Look at me, I’m the captain now! Microsoft has gotten back to its Wednesday 10 am release cadence for Windows 11 preview builds that we all know and love.
This time, the company has introduced three builds, one in the Dev channel and a couple in the Beta.
Dev channel users now have access to Windows 11 build 25188, which comes with a bunch of welcome changes and quality improvements, even a new Store.
Things start with some new options for the touch keyboard settings, the migration of more legacy settings to the new Settings app, as well as making the Windows Terminal the default terminal option in the operating system.
Redmond details this new release here.
In terms of additions, we start with the update touch keyboard settings, where the company is trying out a new touch keyboard setting that replaces the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” checkbox in Settings > Time & language > Typing > Touch keyboard.
A new dropdown menu opens up to list 3 options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard.
- Never suppresses the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
- When no keyboard attached will show the touch keyboard only when the device is used as a tablet without the hardware keyboard.
- Always will show the touch keyboard even when the hardware keyboard is attached.
This new experience is just being rolled out, so is not available to all Insiders just yet. The company will monitor feedback before pushing it out to everyone.
Then we have the shiny new Windows Terminal that has now become the default terminal in Windows 11. What this means is that all command line applications like Command Prompt and PowerShell will open in this automatically.
You will need Windows Terminal version 1.15 or greater for this takeover.
Then we have a long list of bug fixes and other improvements the details of which you can collect from the announcement post above. A fair few known issues have also made their way to this build.
Do note that this is still version 22H2 of the operating system, as Sun Valley 3 development has given way to the new strategy of releasing a major new version of Windows every three years. Dev channel is sticking with this version that will release under the Windows 11 23H2 naming in 2023.
