Microsoft releases Windows 11 Build 25201 with expanded widget view

After a couple of weeks of rolling out new builds on a Thursday -- and following on from the release of twin beta builds earlier this week -- Microsoft is back to its usual Wednesday release schedule for Insiders in the Dev Channel.

Build 25201 sees Microsoft beginning to roll out a handy expanded view for widgets, and also a useful update to the Game Pass widget.

The expanded view in widgets will give you more space so you can see everything at a glance. Use the expand and collapse button at the top right corner (next to the add widgets button), to expand or collapse the board. Windows will remember your preference.

This feature is being rolled out slowly, so won’t be available to all insiders just yet.

In a previous build Microsoft introduced a preview of the Game Pass widget and today it gets an update which makes it possible to sign in with your Xbox profile. Once signed-in, the widget will show all of Game Pass games on offer.

Microsoft details the following changes and improvements in this build:

[General]

• Thank you to all the Insiders who gave us feedback on the different visual treatments for search on the taskbar! Starting with this week’s flight, we are concluding the exploration of these treatments, so if you received this experience, it will be removed on your next reboot.

[File Explorer]

• File Explorer search will now show results as you type. The full search results page will update live without needing to press enter. We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet.
• We’re experimenting with adding more cloud files to search results from Home.

Fixes include:

[General]

• Fixed the issue in the last few flights causing a bugcheck when moving your mouse in certain games.

[File Explorer]

• As a one-time change to help people find their folders with the navigation pane updates, if the default folders pinned to File Explorer’s navigation pane had been unpinned, they will be re-pinned after upgrading.
• Fixed a memory leak which was happening when closing File Explorer windows.

[Taskbar]

• The apps in the taskbar overflow flyout should now be in the correct order when using an Arabic or Hebrew display language.

[Input]

• Fixed an issue where if you hadn’t already opened OneNote once, using the pen click to invoke OneNote wouldn’t work.
• Made a change to help address an issue where it wasn’t possible to use the Pinyin IME to type in the chat box of certain games.

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue which was causing sporadic Settings app crashes.
• Removed an erroneous white pixel in the icon animation when clicking the Apps category in Settings.

[Widgets]

• We have fixed the issue where in some cases, the notification banner for some badging would not appear in the widgets board.

[Windowing]

• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing if you dragged a snap group in Task View and dropped it into another Desktop.
• Fixed an issue related to interacting with the Desktops flyout in the taskbar which was causing periodic explorer.exe crashes.
• Fixed a DWM crash in the last few flights which could lead to a brief black screen when rotating a tablet.
• Fixed a rare issue which could cause a DWM crash when watching videos in certain UWP apps in recent builds.

[Task Manager]

• Fixed an issue impacting Task Manager reliability.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to unexpectedly get the message “it is not possible to connect to this network” when connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks recently, although the network was working with other devices.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to Windows Sandbox opening to just a black window on certain PCs.

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 are:

[General]

• We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
• We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
• We’re investigating reports that some Insiders are seeing OneDrive setup asking for permission to set up every time their PC reboots.

[File Explorer]

• We’re working on the fix for an issue where command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin may unexpectedly not be enabled when they should be.

[Settings]

• We’re investigating some issues where uninstalling certain apps using Settings > Apps > Installed apps isn’t working correctly.

[Tablet-optimized taskbar]

• The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
• When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
• When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.

[Widgets]

• [NEW] In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.