Windows 11 24H2 KB5046740 is out with a ton of new features for jump lists, taskbar, more

This month"s C-updates for Windows 10 and 11 are now available for download. If you are on the latest Windows 11 release, you can download KB5046740 to get its massive list of changes and quite a lot of new features and quality improvements. Since the update is a non-security one, feel free to skip it (Microsoft is also skipping next month"s non-security updates).

Here are the features that Microsoft is rolling out gradually in KB5046740:

• [Settings] New! Tailored Experiences is now Personalized offers in the out of box experience (OOBE). You can find it on the Recommendations and offers page. Go to Settings > Privacy & security. Here, you can turn off the setting that sends data about your device to enhance Windows.
• [Taskbar]
  • New! The system tray shows a shortened date and time. Also, the notification bell icon might not show if you have set the toggle for “Do not disturb” to on. If the bell icon does not show, click the date and time to view your messages in the notification center. To go back to the long form of the date and time, go to Settings > Date and Time. Then turn on the toggle for “Show time and day in the system tray.” To show the bell icon, go to Settings > System > Notifications. Turn on the toggle for “Notifications.” You can also get to these settings using the context menu. Just right click the system tray clock or bell icon.
  • Fixed: When you choose "Automatically hide the taskbar," the search box shows as an icon, not as a search box.
• [Start menu] New! When you right-click apps that you have pinned to the Start menu, jump lists will appear for apps that have jump lists.
• [Touchscreen] New! This update adds a new section for touchscreen edge gestures. Go to Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touch. There, you can choose if you would like to turn off the left or right screen edge touch gesture.
• [Input Method Editor (IME)] New! After you install this update, the IME toolbar will hide when apps are in full screen mode. This only occurs when the IME toolbar is active and you type Chinese or Japanese characters.

[File Explorer]

• New! You can share content to an Android device from the context menu in File Explorer and on the desktop. To use this feature, you must install and configure Phone Link on your PC.
• Fixed: There might be more space than you expect between the items listed in the left pane.
• Fixed: The search box is cut off when the File Explorer window is small.
• [Dynamic Lighting Settings page]
  • New! Its page will show a placeholder message when there is no compatible device attached to your computer. Also, the Brightness and Effects controls will be off.
  • New! This update adds the Forward, Backward, Outward, and Inward direction options to the Wave effect. The Gradient effect now has the Forward direction option.
• [Jump lists] New! If you hold Shift and CTRL and click a jump list item, this opens the item as an admin.
• [Speech in Windows] New! This update improves the speech-to-text and text-to-speech features in Windows. You might get a message that asks you to update your language files manually. You can get those files from Microsoft Store. This change affects those of you who use Narrator, voice access, live captions, live translations, and voice typing.
• [Display]
  • Fixed: App windows might collect in the corner of a monitor after your device goes to sleep. This occurs when you use multiple monitors.
  • Fixed: Mica material might not display correctly. This occurs when you use a slideshow background.​​​​​​​
  • Fixed: Some secondary displays might experience lag and screen tearing when a window is in full screen.
• [Mouse] Fixed: When you use the "Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key," the circles might be tiny on some displays.
• [Clipboard] Fixed: Clipboard history (Windows logo key plus sign (+) V) might show no content. This issue occurs even though it is on, and you have copied text and images.

And here are the changes that are rolling out to everyone:

• ​​​​​​​[Mouse and game bar] Fixed: Your mouse might unlock from the game window. This occurs when you have multiple monitors and open and close the game bar.

KB5046740 also includes a few more technical changes and improvements. Here are the ones that are rolling out gradually:

• [Task Manager]
  • New! The Disconnect and Logoff dialogs now support dark mode and text scaling.
  • New! The Performance section now shows the type for each disk.
• [IFilters] New! Windows Search runs IFilters in Less Privileged App Containers (LPAC). LPACs are like app containers, but they deny more permissions by default. A process that runs in an LPAC only has access to the resources it needs. The process does not have access to sensitive system components and data. This reduces the potential damage that a compromised process can cause. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
• [DISM] Fixed: The StartComponentCleanup task does not work properly. It stops at 71% and shows error 6842.
• [PowerShell] Fixed: The Get-WindowsCapability command sometimes fails. Then you have to restart your PC.
• [Windows Update] Fixed: When you install an update, you might get error 0x800f0905.
• [JPG files] Fixed: You cannot use an API to find rotation information.

And here is the rest:

• [HTML Applications (HTA)] Fixed: HTA optional components (OC) are now in ARM64 Windows PE.
• [Task Manager] Fixed: The Users page might cause Task Manager to stop responding when you use the keyboard.
• ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​[Graphics Device Interface Plus (GDI+)]
  • Fixed: You cannot get the properties of image files using GDI+.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • ​​​​​​​Fixed: Scaling is wrong when you re-encode images in GDI+.
• ​​​​​​​[RAW format images] Fixed: They show in the wrong orientation.
• [Exporting chart objects] Fixed: An app stops responding when it exports chart objects in PDF and XLSX formats. ​​​​​​​
• [Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)] Fixed: It stops working and will not start up. ​​​​​​​

Known issues in Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.2454 are unchanged, and they only include the inability to play Roblox from the Microsoft Store on ARM devices:

You can update KB5046740 from Windows Update. Alternatively, get its offline install package from the Microsoft Update Catalog here.