The latest Windows updates focus on the needs you’ve expressed to us as we all continue to navigate the world of remote work more securely and with confidence.
- Use Copilot in Windows for AI assistance. Get answers to complex questions, generate new ideas, summarize pages, quickly change PC settings, and much more.
- A new way to browse your photos. Add photos from your phone, your PC, and cloud storage to File Explorer's Gallery to browse them all in one place.
- Find and browse the AI hub in the Microsoft Store. Use the power of AI to your advantage. Browse apps by different AI developers to help you draft a resume, create beautiful presentations, and plan your next adventure. Explore the AI Hub in the Microsoft Store to view what’s available.
- Review your key info in Settings. Find a snapshot of your PC, get recommendations, and access details like subscription status, cloud storage, and account safety information right from the homepage.
- Type with your voice. Control your apps, dictate emails, search online, and more using your voice. Use voice typing to convert spoken words into text anywhere you would normally type.
- Use your PC without a mouse. Choose your accessibility settings
- Use Narrator, the built-in screen reader for Windows, to navigate apps, browse the web, and complete common tasks without a mouse. Go to Settings > Accessibility to turn on the built-in screen reader.
- Go password-free with passkeys. Create a passkey to sign in quicker and more securely. If you choose to store your passkey with Windows Hello, signing in can be even faster.
- Spend less time setting up, and more time coding. Use Dev Home to set up your dev machine more quickly, then track all your coding projects using a customizable dashboard.
- An all-in-one backup solution. Windows Backup saves your settings, Wi-Fi passwords, and files in the cloud to access them anytime, anywhere. Easily restore them if something happens to your PC.
Work in new ways with Copilot in Windows
Jumpstart your productivity and creativity using AI. Get answers to complex questions, explore creative ideas, summarize pages quickly, and change PC settings with just a few words—and that’s just the start.
Manage devices and account settings in a new Settings home page
The new Settings home page has interactive cards that represent device and account settings. As you use your device, the page and cards adjust to give you the most relevant and useful information.
Dev Drive for developers
Dev Drive is a new form of storage volume. It gives developers what they need to host source code, working folders, and package caches. You can create a Dev Drive using free space on an existing drive or create a VHD/VHDX. Go to the Settings app within System > System > For developers. To learn more, see Set up a Dev Drive on Windows 11 (Public Preview).
Added live captions for languages
Live captions are added to these languages:
- Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)
- French (France, Canada)
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Portuguese (Brazil, Portugal)
- Spanish
- Danish
- English (Ireland, other English dialects)
- Korean
To turn on live captions, use the WIN + Ctrl + L keyboard shortcut. When you turn it on for the first time, Windows will ask you to download the required speech recognition support. You can download speech recognition support from Settings > Time & Language > Language & region.
Enhancements to voice access commands and its help page
Added new text selection and editing voice access commands. For example, to select a range of text in the text box, the voice commands would be "Select from [text 1] to [text 2]".
The in-app voice access command help page is redesigned. Every command now has a description and examples of its variations. You can access the command help page on the voice access bar from Help > View all commands or use the voice access command “What can I say?”.
Additionally, voice command support is now available for these English dialects: English (United Kingdom), English (India), English (New Zealand), English (Canada), and English (Australia)
Added "Never Combined" mode
In this mode, you can view application windows and their labels on the taskbar separately. To find this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors. Set Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels to Never. There is a separate setting for turning this on for other taskbars when you use multiple monitors.
Enhancements to notifications
Notifications are now shown as a bell icon, which will be filled with a color when there is a new notification. You can also view important notifications using "view notification".
Added a modernized File Explorer
In this file explorer, recommended files are displayed as a carousel. That carousel only appears if you are signed into Windows using an Azure AD account. To turn this off and show pinned folders instead, select the ellipses.
The new details pane in File Explorer helps you access related content, stay up to date with file activity, and collaborate without opening a file. To turn it on, select the View menu and choose Details pane. Then use the button located on the right side of the command bar to turn on the pane.
Improved Windows Spotlight experience
You can preview images in full screen using the Learn More button. To open the Windows Spotlight flyout box, right-click the Spotlight icon on the desktop. To learn more about each image, double-click its icon to open a Bing landing page.
Added new natural voices for the Narrator
These voices use modern, on-device text-to-speech. Once you download it, it works without an internet connection.
Accurate and consistent color appearance on all apps
All colors on all Windows applications appear accurate and consistent with Auto Color Management (ACM). To turn ACM on, go to Settings > Display > Advanced display. Choose the SDR display and turn on Automatically Manage Color for apps.
Stop Windows from communicating with your mobile devices
Go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Phone Link. There you will find an option to turn off Phone Link.
Added Bluetooth LE Audio
Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) Audio is added in this release. Your computer must support Bluetooth LE Audio to use this feature. With this, the audio fidelity and battery life are improved when you pair your computer with Bluetooth LE Audio earbuds and headphones.
Access personalized websites from the Start Menu
The start menu now has the recommended websites personalized based on your browsing history. With this, you can quickly access important websites. To turn off this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Start.
Access Windows Studio effects from quick settings on the taskbar
The devices that have a supported neural processing unit (NPU) can access Windows Studio effects from quick settings on the taskbar. It is now easy to turn on and configure camera effects, such as Eye contact, Automatic framing, Background blur, and Audio effects.
