Taskbar Repositioning Option Now Live With New Windows 11 Experimental (Dev) Build

Microsoft has released a new Beta build, as well as a new Windows 11 26300.8493 build, to the Experimental channel.

Taskbar customization gets major improvements

The new build brings some interesting changes, such as the ability to finally change the Taskbar position, allowing users to move it to any side of the screen. There’s also an option to make the Taskbar smaller if you need more screen space.

It’s worth mentioning that while you can change the Taskbar position, some related features are still unfinished, such as touch gestures, search box support, Copilot integration, and the ability to auto-hide the Taskbar.

Widgets now match your accent color, and Search gets more reliable

Widgets have been improved as well, and now the widget badge will match your Windows accent color instead of being red, so it’s less distracting.

Search has also received improvements, and it’s now more reliable, showing local files and apps instead of web results. This has been an issue for a while, and Microsoft has acknowledged that it is working on fixing the search results.

An improved version of Fluid Diction is also available, and it now supports both Spanish and French. The feature is powered by on-device small language models.

The build also replaces legacy spinners with modern versions. You can find the new spinners in various locations, ranging from boot menus to login screens.

Performance and reliability improvements

Performance improvements are also present, and the build brings early logon performance optimization, better desktop switching reliability, and better sleep-state reliability after updates.

SSDP reliability has been improved, and DISM repair options have been made more reliable. The update also fixes File Explorer and Run issues. However, this update has issues with the Reset this PC feature, and the reset can fail or freeze when using local reset instead of the cloud option.

This Experimental build brings many welcome improvements, especially the Taskbar customization options. However, that’s not all, as another Experimental build is also available alongside the Experimental (Canary) Build 29591.