With the new year now in full swing, Microsoft is back on its weekly schedule for new Windows 11 builds in the Dev channel of the Insider program, and today, users are getting build 25276. The second build of 2023 brings a few more changes than the first, the most notable being the ability to create live kernel memory dumps in Task Manager.
This gives developers a new way to troubleshoot their apps and detect abnormal behavior. You can create live memory dumps by searching for the System process in Task Manager, right-clicking it, and choosing Create live kernel memory dump file. You have the option to choose between a full live kernel memory dump or a kernel stacks memory dump. You can also change certain settings for these, such as whether the process should stop if the system is out of memory, or if hypervisor pages should be included.
Outlook attachments in cloud storage settings
A couple of months ago, Microsoft began redesigning the cloud storage information in the Settings app to prepare for some changes to the way cloud storage is handled across its services. The update made it easier to see what's using up space in your cloud storage, such as OneDrive files and Outlook attachments. Starting with this build, some Insiders will now see how much space is being used by their Outlook attachments, which now count towards the total amount of cloud storage available on their accounts.
This change is rolling out to a small group of Insiders for now, so it may not show up for everyone just yet.
Network troubleshooter is replaced by the Get Help app
Hidden at the end of Microsoft's announcement post is a potentially big piece of news. Starting with this build, the Network Troubleshooter, which helps users detect potential problems in their internet connection, is being replaced with a new experience in the Get Help app. This will essentially have the same goal of getting you back online, and Microsoft says it's designed to target the 30 most common issues users have with internet connectivity.
More design tweaks
Microsoft is also continuing to update the design of certain parts of Windows 11 to make it look more consistent, and this time, it's updating the app compatibility dialog that appears for apps that have known compatibility issues. The new dialog has redesigned buttons, though it doesn't look all that different.
On that note, Microsoft has temporarily removed the redesigned Windows Security dialog that's been around for a while. The company will be addressing some bugs with the new design and reimplementing it at a later date.
Aside from these changes, there isn't a whole lot that's new in this build. For Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft is making it so that you can't connect to a remote share using guest credentials by default, even if the server requests them. This matches the behavior on Enterprise and Education editions of Windows, and the goal is to reinforce security.
Of course, the build comes with the usual list of fixes, which you can find below:
[Taskbar & System Tray]
- Fixed an issue where switching windows through taskbar previews wasn’t working.
- Fixed multiple explorer.exe crashes affecting the system tray.
- When opening a flyout from the taskbar, pressing the Esc key to close the flyout should now return keyboard focus to the button it was invoked from.
[Search on the Taskbar]
The fixes only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments for how search looks on the taskbar that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25252:
- We fixed the layout issues with the text in the search box on taskbar when using right-to-left display languages like Arabic.
- Fixed an issue where the selected search style in Taskbar Settings wasn’t persisting across updates. This setting should persist now on subsequent Insider Preview build upgrades.
[File Explorer]
- Fixed an explorer.exe crash which could happen when opening File Explorer, related to loading your recent files.
[Voice access]
- Voice access will now work correctly for entering numbers in the Calculator app.
- Fixed a crash when giving move left and right commands with voice access.
[Input]
- Fixed an issue where the “insert text” button wasn’t working when using the Pinyin IME in double pinyin mode.
[Widgets]
- Fixed an issue where the widgets board will get stuck open in an invisible state for Insiders in China (and potentially others), causing clicks on the left side of the screen to not work. If you’re continuing to experience this, please make sure to check the Microsoft Store for the latest app updates.
[Other]
- To improve clarity, when Windows Defender Credential Guard is enabled, when attempting to use remote desktop with default credentials, it will now explicitly say “Windows Defender Credential Guard does not allow using Windows logon credentials. Please enter your credentials”.
As usual, there's also a sizeable list of known issues in this release. This includes an issue affecting Arm64 devices not being able to use Windows Hello facial recognition. Here's the full list:
[General]
- Using Windows Hello to sign in with facial recognition may not work on Arm64 PCs. A workaround for this is to use the Hello PIN path.
- [NEW] Some users are experiencing longer than expected update times installing recent builds. We are actively investigating this issue.
- [NEW] We’re investigating reports that some Insiders are experiencing freezes when using the browser and certain other apps after the previous Dev Channel flight.
[Taskbar & System Tray]
- The taskbar is sometimes cropped in half when using the tablet-optimized taskbar. You may also see this issue on secondary monitors.
[Search on the Taskbar]
The following known issues only apply for Windows Insiders who received one of the different treatments for how search looks on the taskbar that began rolling out to Insiders with Build 25252:
- There is an issue where you will be unable to change taskbar search box to show as icon only via taskbar settings in some cases. To work around this issue, first change to a different option and then after, you should be able to choose to show as icon only.
[Task Manager]
- Some dialogs may not render in the correct theme when applied from Task Manager Settings page.
- The data content area of the Processes page may flash once when theme changes are applied in the Task Manager Settings page.
[Widgets]
- 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.
Windows 11 build 25276 is available right now through Windows Update if you're enrolled in the Dev channel, and it will be downloaded automatically if you don't choose to do it manually.
Source: Microsoft