Windows update preview: Bug fixes, more compression methods and emojis
Microsoft is distributing the update previews for Windows 11. In addition to bug fixes, there are also new features for everyone.
Windows updates are available.
(Image: Bild erstellt mit KI in Bing Designer durch heise online / dmk)
Microsoft is distributing the preview of the non-security-related Windows update components of the upcoming Patchday. These include corrections to annoying bugs, but the update also includes new functions.
According to Microsoft's version announcement, the Windows 11 update KB5039302 upgrades Windows 11 to build numbers 22621.3810 and 22631.3810. According to Microsoft, corrections for the snipping tool for creating screenshots are part of the rollout and immediately available for all recipients. Sound interference and distortions could occur in video recordings.
New functions will follow gradually after installation
The update resolves a problem that prevented USB devices from being ejected using "Safely Remove Hardware". This occurred when the Task Manager was open. When using Japanese 106-key keyboards, special characters could not be entered via the touch keyboard, which now works again.
Microsoft only activates new functions bit by bit over time - so not all users will have immediate access to them after the update. This includes the "Compress to" function in the context menu of the file explorer. This should now make it possible to create 7-zip and .tar archives. Tools such as gzip and bzip2 can also be called up. The compression wizard in the "additional options" provides a larger selection of formats and allows details to be set. Even compression levels can be set there.
New emojis
Microsoft is also updating support for emojis to Unicode 15.1. The developers describe six new emojis: horizontal and vertical head shake, Phoenix, lime, brown mushroom and a broken chain. A "Show desktop" button is to return to the taskbar. It can be switched off again in the taskbar settings if required.
Other new features are more of a promotional nature: a new account manager in the Start menu should provide information on the benefits of the account when using a Microsoft account for Windows login and quickly lead to the relevant settings. In addition, a new Game Pass recommendation card will appear on the settings start page, at least in the Home and Pro versions of Windows 11. It will only appear when users are actively playing games on their devices.
Other minor details include the unit for displaying DDR memory speeds changing from MHz to megatransfers per second (MT/s), which better describes the data throughput in technical terms, and the Task Manager releasing process handles more quickly after a process has been stopped. The Task Manager should also be more reliable and the sorting order of the processes changed in favor of better performance.
If you would like to try out the optional update preview now, it will be offered when you manually search for updates. If the option "Get the latest updates as soon as they are available" has been activated, Windows will automatically download and install them. The preview version is used to test whether the functions are stable. They may therefore still contain errors. The preview in May, for example, sometimes led to problems with the taskbar and could not be installed on Macs.
(dmk)