Microsoft has released a new build, on time this week. Wednesday is the usual release schedule, and Wednesday it is when Windows 11 build 25174 made its way out to the Dev channel.
Unlike the past few releases that arrived nearer towards the weekend.
This is, as you can imagine, still version 22H2. That’s because the Sun Valley 3 development has been cancelled in favor of releasing a major new version of Windows every three years. So, for now, the Dev channel is sticking with 22H2 that will eventually release sometime in 2023.
Likely under the Windows 11 version 23H2 version naming.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, not when there is a shiny new Windows 11 build to dissect.
As Microsoft notes in the official blog post announcing build 25174, this new iteration of the preview brings in plenty of changes and improvements to go with the usual dose of bug fixes. Most of the attention this time around is on the reliably reliable File Explorer.
But before that, an introduction.
Microsoft has introduced the new Game Pass widget, which will serve as a window to the extensive PC Game Pass library for gamers that are into it. They will be able to keep tabs on the latest additions, titles leaving soon, and other games from the highlighted categories.
The widget will then take them to the Xbox app, where they will be able to install these games, see reviews, and go all in.
Available in preview, Redmond wants you to test this out from the Widgets board and provide feedback on it if they see something strange or unexpected in the widgets experience.
Getting back to File Explorer, the company has fixed an issue that would cause explorer.exe to crash when opening a new File Explorer window. Also taken care of, is a problem when launching File Explorer certain way while using the dark mode.
Several other anomalies related to File Explorer are also made history.
These go well with the rest of the issues that the software titan has mended, including those related to the Taskbar, the Setting app, and other areas of the operating system.
