Microsoft releases Windows 11 Build 25163 with taskbar overflow and sharing improvements

Happy Wednesday. It’s that day of the week when Microsoft typically rolls out a new Windows 11 build for Insiders in the Dev Channel. Sometimes these builds are interesting, with new features and the like, and other times they only contain a bunch of fixes.

The latest flight, Build 25163, falls into the former category, with some new additions which include a taskbar overflow experience and some improvements to file sharing.

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The taskbar overflow feature is designed to offer users a "more productive switching and launching experience" when screen space is limited. The taskbar will transition into this new overflow state automatically when it hits maximum capacity.

The new overflow menu will let you access all of the overflowed apps in the one place.

Nearby sharing has been improved in this build too. The Windows Insider team explains:

The discovery of devices under nearby share when sharing a local file from the desktop, File Explorer, Photos, Snipping Tool, Xbox, and other apps that use the built-in Windows share window has been enhanced by using UDP (Network needs to be set to private) along with Bluetooth to discover nearby devices. You will now be able to discover and share to more devices including desktop PCs.

You can share local files to OneDrive using the built-in Windows share feature now too, and Microsoft is also beginning to roll out a Store Update (version 22206.1401.2.0).

Fixes in this new build include:

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an explorer.exe crash when dragging tabs around.
• Did some work to fix a memory leak when using tabs with File Explorer.
• Fixed an issue where the preview thumbnail for File Explorer in the taskbar, ALT + Tab, and Task View might show the title of an adjacent tab and not the currently selected one.
• If "Show all folders" is enabled, the dividers in File Explorer’s navigation pane should no longer show. With this change, it should also address the issues where dividers were unexpectedly showing in some other folder pickers.
• Fixed an issue where Narrator wasn’t reading out the titles of tabs as focus moved through them.
• Fixed an issue where a closed tab might appear again in File Explorer after you dragged File Explorer across your monitors.
• Fixed an issue where the tab row might unexpectedly expand vertically, covering the command bar contents.
• Removable drives should no longer unexpectedly be displayed in a section by themselves in the navigation pane, which was breaking up the section with This PC and Network.
• Fixed an issue where the add new tab button wasn’t clearly visible when using Aquatic or Desert contrast themes.
• The add new tab button shouldn’t overlap with the minimize button in the title bar when using text scaling with a lot of tabs open anymore.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed a rare explorer.exe crash that could happen while on a Microsoft Teams call, related to sharing windows from the taskbar.

[Settings]

• Made a change to help fix an issue where using Windows Spotlight on the desktop might revert to a solid color background.
• Improved the padding around the uninstall button when using Apps > Installed Apps in grid view.
• Fixed a couple issues that could lead to Quick Settings crashing on launch.

[Input]

• Fixed an issue which was leading to certain apps freezing after a copy action if Suggested Actions was enabled.

[Other]

• Fixed a high hitting crash impacting suggested actions reliability.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Known issues in this release include:

[General]

• Microsoft is investigating reports that SQL Server Management Studio is failing to launch for some Insiders.
• Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.

[File Explorer]

• The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
• Microsoft is working on a fix to address reports that launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) is showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.

[Widgets]

• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
• In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
• Microsoft is working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

[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.

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