Windows 11 build 25247

Windows 11 build 25247 is the second Insider Preview and first available client build of Zinc, the 23H2 development semester of Windows as a service. It was released to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel on 18 November 2022.

Start Menu
The ability to show recommended common websites based on user's region or browsing history has been added to the Recommended section. This feature is only available to a subset of users.

Taskbar

 * The ability to display seconds in the system clock on the taskbar, which had been absent since the original release of Windows 11, has been re-implemented. This feature is only available to a subset of users, but can be toggled on manually by enabling the  velocity ID and then toggling the switch under Personalization > Taskbar in the Settings app.
 * A new animation for the hidden icons chevron has been added.
 * The pin/unpin visual will display when dragging tray icons to any position along the system tray.
 * The new Show hidden icons flyout's animation has been updated to be consistent with other taskbar flyouts.
 * The Show hidden icons flyout background color has been updated to align with custom accent color if "Show accent color on Start and taskbar" is enabled under Personalization > Colors in the Settings app.

Shell

 * The new Studio effects page in the Quick Settings, initially introdced in build 22623.885, has been publicly rolled out.
 * When copying the text with search potential, the Suggested actions will show up a pop-up offering to search them in Microsoft Edge. This features is only available to a subset of users in the English (United States) language, but can be toggled on manually by enabling the  velocity ID.

Task Manager
The following features and changes, previously introduced in build 22623.885, have been rolled out to all users:
 * The process filtering feature (initially implemented in build 25231).
 * The ability to use user preferred theme (configurable via the Settings page).
 * The redesigned in-app dialogs (except for "Run new task" and Properties dialog).
 * The ability to opt-out of the Efficiency mode's confirmation dialog.

Settings

 * The new Energy Recommendations page under System > Power, initially implemented in build 25231 and then introduced in build 22623.885, has been rolled out to all users.
 * A consolidated cloud storage quota bar has been added to the Accounts page to show storage usage for each Microsoft product and inform users with a banner when the storage is low. This change is only available to a subset of users.
 * The new touch keyboard dropdown menu under Settings > Time & language > Typing, initially introduced in build 25188 and then disabled by default in build 25217, has been re-enabled.
 * The "Trade-in or recycle your PC" button under System > About, previously disabled by default in build 22581, has been re-enabled. This feature can be toggled on manually by enabling the  velocity ID.
 * The "Go back to earlier build" dialog (toggle via System > Recovery) has been redesigned in order to align with the design aesthetics of Windows 11. This change is disabled by default, but can be toggled on manually by enabling the  and   velocity IDs.
 * The button control has been implemented into startup app items under App > Startup. Clicking the button will open the file location (for legacy Win32 apps) or redirect to the corresponding Advanced options page (for UWP apps). This change is disabled by default, but can be toggled on manually by enabling the  velocity ID.

Input

 * Two new French standard keyboard layouts (AZERTY and BÉPO) have been added.
 * The Emoji search for Japanese and Simplified Chinese has been improved to handle Kana/Kanji and Pinyin properly in the emoji panel.
 * The reliability of the touch keyboard, IME candidate window, and IME toolbar have been improved.

Miscellaneous

 * The performance of showing up files and content as results in the search box has been improved.
 * When connecting an iPhone via USB, iPhone photos will be transferred in HEIF format instead of JPEG if the HEVC extension is installed.
 * If memory integrity in the Windows Security app cannot be enabled due to incompatible drivers, the information about which drivers are incompatible is now selectable.
 * The experience on logon after booting up has been improved by reducing the performance impact of startup apps.
 * The entire boot environment was built with  defined (previously only defined in checked builds). On entry and exit of every bootlib API call, all physical memory chunks and heap chunks are checked for corruption. (With an undocumented BCD element , the frequency of checks can be decreased; however it defaults to zero, thus always checking.)

General

 * Fixed an issue that was causing the  bugcheck with   when interacting with UI components in WinPE or WinRE.
 * Fixed an issue where switching projection modes using ⊞ Win or the Project section of Quick Settings would not work properly.
 * Fixed a high hitting  crash.
 * Fixed an issue where the dismiss button for alerts in the Windows Security app might not work.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the Windows Setup dialog to show the text "Status" rather than actually displaying helpful text about the current status.
 * Addressed a few issues that was causing various items in the Windows Setup dialog to not being read out correctly by Narrator.
 * Fixed issue where users sometimes could not use FIDO keys to log onto the device when a full-screen logon message was displayed.
 * Fixed a background crash for Windows Hello which was impacting setup and usage.
 * Addressed a date formatting interoperability issue which was leading to domain login issues on some network shares.
 * Fixed an issue causing VmmemWSL to sometimes use an unexpectedly large amount of CPU and lead to freezing on ARM64 devices over time.
 * Fixed an issue what could lead MSTSC to stop responding when connecting to a RemoteApp or remote desktop.
 * Fixed an issue which was causing the  command to unexpectedly fail in certain cases with error 87.
 * Fixed the Windows version name written in Microsoft Management Console's help section.

