Windows 11 build 22579.1

Windows 11 build 22579.1 is the twenty-fourth 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 18 March 2022.

Applications

 * The pinned site suggestions section has been added to the Get Started app for quickly pinning websites to the taskbar.
 * This feature is only available in the English (United States) language.
 * The audio CD playback support has been added to the Media Player app.
 * The theme-switching and media content drag and drop experiences in the Media Player app has been improved.

Shell

 * The ability to name app folders in Start menu has been added.
 * The updated Open With dialog box, initially introduced in build 22563 and publicly rolled out in build 22567, has been reverted to its original design due to performance issues.
 * However, it can still be enabled by running the following command with ViveTool from an elevated Command Prompt window:.
 * The ability to show highlights for Search on the taskbar, initially announced in build 22572, has been publicly rolled out to a subset of users around the time that this build was released.
 * The icons of Magnifier and the on-screen keyboard have been updated to align with the Fluent design.
 * The multi-finger touch gestures has been updated to include animations when using three fingers to swipe left and right and switch between recently used windows.
 * The Run New Task button in Task Manager has been updated with new icon, and has been available on all pages.
 * The Windows Terminal option in the ⊞ Win menu has been replaced with Windows PowerShell.
 * The personalized emoji (e.g. the family emoji) will display a small accent colored dot in the bottom corner of their entries in the emoji panel.
 * The Start menu or Quick Settings will be displayed with a continued swipe upwards from the tablet-optimized taskbar once it is fully expanded, removing the need for swiping twice from the taskbar.
 * The Task Manager's title bar will be hidden when viewing the Performance page in Summary view.
 * The percentage on the flyout design for the hardware indicator for volume has been updated to be centered in the design consistently.
 * The consistency of the dismiss animation for snap layouts when dragging a window to the top of the screen and then dragging it back down has been improved.
 * The Keyboard Layout section in the Quick Settings has been removed.
 * The tabbed browsing feature in the File Explorer, initially introduced in build 22572, has been removed.

Focus

 * The breaks in focus sessions over 30 minutes started from the Notification Center will be shown as in sessions started from the Clock app.
 * If Do not disturb is turned on prior to starting a focus session, stopping the focus session will no longer turn off Do not disturb.
 * If Do not disturb is turned on, it will not be reset after logging-out or rebooting.

Live captions

 * The ability to show Live captions across the virtual desktops has been added.
 * The "floating on screen" window position will show as selected in the settings flyout if the live captions window was forced to float (for example when using a full screen app).
 * The maximum height of the live captions window will be capped at 40% of monitor height.

Miscellaneous
A new group policy for excluding USB removable drives from BitLocker encryption has been added.
 * This policy can only be configured via MDM custom OMA-URI in Microsoft Intune.

General

 * Addressed an issue which was causing Gaming Services to not work in build 22572, leading to issues launching and installing some games.
 * Fixed a few high hitting  crashes impacting recent builds during general usage of Windows.
 * Fixed a bug that was causing users to encounter a  bugcheck when trying to upgrade directly from Windows 10 to recent Nickel builds starting with build 22563.

Shell

 * Fixed an issue where folders in Start menu were still showing animations even if the animation effects is disabled.
 * Mitigated an issue that was causing Start menu's pinned and folders layouts to get reset to default after  restarts.
 * Addressed an underlying issue leading to a transparent line along the side of the Start menu when changing the display's scale.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the keyboard focus to unexpectedly move to the top of Notification Center when ending a focus session below the calendar.
 * A small adjustment has been made to fix an animation glitch when invoking snap layouts at the top of the screen.
 * Fixed an  crash which was happening when dragging certain windows across snap layouts at the top of the screen.
 * Mitigated an issue which was causing Task View to appear unresponsive when invoking it while snap assist was showing on screen.
 * Addressed an issue where Alt might get stuck open when invoking it via a very quick gesture on the touchpad.
 * Fixed an  crash that could happen when an app goes in and out of full screen mode.
 * Improved how keyboard focus and navigation works when moving through and closing the accessibility options on the Lock screen.