Introducing the touch-optimized taskbar for 2-in-1 devices
There are two states of this touch-optimized taskbar: collapsed and expanded. To switch between the two states, swipe up and down on the bottom of your screen. This feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets and is on by default. If your company manages Windows updates for your device, this feature will be off by default. Administrators can turn it on using the new commercial control for continuous innovation.
Enhanced support for braille devices and their displays
Braille devices will continue to work while you switch between Microsoft Narrator and third-party screen readers. The narrator will automatically change the braille drivers. Additionally in this release, the support for new braille displays and new braille input and output languages in Narrator is added. For more information, see Chapter 8: Using Narrator with Braille.
Enhancements to Voice
The voice access has become more flexible and supports interaction with more user interface (UI) controls. For example, voice now interacts with controls that contain:
- Names that have numbers, such as “Click 5”.
- Names without whitespaces between them, such as “click PivotTable” or “click PivotChart”.
- Names that have special characters, such as Bluetooth & devices (“click Bluetooth and devices”) or Dial–up (“click dial hyphen up”).
Additionally, voice supports spin controls, thumb controls, and split buttons. You interact with these controls by using the “click” command or number overlays. You can also use voice to scroll to the extreme left and right on a page. For more information about the new voice access commands, see the Voice access command list.
Added Tamil Anjal Keyboard for the Tamil language
To add this keyboard, make sure Tamil (Singapore), Tamil (Malaysia), Tamil (Sri Lanka), or Tamil (India) appears in Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region. Select the ellipses (…) next to the language. Select Language Options. Add Tamil Anjal (QWERTY) to the list of keyboards.
File Explorer now includes tabs
File Explorer now includes tabs to help you organize your File Explorer sessions. On the new File Explorer homepage, you can pin important files for quick and easy access. Using the Microsoft OneDrive, you can view your colleagues’ actions on your shared files. Personalized suggestions are also provided based on your Microsoft 365 account.
Copied Items have suggested actions
This feature is available for customers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Copied items like phone numbers, and dates will now have suggested actions, such as making a call with Teams or Skype or adding an event in the Calendar app.
Additional features
- Added taskbar overflow menu: The taskbar has a menu that shows all your overflowed apps in one space.
- Nearby sharing: Using this feature, discover and share to more devices, including desktops.
- Manage applications through Windows Settings: You can now uninstall, repair, and modify all apps from Windows Settings instead of Control Panel.
- Improved search box experience: As you type in the search box, search results now appear in the search flyout box. You can also change the search experience you want for your taskbar by going to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. For more information, see Customizing Search on the Windows 11 taskbar.
- Start Menu has Quick Assist: You can now use Quick Assist from the Start menu's app list to get help in case of PC issues.
- Provides AI-powered recommendations: For devices that are joined to Azure Active Directory (AAD), Windows now provides AI-powered recommended content on your Start menu. This helps you to prepare for meetings, quickly access files you're collaborating on, and more.
- Display of total storage: This update provides the full amount of storage capacity of all your Microsoft OneDrive subscriptions and displays the total storage on the Accounts page in the Settings app.
- All the required codepoints are up to date: The work to comply with the GB18030-2022 requirements is completed. With this, you can no longer enter character codepoints that are not supported.
- Use the copy button to copy 2FA codes: A copy button is provided to copy the two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. Note that this feature only works for English.
- Added multi-app kiosk mode: This lockdown feature lets admins specify the apps that run for different users on one device. Multi-app kiosk mode is ideal for scenarios in which multiple people use the same device. To learn more, see Set up a multi-app kiosk on Windows 11.
- Enabled Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC): CABC is enabled to run on laptops and 2-in-1 devices. This feature dims or brightens areas of a display based on the content. You can adjust the feature setting from Settings > System > Display > Brightness & color.
- Added a presence sensor privacy setting: If you have a device that has compatible presence sensors, you can now choose the apps that can access those sensors. You can enable this in Settings > Privacy & security > Presence Sensing.
- Preview files under the Start menu & share them: When you hover over any recommended file under the Start menu, you can see its preview and right-click to share them quickly.
- Hide the time and date in the system tray: To turn this on, right-click the system tray clock and choose Adjust date and time.
- Windows Share window: Select the Outlook icon in the “Share using” section of the Windows Share window to email your files using Outlook directly within the windows share window. It also has a search box. So, you can now search for contacts across Outlook to share a file. The Windows share window also displays 8-10 suggested contacts to quickly share too–including emailing yourself a file.
- Narrator provides efficient reading experience in Microsoft Excel: Narrator prioritizes announcements based on what you need to skim a workbook. To learn more, see the Enhanced Narrator support in Excel documentation.
- Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen: It helps to protect school and work passwords from phishing and unsafe use on websites and in apps. Go to App & browser control > Reputation-based protection > Phishing protection.
- View Wi-Fi passwords for your known networks in Settings: Go to Settings > Network & internet > Wi-Fi and “Manage known networks.
- Use Microsoft 365 switch: You can sign in to and connect your Windows 365 Cloud PC to your local desktop. Then you can move between them using familiar keyboard commands, mouse clicks, or a swipe gesture. For easy access from your desktop, you can add Windows 365 Switch to Task view.
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