Microsoft Releases November Optional Updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10

Microsoft has just released the November optional updates for all supported versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10. This is pretty rare, but patches for Windows 11 versions 24H2 (KB5046740) and 23H2/22H2 (KB5046732) are available at the same time, and the list of changes is quite similar across both versions of the OS.

Overall, Microsoft is bringing a lot of minor changes that it has been testing with Windows Insiders in recent weeks. Most of these changes will be rolling out gradually, and you can find the main highlights below:

System tray: The system tray area of the taskbar now shows a shortened date and time, and the notification bell icon might not show if you have set the toggle for “Do not disturb” to on. This can be disabled in Settings.

Start menu: When right-clicking apps that are pinned to the Start menu, jump lists will appear for apps that support them.

Jump lists: Holding Shift and CTRL and clicking a jump list item will open it as an admin.

Touchscreen gestures: A new section for touchscreen edge gestures in Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touch lets users turn off the left or right screen edge touch gestures.

File Explorer: After installing and configuring Phone Link, users will be able to share content to an Android device from the context menu in File Explorer and on the desktop.

Dynamic Lighting Settings: This page will now show a placeholder message when no compatible device are attached to a PC, and the Brightness and Effects controls will be off. This page is also adding new Forward, Backward, Outward, and Inward direction options to the Wave effect, and the Forward direction option to the Gradient effect.

Task Manager: The Disconnect and Logoff dialogs now support dark mode and text scaling. The Performance section will also now show the type for each disk.

Personalized Offers: Tailored Experiences has been renamed “Personalized offers” in the out of box experience (OOBE).

Mouse settings (only for Windows 11 version 23H2/22H2): New options to turn off enhanced mouse pointer precision and changing the direction in which the mouse scrolls are available in Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Mouse.

Motherboard replacement (only for Windows 11 23H2/22H2): Microsoft fixed an issue causing Windows to not activate after replacing the motherboard on a PC.

For Windows 10 users, the optional KB5046714 update is available for the version 22H2 of the OS. This update fixes the same motherboard replacement bug I mentioned above, and it also addresses an issue causing files that have been dragged and dropped from a cloud files provider to be moved instead of being copied.

As usual, all these changes will roll out to the public with next month’s Patch Tuesday updates. These are the last optional Windows updates of 2024 as the Windows team will go on “minimal operations” during the Western holidays and the upcoming new year.