Windows 11 Insider Experimental Build Brings Unicode 17 and Recovery Upgrades

Windows 11 Insider Experimental Preview Build 26340.9596 is now available, bringing Unicode 17.0 support, a new File Explorer shortcut, recovery changes, and several Settings improvements.

Microsoft recently released Windows 11 Beta Preview Build 26220.9587, but the company has also rolled out Windows 11 Insider Experimental Preview Build 26340.9596 with a similar set of changes and a few additions aimed at File Explorer and navigation.

Windows 11 adds Unicode 17.0 support

One of the biggest changes in the new Experimental Preview build is support for Unicode 17.0 text shaping.

The update allows Windows to display newly encoded characters and writing systems introduced with the latest Unicode standard more accurately.

Unicode 17.0 includes 4,803 additional characters and four new scripts: Beria Erfe, Sidetic, Tai Yo, and Tolong Siki.

The change should improve support for languages and writing systems that rely on characters added in the latest Unicode release.

File Explorer gets a faster way to reach your profile folder

Microsoft is also making a small but useful change to File Explorer’s address bar.

Users can now type ~ into the address bar to quickly open their Windows profile folder. The shortcut also works with subfolders, so entering ~\AppData can take users directly to the AppData folder.

This gives advanced users and anyone who frequently navigates through profile directories a faster alternative to manually entering the full folder path.

Settings and Cloud Rebuild get improvements

Microsoft is continuing to work on Settings performance in the Experimental channel.

The company says it has improved the Settings home page to reduce loading times in some scenarios, which could make the app feel more responsive when opening its main page.

Cloud Rebuild is also becoming easier to access. Microsoft has added a new entry point under Settings > System > Recovery, making the recovery feature more visible without requiring users to search for it elsewhere.

Error 0x80073712 may block the update

Microsoft is also tracking a known installation issue with the build.

Some Windows Insiders may encounter error 0x80073712 when trying to install the latest update. Microsoft believes Windows Sandbox may cause the problem in some cases.

As a temporary workaround, the company recommends disabling Windows Sandbox before attempting the installation again.

Users who rely on Sandbox can re-enable the feature after successfully installing the build.

Microsoft will likely continue investigating the issue as testing progresses through the Experimental channel.

In other Windows 11 news, POP4.2 Just Bypassed Microsoft’s Windows 11 26H2 CPU requirements, showing another way unsupported systems may continue running Microsoft’s latest operating system releases.