Windows 11 build 22494

Windows 11 build 22494 is the tenth Insider Preview build of Nickel, the 22H1 development semester of Windows as a service. It was released to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel on 3 November 2021.

Shell

 * A microphone icon will be automatically added to the taskbar when joining in a Microsoft Teams call.
 * Users can see the status of call audio and microphone, as well as mute or unmute their call via the microphone icon.
 * The ability to show snap groups in Alt and Task View has been added.
 * The padding for selected items as seen by clicking Show More Options in the File Explorer context menu, or the menu options in Task Manager has been increased.

Settings

 * A dropdown menu of options containing current query when searching for file type or link types under Default apps page has been added.
 * Users can now launch the installed apps settings page directly via the URI.
 * The names of the sort by options under Installed apps page has been adjusted, and a new option to sort from smallest to largest size has been added.

Bugfixes

 * Tooltips should no longer appear in random places on the taskbar after sliding mouse over volume, battery, network, or other icons in the taskbar corner.
 * Addressed an underlying issue that was leading to come unexpected duplication of certain icons in the taskbar corner.
 * Addressed an issue that was causing the context menu to crash when trying to scroll it.
 * Addressed an issue where in certain areas of the screen the context menu submenus would draw on top of the context menu instead of beside it.
 * Addressed an issue where renaming files on the desktop is not working.
 * The context menu icons should be less blurry on systems with multiple monitors with mixed DPI.
 * Addressed an issue that could cause selecting Open With in the context menu to unexpectedly just open the file in certain cases rather than actually opening the Open With dialog.
 * An adjustment has been made to the command bar underlying logic to help improve performance of command actions.
 * Fixed a few  crashes related to using windowing features.
 * The background should now be acrylic on both monitors when opening Task View on a system with multiple monitors.
 * Addressed a couple UI issues with the window thumbnails in Task View and Alt, notably that the close button might get cut off if the app window was too thin.
 * Mitigated an issue that was causing certain apps to hang when trying to drag something with the Shift or Ctrl key held down.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the touch keyboard to not appear on tablets when tapping the text field when trying to reset PIN from the login screen.
 * Reliability of the Pen menu has been improved.
 * Fixed a recent issue that was causing the indexer database to become too fragmented, leading to the indexer unexpectedly consuming a large amount of memory and CPU for a prolonged period of time.
 * Fixed an issue causing links to Windows Update, Recovery and For developers to show under the main Windows Update Settings page.
 * Addressed an issue where Facial Recognition (Windows Hello) might be unexpectedly greyed out in Sign-in Settings in certain cases until closing and opening Settings.
 * Fixed an issue where Storage Sense wasn't cleaning up.
 * Standard users should now be able to change the time zone in Settings if Location access is not granted, rather than the dropdown menu going blank.
 * Fixed a bug where images had a yellow tonality in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Lightroom Classic when in HDR mode.
 * Mitigated an issue related to DHCP that was causing unexpected power usage while the screen was off in recent Nickel builds.
 * Addressed an issue where Service Host: WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service would unexpectedly utilize a lot of CPU.
 * Fixed an issue that could cause some devices to have a black screen when coming out of sleep (where the lock screen wouldn't display).
 * Addressed an underlying issue that was causing some users with ARM64 PCs to experience an increase in Microsoft Teams crashes in recent Nickel builds.

Bugs and quirks

 * The clock in the taskbar may get stuck and not updated, particularly when accessing the PC via Remote Desktop.
 * Due to a UI issue, clipboard history may report that it is empty even if it's enabled and should contain content.
 * Several system icons in the taskbar may get larger than normal if DPI scaling level is set to 125%.
 * Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock indicator lights may not work properly.
 * Filter menu may appear empty in File Explorer.
 * A line runs on top of the taskbar from the left side of the screen all the way to the button for the hidden icons flyout in the system tray on the right.