Windows 11 build 22581.1

Windows 11 build 22581 is the twenty-fifth Insider Preview build of Nickel, the 22H1 development semester of Windows as a service. It was released to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channels on 23 March 2022.

Shell

 * The tablet-optimized taskbar feature, which initially announced in build 22563, has been rolled out to all users.
 * The unified hitboxes for Win32 system tray icons and the "show hidden icons" flyout, which initially announced in build 22563, have been rolled out to all users.
 * As part of this change, the drag-and-drop feature for pinning or unpinning the tray icons has been removed.
 * An optional setting to completely hide the "show hidden icons" button has been added.
 * The rounded corners have been implemented into the following UI elements across the system:
 * The message on the dragged apps when dragging apps to pin to the taskbar.
 * The border shown around the thumbnails when setting keyboard focus to desktops in Task view.
 * The top border line extending across the entire taskbar will be seen for all users regardless of device type.
 * The "Move to front" option in the context menu when right-clicking a pinned app has been renamed to "Move to top".
 * Some small adjustments to some of the icons used in the context menu and command bar (including the copy icon) have been made.
 * Folders whose only content is other folders will show an icon with a slip of paper to indicate there is content inside the folder, instead of an empty folder icon.
 * The visibility of the battery icon in the Bluetooth section of Quick Settings when a contrast mode was enabled has been improved.
 * The size of the area above a notification where clicks weren't being passed through to the underlying window has been reduced so it's the same sized area as the side of the notification.

Settings

 * The "Trade-in or recycle your PC" option under the About page has been removed.
 * Changes in Sounds page to program events (for example, turning certain system sounds off) will persist on upgrade going forward.

Input
The reliability of showing the touch keyboard on the login screen after tapping the PIN or password field after rebooting or upgrade has been improved.

General

 * Mitigated an issue that could result in  getting stuck and not fully initializing during first login.
 * Fixed a few issues impacting  reliability.

Shell

 * Fixed an issue causing taskbar previews to use the wrong fonts for the window title in non-English languages.
 * Fixed an issue where the drag-and-drop feature won't work with auto-hidden taskbars.
 * Mitigated an issue where swiping to collapse the tablet-optimized taskbar might unexpectedly invoke the widgets board.
 * Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing the search box in the top of Start to flicker.
 * Mitigated an underlying issue where if you swiped to open the All apps list, sometimes it would think that you’d tapped one of the letter headers in the All apps list.
 * Fixed an issue where the Clock app won't update Windows Focus state when configuring focus sessions within the app.
 * Fixed a few cases where icons were missing next to entries in the context menu and command bar (for example, for the "Next Desktop Background" entry in the context menu when right-clicking the desktop while using a background slideshow).
 * Addressed an underlying issue that could cause File Explorer to crash when using the "Group By" option.
 * Fixed an issue where hovering over the Task view icon on secondary monitors wouldn't bring up the Desktops flyout when using the Arabic or Hebrew display language.
 * Fixed an issue where if one of the Microsoft Edge tabs is selected to be displayed in Snap assist, the window would animate in from the wrong place.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the snap layouts not minimizing properly when dragging a window through the corner of snap layouts.
 * Fixed an issue where snap layouts would unexpectedly immediately display while dragging a window instead of just showing a hint for Insiders with an Arabic or Hebrew display language.
 * Addressed an issue where rotating your tablet before the previous screen rotation animation had finished would cause the rotation animation to abruptly cut out.
 * Mitigated an issue where using the 3-finger touch gesture to minimize all apps quickly could result in windows getting stuck in a shrunken state.
 * Mitigated an issue leading to issues dragging the title bar of a maximized window with touch.
 * Fixed an issue where if the Open or Save dialog was open in an app, and Alt is pressed to switch away from the app and then back, keyboard focus might get lost.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the volume flyout that appears from using the hardware keys to be stuck on screen.

Input

 * Fixed an issue where the conversion option in the Korean IME context menu wasn’t working.
 * Addressed an issue where the IME toolbar wasn’t showing/hiding correctly if you’d chosen to use the previous version of the Japanese IME.
 * Fixed an issue where some of the text in the touch keyboard was difficult to read when using the “Black and White” text input theme.
 * Mitigated an issue where the touch keyboard was still showing the previous text candidates when switching to voice typing.
 * Fixed an issue that was caysubg the "Press Enter" and "Press Tab" commands not working when using voice typing in the Traditional Chinese language.
 * Fixed an issue where the 3 or 4 finger touchpad gesture for adjusting the audio volume level wasn't working with certain paired Bluetooth audio devices.

Settings
Fixed an issue that was causing the "size and theme" link under Touch Keyboard page not working.

Accessibility

 * Fixed an issue that was causing voice access to crash when using commands to capitalize text in Office apps.
 * Fixed an issue where Narrator won't correctly tell users if there is an image in table cells in Office apps.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing Narrator with scan mode to stop reading when getting to some embedded links and buttons in the middle of text in Microsoft Edge.

Task Manager

 * Fixed an issue where tooltips did not accurately display the preferred visual setting when Task Manager is configured for dark mode.
 * Fixed an issue where Task Manager wasn't populating the details of the Status column in the Startup Apps page.

General

 * Users in the Beta Channel with Lenovo devices in China will not receive this build.
 * Users in the Dev or Beta Channel may encounter a  error when trying to upgrade directly from Windows 10 to this build.
 * To bypass this issue, join the Release Preview Channel to install the offered Windows 11 build, and then switch to the Dev or Beta Channel to receive this build.

Shell

 * 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.
 * The following features are unavailable in this build.
 * The redesigned "Open With" dialog, which initially introduced in build 22563.
 * The tabbed browsing feature in the File Explorer, which initially introduced in build 22572.

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.
 * The Widgets panel may not load as expected when using the swipe from left edge of screen touch motion.

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.

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.