Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 build in the Dev channel of its preview program. Build 25158 is fairly minor, but it comes with new features and improvements, so let’s get straight to it.
This new build’s big deal is the addition of notifications for widgets and different visual treatments for Search on the taskbar.
You can check out the announcement post for the full lowdown.
But we have a bunch of new features that arrive as part of this new package.
First up, Microsoft is now rolling out even more dynamic widget content to the taskbar. When you open the Widgets board, a banner will appear at the top to provide more information on what triggered the notification badge.
Check it out below, with the weather widget being an example:
As you can see above, the breaking news notification is now being shown at the top of the widgets board, so you get a clearer idea of what just happened.
In addition, Microsoft is also testing different visual treatments for the search on the taskbar. This is a way for the company to test longer-load features and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts in Windows 11.
There are three treatments that you might end up seeing, as evident below:
Another big change in this build is that Microsoft is ending the testing of lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop — if you have it, you will no longer have it on your next boot.
The announcement post includes a long list of other changes and improvements, along with a fairly large array of known issues affecting everything from general to File Explorer to Widgets and Live captions.
It’s worth reminding you that this build is from the Sun Valley 3 development branch for Insiders, which will eventually become the version released in 2023.
Happy downloading!