Taskbar

 * Fixed an issue that was causing the taskbar to get stuck in the expanded state instead of dismissing to collapsed state when using the bottom right edge gesture to invoke Quick Settings.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the Do not disturb icon to disappear while in do not disturb mode.
 * Fixed multiple  crashes impacting taskbar performance.
 * Fixed the issue where certain chat apps (that supported it) weren't flashing with new messages or opening a preview on hover in the system tray.
 * Fixed an issue where invoking the context menu for items in the system tray might not put the context menu in the foreground and it would get stuck behind the taskbar.
 * Fixed an issue where the taskbar was sometimes flashing when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing certain third-party app icons in the system tray to be unresponsive.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the Windows Update icon in the system tray to look pixelated after changing between light and dark mode.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the NVIDIA icon in the system tray to show empty notifications.
 * Fixed an issue where the weak charger warning icon in some cases was not displaying when it should have been.

Shell

 * Fixed an issue that was causing the navigation headings of Start's all apps list to contain garbled text in the Simplified Chinese language.
 * Fixed a bug that caused the text cursor to become white on white when hovering over text fields.
 * Fixed an issue where if users maximized a window and then dragged it along the top of the screen into the corner could result in the app getting stuck not being able to resize.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing several apps like Microsoft Edge to unexpectedly show thick lines on the side of the windows.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the Desktops list in Task View to be floating in the middle of Task View if users have two monitors on top of each other.
 * Fixed a rare issue which could lead to a DWM crash when taking screenshots using the Xbox Game Bar.
 * Fixed a bug which could cause the wallpaper to render only a partial section at the top sometimes.

File Explorer

 * Fixed a GDI handle leak when opening Show More Options in the context menu, which could lead to graphical issues and an  crash over time.
 * Fixed an issue which was leading to text not displaying in the context menu when selecting Show More Options in the the Arabic or Hebrew display language.
 * Fixes a bug that was preventing certain phones from showing up in File Explorer when connected via USB.
 * Fixed an issue which was causing  templates to open as new documents instead of a template when right-clicking them and selecting Open in File Explorer.

Input

 * Fixed an issue which could result in the touch keyboard / PIN entry keyboard being unable to input text on the login screen.
 * Fixed a recent issue where the Japanese IME candidate window might fail to display proper candidates when using reconversion in certain edit controls.
 * Fixes an issue where the IME candidate window and IME toolbar weren't shown or cropped sometimes and an issue where a blank window titled "Windows Input Experience" appeared sometimes after resuming from the sleep.
 * Addressed a rare issue which could lead to certain apps crashing after interacting with incorrectly spelled words that were flagged by the spellchecker.

Settings
Fixed an issue which was causing the Settings app to crash sometimes when connecting and disconnecting Bluetooth devices.

General

 * The audio may stop working in certain cases.
 * Several apps may crash on launch in certain cases.
 * Certain PCI devices such as secondary drives may not work and will show an error in Device Manager.

Shell

 * The tablet-optimized taskbar may crop in half in certain cases.
 * Various UI elements in apps may disappear and reappear repeatedly.
 * The folders in Start menu may not open on the first try.
 * Users may need to press ← Backspace after typing to see search results for,   or   files.
 * On some locales, the default font used in several UI elements (such as the date and time on the taskbar) may change to regular Segoe UI instead of Segoe UI Variable.

Settings
The messaging for OneDrive storage may not be the same between the System page and the Accounts page.

Task Manager

 * Filtering by publisher name may not match correctly on the Processes page.
 * Some services may not show in the Services page after filtering is applied.
 * If a new process is starting while a filter is set, then that process may appear for a split second in the filtered list.
 * Some dialogs may not render in the correct theme when applied from the Settings page.
 * The data content area of the Processes page may flash once when theme changes are applied in the Settings page.
 * The Task Manager may not display light and dark content correctly with unreadable text when the "Choose your mode" option under Personalization > Colors in the Settings app is set to Custom.
 * The Startup apps page may not list any apps in certain cases.

Widgets
On right-to-left locales, the content may animate out of view before the Widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the Widgets board.

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.