Tablet-optimized taskbar

 * Addressed an issue where using the swipe gesture to invoke the Start menu might bring it up on the wrong screen if an external monitor was connected.
 * Notifications will no longer overlap with the tablet-optimized taskbar.
 * Fixed an issue where if you invoked Task View the desktops area might not render completely.
 * Fixed an issue where middle-clicking an app icon wouldn't launch a new instance of that app.

Input

 * Fixed an issue where the enraged face emoji wasn't searchable in Turkish using the word angry (kızgın).
 * Addressed an issue where the Japanese IME was unexpectedly switching to Katakana mode when focus was set to the UAC dialog.
 * Fixed an issue which was causing the mouse to be invisible in fields of certain apps, as well as some unexpected cursor related app crashes in recent builds.
 * Addressed an issue where the gesture for bringing in the Notification Center from the side of the screen wasn't working for the Arabic or Hebrew display languages.

Settings

 * Fixed an issue for the header at the top of the Network & Internet page, where the chevron was backwards for Arabic and Hebrew display languages.
 * Fixed an issue that was preventing users from adding apps to the Set priority notifications subpage under Settings > System > Notifications page.
 * Mitigated an issue recently where if a third party IME from any language is removed in Language & region page but didn't uninstall it, it might still show in the input switcher.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing Alt's background to retain its transparent state even it is turned off in Colors subpage under Personalization page.
 * Fixed an issue with how Narrator read out collapsed sections in Narrator subpage under Accessibility page when navigating using ⇧ Shift.

Network

 * Mitigated an issue leading to cellular connections not working on certain devices in the last few Nickel builds.
 * Addressed an issue leading to Wi-Fi speed degradation in build 22572.

Accessibility

 * Fixed an issue that was causing Voice access banner to block the top row of desktop icons or the top of full-screen applications.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing Live captions to crash upon shrinking a max height live captions window.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing Live captions to crash when toggling mono audio.

Task Manager

 * Fixed a few high hitting Task Manager crashes.
 * Fixed an issue where if focus was inside the Details page and users started typing, focus would stop moving through the processes list after the first letter.

Shell

 * The Clock app may not update Windows Focus state when configuring focus sessions within the app.
 * Opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer's search box may not work.
 * Users may encounter issues regarding icon sizing, visual bugs, and text clipping in the flyout showing OneDrive storage.
 * Despite the tabbed browsing feature cannot be enabled in this build, pressing Ctrl in File Explorer still may cause the command bar to stack on top of each other.

Tablet-optimized taskbar

 * The taskbar may not always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
 * Users may see overlapping components, such as Widgets overlapping with the taskbar as some areas of the OS are not yet tracking the height of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.

Widgets

 * When pinning from the Feed, the pinned widget may be placed at the top instead of below other pinned widgets.
 * This issue will be auto-corrected within 30 minutes.
 * Alternatively, signing out of Widgets board and immediately signing back in may solve this issue.
 * After rearranging widgets in the Widgets board, some users may experience problems with widgets in the pinned section rendering incorrectly.
 * Signing out of Widgets board and immediately signing back in may solve this issue.

Narrator
Narrator natural voices may sound garbled and may not read out text accurately when doing quick navigation, typing or pitch changes.
 * Switching back to the older voices or restarting the Narrator may solve this issue.

Live captions

 * Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) may prevent live captions from being visible.
 * Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run may re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top.
 * The very top of maximized apps (e.g., title bar window management buttons) may not be reached with touch while live captions is positioned at the top.

Task Manager
Some tooltips may not accurately display the preferred visual setting when Task Manager is configured for dark mode.

Safe mode

 * Quick Settings and date/time clock on the taskbar may be missing due to the  service not running.
 * Clicking Bluetooth & devices and Personalization pages may crash the Settings app due to an overrun of a stack-based buffer.