News and Interests in the taskbar get another refresh with Windows 10 Insider build 21322

Microsoft has just announced the release of Windows 10 Insider build 21322 for Insiders in the Dev Channel. This new build introduces another redesign for News and Interests inspired by user feedback, though the bad news is that Microsoft will be restarting the gradual rollout of this new feature from scratch.

If you have access to this new feature on your Insider PC, you may lose it after installing today’s build. The Windows Insider team still plans to make the new experience available for all Dev Channel Insiders soon, but for now, only a subset of Insiders will see the redesigned News and Interests flyout in the taskbar.

“The news and interests flyout experience will now show two columns of content, making it easy to quickly glance over your feed of weather, headlines, money, and more. By default, it will open via hover or click. Based on your feedback, we will also be introducing an option to only open via click in a coming update,” the team explained today.

The build 21322 will also remove the 3D Viewer and Paint 3D apps on clean installs, though the apps will remain available in the Microsoft Store. This build also removes the Math Input Panel due to “increasingly low usage,” though the experience will also remain available as an optional feature in the OS.

You can learn more about all the changes, bug fixes, and known issues in the build 21322 below:

Changes and Improvements

• Our new option to paste as plain text from clipboard history (WIN + V) is now rolling out to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
• Theme-aware splash screens have been re-enabled for everyone in the Dev Channel with this build.
• 3D Viewer and Paint 3D will no longer be preinstalled on clean installs of the latest Insider Preview builds. Both apps will still be available in the Store and will stay on your device after an OS update. So, if you upgraded your PC like normal, you shouldn’t see these apps changed in your app list.
• Due to increasingly low usage, Math Input Panel is being removed. However, the input control and math recognition engine that powered the app is remaining as an optional feature titled “Math Recognizer” which can be installed via Settings > Apps > Apps & features and clicking “Optional features”. So, while the app itself will no longer be there, the features it enabled for math equation input in OneNote, Excel, and elsewhere, will continue to work and developers can continue to utilize the input control.

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where Surface Pro X devices would bugcheck when resuming from sleep.
• We fixed an issue where devices were experiencing hangs when Xbox controller were connected while shutting down, restarting, or entering sleep in recent Dev Channel builds.
• We fixed an issue leading to the About page of Settings not being present in the previous flight.
• We fixed an issue where the OS Info link on the Windows Update Settings page did not work.
• We fixed an issue resulting in some Settings search results unexpectedly being missing in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where if you go to Settings > System > Power & Sleep it would crash Settings for some Insiders.
• We fixed an issue where the status information was not being displayed under Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update when you were up to date.
• We fixed an issue where the Chinese text for the lunar calendar in the clock and calendar flyout was not displaying properly in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where it was unexpectedly possible to scroll the quick actions area of the Action Center when the region was collapsed.
• We fixed a bug affecting GPU Compute support in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. See this GitHub issue for reference.
• We fixed an issue where clipboard history might not update to display the latest entries.
• We fixed an issue where launching an app would dismiss the touch keyboard even though you’d used the taskbar button to manually invoke it.
• We fixed an issue resulting in gifs (via the touch keyboard or emoji panel) unexpectedly being inserted as a single image in certain apps.
• We fixed an issue where when using search to insert the red heart emoji from the touch keyboard or emoji panel, in certain apps upon insertion it would unexpectedly appear black, despite the app supporting colored emoji.
• We fixed an issue where when using the new dark mode for the Pinyin IME displayed tips would be unreadable due to having black text.
• We fixed an issue when typing with certain IMEs where Narrator wouldn’t announce when you expanded or collapsed the displayed information in the candidate window.
• We fixed an issue where certain TV tuners no longer were no longer working.
• We fixed an issue that could result in your PC bugchecking when renaming a file or folder on an SD card.
• We fixed an issue where devices running Trend Micro software may randomly bugcheck.
• An issue has been fixed where devices with Bitdefender installed experienced a black screen and/or explorer.exe crashes. Resolving the issue requires an update to the Bitdefender software.

Known issues

• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. We’re continuing to work on polishing this experience.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• [News and interests] We’re addressing an issue where news and interests may not be available when signing into Windows without internet access but returns when online.
• [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with pen.
• [ARM64] Insiders who installed the preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver on the Surface Pro X may experience reduced brightness of the display. This issue is fixed with an updated version of the preview graphics driver at https://aka.ms/x64previewdriverprox. If you are experiencing this issue, please see the feedback collection for more information.
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users who upgrade to this build will be unable to use the GPU Compute feature. We’re working on a fix for this. Users who do a clean install will not be affected.
• We’re working on a fix for an issue where some devices with Realtek network adapters running driver version 1.0.0.4 may experience intermittent loss of network connectivity.
• We are investigating an issue where on some high-refresh-rate monitors, games will only run at 60Hz. Variable-refresh-rate monitor scenarios may also result in tearing.
• The network flyout on the login screen doesn’t open on this build, which will prevent you from connecting to a new network before logging in. If your account is in a state that requires internet to log in, you can work around the issue by plugging in Ethernet, getting the device in range of a previously configured Wi-Fi network, or logging in with any other available account first.
• We’re working on a fix to address a DWM memory leak that was introduced in the previous flight.

News and Interests in the taskbar is the main new feature we’ve seen in recent Insider builds, and we hope to see more additions soon. Last week, the build 21327 also introduced new system icons inspired by the Microsoft Fluent Design style, and this is hopefully just a teaser for the “Sun Valley” design update coming later this year.