by this, going to Settings > Apps > Default apps, and setting screen snipping as the default for ms-screenclip, it should resolve the issue.
[Widgets]
- We’re investigating an issue where under certain circumstances third-party widgets may not load as expected.
[Taskbar & System Tray]
- App icons on the taskbar may appear on the wrong monitor for some Insiders with multiple monitors.
[Windows Spotlight]
The following known issues only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments of Windows Spotlight that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25281:
- Clicking on a secondary monitor does not dismiss the full screen experience.
[Live captions]
- On Arm64 devices, enhanced speech recognition support will install incorrectly through the Language & Region settings page. Arm64 users who don’t have support for speech recognition with live captions in their preferred language can use this work-around: (1) Uninstall all “Speech Pack – ” app entries in Settings > Apps > Installed apps; (2) Temporarily set the first language in their preferred language list in Settings > Time & language > Language & region to an acceptable alternative language; (3) Launch live captions.
- Live captions for Chinese Traditional currently does not work on Arm64 devices.
- Certain languages shown on the Language & Region settings page will indicate speech recognition support (e.g., Korean) but don’t yet have support for live captions.
- When adding a language through the Language & Region settings page, language feature installation progress may become hidden, and you may not see install completion of “Enhanced speech recognition” (required by Live Captions). (You can use the language’s “Language options” to monitor progress.) If this happens, there may be an unexpected delay before the live captions setup experience detects this and lets you continue.
- The Language & Region settings page may not offer the necessary speech recognition language support for live captions for up to an hour after first login.
- Captioning performance may be degraded in non-English languages and missing out-of-language filtering in non-English (United States) languages which means that incorrect captions will be shown for speech not in the caption language.
As per usual, this new build should download automatically if you're enrolled in the Dev channel, but you can head into the Settings app and visit the Windows Update section to get the latest bits right now.
Source: Microsoft