Microsoft quietly drops this feature from Windows 11 build 23440

This week, Microsoft released two new builds for Windows 11 Insiders, that is, build 23440 for the Dev Channel and build 25346 for the Canary Channel. The Dev Channel build in particular shipped with tons of changes as well as improvements for the Start Menu, Taskbar, Search on the Taskbar, and more.

However, Microsoft has quietly pulled the Search on the Taskbar changes and improvements that shipped with the build. While making the release the company had indicated that:

We are exploring a new hover behavior for the search box and search highlight gleam. The proposed interaction model aims to create a more engaging search experience by invoking the search flyout when you hover over the search box gleam. This behavior can be adjusted by right-clicking on the taskbar, choosing “Taskbar settings” and adjusting your preferred search box experience

But, these changes are no longer part of the release. Microsoft made an update on the changelog yesterday indicating that it has disabled the feature. The company resulted to this move after discovering an issue shortly after making the release.

Microsoft has indicated that it intends to bring this feature back via a future release. In the changelog, the company had also indicated that the new build shipped with several known issues. The company stated that

[Search on the Taskbar]
There is an issue where some people may not see the search box on the taskbar and/or the settings to adjust the search box experience on the taskbar after updating to Build 23403. We are aware of the issue, and we are working on a fix.

Perhaps this might be the issue that caused it to drop the feature from the 23440 release. Share your thoughts with us in the comments.