Windows 11 Build 25174 is out now for all Dev Channel Insiders

Microsoft is focused on delivering the best quality for its latest operating system, and its a trend that it will surely follow with Windows 12 as well.

Also know that the startup sound quality for the 22H2 version of Windows 11 has been lowered by the tech giant, in an effort to make the OS less resource-hungry.

Wondering what all this costs and what kind of financial benefits the Redmond-based tech giant gets? Read about it in the latest quarterly income report.

Yesterday, the Redmond tech giant flighted two more builds to the Beta channel, in the form of KB5016700, so it was time for the Dev channel insiders to get their software tweaks.

Furthermore, since we’re on the topic of updates, Nvidia released critical security updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 as well.

The Windows Subsystem for Android also got an important update and got bumped to version 2206.40000.15.0.

Now to the matter at hand, Microsoft has just released Windows 11 Insider build 25174 to the Dev Channel. Let’s see what this update is all about.

What’s new in build 25174?

The tech giant stated that, for the past couple of months, it has been working with the Xbox team to make Windows and PC Game Pass an even better combination.

Thus, today it is announcing something new for gaming and our widgets experience, which is the Game Pass widget preview.

This brand new widget is a window to the extensive PC Game Pass library, and it will show the latest additions, games leaving soon, and others from highlighted categories and then take you to the Xbox app where you can install them, see reviews, and go all in.

Let’s take a closer look at the rest of the changelog and discover all the improvements, fixes, as well as known issues together.

Changes and Improvements

[File Explorer]

• Middle clicking a folder in the navigation pane of File Explorer will now open it in a new tab, like clicking a folder in the body of File Explorer already does. Please note that this requires tabbed File Explorer, which hasn’t rolled out to everyone in the Dev Channel yet.

Fixes

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue which could cause explorer.exe to crash when opening new File Explorer windows.
• Fixed an issue where launching File Explorer in certain ways when using dark mode (for example, from the command line) was showing the body of File Explorer unexpectedly in light mode.
• Fixed an issue where the left/right arrows in File Explorer were in light mode when you were using dark mode, causing them to not have enough contrast to show when they were enabled.
• Fixed an issue where the dividers in the navigation pane were overlapping / drawing too close to text sometimes.
• Fixed an issue where if you drag and drop a folder into the navigation pane was sometimes unexpectedly putting the folder at the bottom of the list rather than where you’d dropped it.
• Fixed an issue causing UI issues in File Explorer when using F11 to put File Explorer in full screen mode.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed an issue leading to various system tray elements being unexpectedly missing for some Insiders on the previous build.

[Settings]

• Fixed a crash on some PCs were experiencing when going to System > Storage > Disks & Volumes.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue which was leading to mouse and keyboard input not working correctly in certain games in the last 2 flights.
• Fixed an issue believed to be leading to SQL Server Management Studio failing to launch for some Insiders.
• Fixed an issue where Memory Integrity in Windows Security might show a warning saying it couldn’t be enabled due to incompatible drivers, but the incompatible drivers list would be blank.
• Fixed an issue which was causing some apps to unexpectedly not launch in the last few flights when core isolation was enabled in Windows Security.

Known issues

[General]

• Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
• [NEW] We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the last flight.
• [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue leading to some Insiders experiencing a decrease in FPS when playing certain games in recent flights due to the wrong graphics card being used.
• [NEW] We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.

[File Explorer]

• The left-half of the File Explorer title bar may not be draggable via mouse or touch.
• The up arrow is misaligned in File Explorer tabs. This will be fixed in a future update.
• [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing Home, Documents, Pictures and potentially other folders to become unexpectedly duplicated in File Explorer’s navigation pane or appear on the desktop.
• [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue where the search box background in File Explorer might be the opposite color of your current mode.
• [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing the delete key to unexpectedly not work on files in File Explorer. If you encounter this, you should still be able to use the context menu to delete.

[Widgets]

• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.
• In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board.
• We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default.

[Printing]

• [NEW] We’re working on a fix for an issue causing hangs and crashes when trying to print from certain apps (like Excel) in the last flight.
• [NEW] We’re investigating reports in recent Dev Channel flights lines aren’t included when printing tables from certain apps.

What can I do if KB5016700 fails to install?

1. Press Win+ I to access Settings.
2. Select the System category and click on Troubleshoot.
3. Press the Other troubleshooters button.
4. Press the Run button next to Windows Update.

There you have it, folks! Everything you can expect if you are a Dev channel Insider. Leave a comment below if you found any issues since installing this build.