Microsoft releases Windows 11 Build 25120 with new Bing-powered desktop search bar

A while back, Microsoft announced that it would be using the Insider Dev Channel to trial new, more experimental ideas in Windows 11. In the latest insider flight, Build 25120, we see a good example of this.

Insiders will now see a new search bar on the desktop that they can use to search the web. This won’t be something that appeals to everyone -- especially as it uses Bing to return results -- but it’s easy enough to disable.

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If you don’t want to see the search box, right-click the desktop, choose Show more options, and toggle the Show search option.

You do need to reboot your PC after installing the new build in order to trigger this experience, and even then it might not show up for you as it’s not being made available to all insiders.

This new build will be available to users running ARM64 devices (they were blocked in the previous build) and there have also been ISOs released for the build. You can download these here.

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Fixes in this build include:

[Suggested Actions]

• Suggested actions should appear for more date and time formats now.
• Addressed some issues with certain formats when copying a date and/or time.
• Improved overall performance and reliability of the feature.

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue that could crash Settings when opening and looking at the battery usage graph.
• Improved performance of displaying Wi-Fi networks after enabling Wi-Fi from the Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings.

[Task Manager]

• Addressed an issue leading to some unreadable text in the Performance page when a contrast theme was enabled.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue which could cause Windows Update to stall and roll back updates for WSA users.
• Did some work to address a stutter in the progress wheel animation when upgrading to a new build.

Known issues include:

[General]

• Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.

[Live captions]

• Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
• Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.