Microsoft is making the Teams app on Windows 11 a whole lot less confusing, as the company is working to create a unified app that supports both personal and work or school accounts. This has been one of the most heavily requested features for Teams, and starting with Windows 11 build 26080 in the Canary and Dev channels, you can start testing it right now.

No more Teams (work or school)

For years, Microsoft has been offering two separate Microsoft Teams apps on Windows. There's the version that's preinstalled on Windows 11, which only works with personal Microsoft account. If you wanted to use Teams for work or school, you'd have to get a separate version of the app. The work-oriented app would be labeled as "Microsoft Teams (work or school)", but regardless, having two apps with the same name was confusing and it made no sense. Microsoft even had two slightly different icons for each app.

Obviously, this caused some confusion with customers, who likely opened the wrong app far too many times because of them having such identical names. It was even less logical considering that the Teams app on Anroid and iPhone can handle both personal and work accounts, so there was no reason for Windows to be different.

A unified Teams app is coming soon

If you're a Windows Insider running Windows 11 build 26080, which is rolling out today, you're one of the first to be able to use this new unified experience. For now, the new Teams app is still labeled as "work or school" and it's included alongside the old Microsoft Teams (free) app, but this will be removed in the future, and the unified app will eventually be called just Microsoft Teams.

The unified app will become generally available when Windows 11 version 24H2 releases later this year. If you're a business user who's already using the work version of Teams, the ability to log in with a personal account will be available with a standard monthly update to the app, since this new unified app is still built on top of the current app for work.

In addition to supporting all kinds of accounts, the Teams app is also getting a few other improvements that tie with it. For example, you can easily join a meeting with the app, and you can choose which account to use or use no account at all, so it's easier to join meetings. Incoming call notifications will also have a new look (if you've previously used the Teams app for personal use), and they'll show which account is receiving the call. Additionally, each account in Teams will open in a different window, if you prefer separating your accounts that way.

Copilot gets better yet again

While Teams is the headliner of Windows 11 build 26080, there's a bit more in tow, too. This build also makes the new Copilot commands announced a few weeks ago available to more people. This includes the ability to ask for available wireless networks, clean storage, and more. It also includes Power Automate integration for Copilot.

Perhaps more importantly, Microsoft has introduced a new experience for Copilot, giving you the option to turn the AI assistant into a normal application window, rather than having it docked to the side of the screen. This window can be resized and moved at will, so you can use Copilot in whatever way feels more comfortable.

Paint gets improved brush sizes

While it's not inherently part of build 26080, Microsoft has also started rolling out an update for the Paint app on Windows 11 for Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels. This new update brings a couple of notable improvements, starting with brush, pencil, and eraser sizes. Before, you'd have to choose a size from a dropdown menu with a few preset options, but now, each of these tools will show a slider on the side, allowing you to choose a more precise size for the pointer. The app will also show a preview of the size of the respective tool on the canvas, so you know right away which size is best for you.

This update also adds a new tool for choose the background for an image by using the Layers panel. At the bottom of the list of layers, you can click the Background button to choose a solid color for the background, or hide it completely to keep it transparent. Finally, you now have the option to copy content from an image including all visible layers. To do this, you have to use a new keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + C. The standard Ctrl + C shortcut will only copy content from the current active layer.

What else is new in Windows 11 build 26080

Aside from all this, Microsoft has made a few smaller improvements in the latest windows 11 preview. This includes the ability to enable live captions from the Quick Settings panel, and on the taskbar, progress bars for apps now have a new design, too.

File Explorer also has a small but significant improvement. When extracting files and there's a name conflict, you can now choose to take a specific action for all instances of the conflict, rather than choosing one at a time. Otherwise, as usual, there are a few fixes included in this build:

All of these changes are available with today's update for Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels. If you're enrolled in either of these, the new build will install sooner rather than later, but you might want to check for updates manually if you don't want to wait.