Microsoft releases Windows 11 Build 25174 with new Game Pass widget

Last week, Microsoft’s new Windows 11 flight, Build 25169 for Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel, came with a lockdown feature for IT administrators and a new Windows Spotlight theme.

Today’s release, has one main new feature -- a Game Pass widget -- and a good number of fixes and improvements.

Describing the new Game Pass addition, Microsoft says:

This widget is a window to the extensive PC Game Pass library  -- it will show the latest additions, games leaving soon, and others from highlighted categories and then take you to the Xbox app where you can install them, see reviews, and go all in.

 This is a preview widget and Microsoft says additional functionality is coming soon that will let you sign-into your Xbox profile, jump back into recently played games and see personalized game recommendations.

To get started with it:

• Open the widgets board.
• Click on the + icon next to your user profile.
• Click on the + icon besides the Game Pass
• Close the Widget settings window.
• The Game Pass widget should now appear in your widgets board.

This is rolling out now, so some users may have to wait a short while before they see the new widget.

Elsewhere, middle clicking a folder in the navigation pane of File Explorer will now open it in a new tab. You will need to have the tabbed File Explorer to use this new feature.

Fixes in this build include:

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening new File Explorer windows.
• Fixed an issue where launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) was showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
• Fixed an issue where the left/right arrows in File Explorer were in light mode when you were using dark mode, causing them to not have enough contrast to show when they were enabled.
• Fixed an issue where the dividers in the navigation pane were overlapping / drawing too close to text sometimes.
• Fixed an issue where if you drag and drop a folder into the navigation pane was sometimes unexpectedly putting the folder at the bottom of the list rather than where you’d dropped it.
• Fixed an issue causing UI issues in File Explorer when using F11 to put File Explorer in full screen mode.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed an issue leading to various system tray elements being unexpectedly missing for some Insiders on the previous build.

[Settings]

• Fixed a crash on some PCs were experiencing when going to System > Storage > Disks & Volumes.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue which was leading to mouse and keyboard input not working correctly in certain games in the last 2 flights.
• Fixed an issue believed to be leading to SQL Server Management Studio failing to launch for some Insiders.
• Fixed an issue where Memory Integrity in Windows Security might show a warning saying it couldn’t be enabled due to incompatible drivers, but the incompatible drivers list would be blank.
• Fixed an issue which was causing some apps to unexpectedly not launch in the last few flights when core isolation was enabled in Windows Security.

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 include:

[General]

• Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
• [NEW] Microsoft is looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
• [NEW] Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue leading to some Insiders experiencing a decrease in FPS when playing certain games in recent flights due to the wrong graphics card being used.
• [NEW] Microsoft is investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.

[File Explorer]

• The left-half of the File Explorer title bar may not be draggable via mouse or touch.
• The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
• [NEW] Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue causing Home, Documents, Pictures and potentially other folders to become unexpectedly duplicated in File Explorer’s navigation pane or appear on the desktop.
• [NEW] Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
• [NEW] Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer. If you encounter this, you should still be able to use the context menu to delete.

[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.

[Printing]

• [NEW] Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue causing hangs and crashes when trying to print from certain apps (like Excel) in the last flight.
• [NEW] Microsoft is investigating reports in recent Dev Channel flights lines aren’t included when printing tables from certain apps.

Image credit: rawf8 / Shutterstock