After installing build 25201, you can expand your widgets board in the taskbar even wider than before to get a good glance at all your widgets. Also, you can now log into the Game Pass widget using your Xbox account. With this, some other improvements and fixes have also been made. Let us look at the details of these improvements and the issues.
New in Windows 11 Build 25201
Expandable Widgets Board
Note: This feature is gradually rolling out to the Dev users and may not be available to everyone right now. You can now expand the widgets board in the taskbar to an even wider board to fit all your widgets on a single screen, so you would have to roll the scroll bar less. The widgets board can be expanded by clicking on the button at the top-right corner of the board.Expand collapse widgets board. Source: Microsoft The size you set will be the size of the board every time you open it unless you manually change it by dragging its corners.
Improvements to Game Pass Widget
Note: This feature is also beginning to roll out and will gradually make its way to all Insiders on the Dev channel. Several improvements have been made to the Game Pass widget that was introduced a few weeks ago. Now, you can log into your Xbox account from the Game Pass widget which previously was not an option. Moreover, the widget will also display the PC Game Pass titles you have recently played so you can dive right in and continue from where you left off.Signed in to the Game Pass widget
Other Improvements and Fixes
Other changes and fixes have also been made with this flight:
[General]Microsoft is now concluding the visual experiments with the taskbar, which began with Build 25158. If you receive any of the relevant updates to the taskbar, they will be removed after upgrading to Build 25201.An issue in the last few flights causing a bugcheck when moving your mouse in certain games is fixed.[File Explorer]File Explorer search will now show results as you type. The full search results page will be updated live without needing to press enter.Microsoft is experimenting with adding more cloud files to search results from Home.As a one-time change to help people find their folders with navigation pane updates, if the default folders pinned to File Explorer’s navigation pane have been unpinned, they will be re-pinned after upgrading.A memory leak that was happening when closing File Explorer windows is now fixed.[Taskbar]The apps in the taskbar overflow flyout should now be in the correct order when using an Arabic or Hebrew display language.[Input]An issue where if you hadn’t already opened OneNote once, using the pen click to invoke OneNote wouldn’t work, has been addressed.A change has been made 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]An issue that was causing sporadic Settings app crashes is now fixed.An erroneous white pixel in the icon animations in the Settings app has been removed.[Widgets]An issue causing the notification banner for some badging to not appear in the widgets board has been fixed.[Windowing]An issue where explorer.exe was crashing if you dragged a snap group in Task View and dropped it into another Desktop is fixed.An issue related to interacting with the Desktops flyout in the taskbar that was causing periodic explorer.exe crashes has been addressed.A DWM crash in the last few flights which could lead to a brief black screen when rotating a tablet has been addressed.A rare issue that could cause a DWM crash when watching videos in certain UWP apps in recent builds has been addressed.[Task Manager]An issue impacting Task Manager reliability is taken care of.[Other]An issue that caused 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, is now addressed.An issue that could lead to Windows Sandbox opening to just a black window on certain PCs has been fixed.
With these new features, improvements, and fixes, there are also a few known issues we think you should know about before upgrading to this build.
Known Issues
[General]There are reports that the audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.There are reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.There are reports that some Insiders are seeing OneDrive setup asking for permission to set up every time their PC reboots.[File Explorer]There’s an issue where command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin may unexpectedly not be enabled when they should be.[Settings]There are 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 to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar, respectively.When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to the collapsed state.When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.[Widgets]In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to the expanded view of the widgets board.The notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
Many of these issues seem to be there through the last several flights. However, with the introduction of the new feature; expandable widgets board, there is a new issue relating to that too.
Download and Install Windows 11 Build 25201
To install this update, you either need to be running Windows 11 and subscribed to the Dev channel, or perform a clean install using the ISO image provided by Microsoft.
Windows Update
If you have enabled Windows updates, you will automatically get a “New features are ready to install” prompt. Follow the steps below to upgrade to this build: Once the computer restarts, you can verify that the OS has been updated by typing in winver in the Run Command box.Windows 11 Dev channel updated Click Download and install in front of it.Download and install the update
Download Windows 11 Build 25201 ISO Image
You can also download the ISO image for Windows 11 Build 25201 and perform a clean install. Here is how: You are now set to perform a fresh installation of Windows 11 Dev Build 25201 using the downloaded ISO image. Learn how to create a multiboot USB installation media using Ventoy.
Rollback/Remove Windows 11 Insider Preview Update
If you do not wish to keep the installed preview update for some reason, you can always roll back to the previous build of the OS. However, this can only be performed within the next 10 days after installing the new update. To roll back after 10 days, you will need to apply this trick.
Cleanup After Installing Windows Updates
If you want to save space after installing Windows updates, you can run the following commands one after the other in Command Prompt with administrative privileges: Also see:
Windows 11 Build 25217 Supports Third-Party Widgets And New Video Calling ExperienceDownload Windows 11 Build 25179 ISO Image With FixesWindows 11 Build 25197 Brings Taskbar Changes & Animated IconsWindows 11 Build 25227 Improves Windows Update ManagementWindows 11 Build 25206 Limits Brute Force Attacks
