Windows 11 Dev build 25211 finally brings Task Manager with a right click, and more

Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 Insider build 25211 to the Dev Channel. This is still version 22H2, since the Sun Valley 3 development, which was known as Windows 11 23H2, has seemingly been canceled in favor of releasing a major new Windows version every three years. So for now, the Dev Channel is sticking with version 22H2, which may eventually release sometime in 2023.

Here is the full changelog for Build 25211:

What’s new

Widgets settings

In this update, we have separated the widget picker and Widgets settings to make it easier for you to find and interact with each view. Now, the widget picker is opened by the “+” button and Widgets settings is opened by the “Me” button. We re-used the space the picker used to take in Widget settings to cover the highly requested taskbar settings based on Insider feedback to give you control over how the Widgets entry works on your taskbar.

When you open Widgets settings by clicking on the “Me” button shown above, you will see three taskbar behaviors that you can toggle on or off.

Please note the wording for the toggles in Widget settings is slightly different in this build over what’s shown in the above screenshot. In a future update, the text for the toggles in Widget settings will be updated to reflect what is in the (above) screenshot.

With the toggles in Widget settings, you can:

• Control whether the Widgets board opens when you hover over the taskbar icon.
• Control whether Widgets will show notification badging on the taskbar.
• Control whether live Widget content on the taskbar shows more than weather.

[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Widgets.

Here are the changes and Improvements:

[Taskbar]

• Based on your feedback, we’ve added a link to Task Manager when right-clicking on the taskbar. Let us know what you think!

[System Tray]

• This build includes preliminary support to rearrange system tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with Build 25197. Further improvements for this experience are coming soon. As a reminder, these System Tray updates are still rolling out and are not available to all Insiders just yet. If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue where the top part of File Explorer (with the search and address box) couldn’t be interacted with when File Explorer was in full screen mode (F11).

[Settings]

• For the time being, you will no longer be able to uninstall apps with inter-dependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam) or repair Win32 apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps. You will still be able to modify and uninstall Win32 apps without inter-dependencies.

Here are the bug fixes:

[General]

• We are beginning to roll out a server-side fix for the issue causing a “date, time and time zone settings are incorrect” message to be improperly displayed, which was also preventing the installation of the latest Insider Preview builds from proceeding.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed the issue where the command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin were unexpectedly not be enabled sometimes when they have been.
• Fixed an issue which was causing unexpected black bars on the sides of horizontal scrollbars when using dark mode.

[Start]

• When you have Start set to show more pinned items, the animation for opening folders lower on the page will now appear from the right place.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed a high hitting Shell Experience Host crash in recent Dev Channel builds, impacting Quick Settings launch reliability.

[Input]

• The gripper for moving the emoji panel and touch keyboard should now update color correctly when you switch between dark and light mode.
• Fixed a memory leak when repeatedly invoking the input switcher.

[Settings]

• Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when changing your mobile hotspot name.
• Updated the examples used in the Short time selection under Time & Language > Language & Region > Regional Format, to make the 12 hour options (vs 24 hour) a little more obvious by showing morning and afternoon times.

[Task Manager]

• Tweaked the graphs in the Performance page to use a bit more transparency so it’s easier to see the grid lines underneath.
• Made another fix to improve Task Manager reliability.
• Fixed a black flash while might be seen when launching Task Manager in light mode.
• Fixed a few issues where the font color of certain elements wasn’t correct / readable when using a contrast theme.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue where Narrator would read out the details of the calendar that opens from selecting the date and time from the taskbar when it was collapsed.
• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing repeatedly in Windows Sandbox for Insiders with the tablet optimized taskbar and updated system tray.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when opening the Open File Dialog.
• Fixed an issue which was making the screen go black for some Insiders when enabling HDR recently.
• Fixed an issue where after using the Open With dialog, the process might stay running even if it wasn’t in use anymore.
• Fixed an issue which was leading to increased CPU usage for WSL2 users on ARM64 PCs even when WSL was idle.
• Fixed an issue where closing the print dialog could lead to an app crash in the last couple flights.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Finally we have the known issues:

[General]

• We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
• We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
• [NEW] We’re investigating reports that various UI elements in apps appear to be disappearing and reappearing sometimes in recent builds.

[Tablet-optimized taskbar]

• The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
• When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
• When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.

[Widgets]

• In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.

You can find the official blog post here.