Status Update: Windows 11 Field Guide 2026 Edition

Back in April, I expected to publish an in-progress version of the next edition of the Windows 11 Field Guide that would provide a new layout–look and feel, basically–and would be a shorter subset of the full book, a “what’s new in Windows 11 version 25H2.” The idea at the time was that the next edition, for 26H2, would be the full book with the new layout and whatever other formatting changes I’ve been working on.

At that time, I didn’t think I would need to focus solely on the book, to use it as a monthly focus or whatever. After all, this is ongoing work that can happen alongside whatever else it is I’m working on. But April came and went. And then May. And I never got that mini edition of the book out in the world.

So I pushed reset. Again. In early June, I wrote that I would simply update the existing book, the existing edition, to include everything I’d written for the 25H2 edition that never happened, including several chapters worth of material that were at the time only partially completed. I didn’t mention this at the time, and I’m not sure why, but I also decided that this book would be my focus this month. And so I’ve been plowing away, updating the book, including in some cases content I’d not touched in years.

And something wonderful has happened.

The entire point of switching formats and layouts was to downsize this enormous tome. I wasted months–so many months–trying to find a way that would help me do that without lessening its value as a reference, something consistent that would make sense across all the chapters in the book. But I kept running into one-off issues, and being a perfectionist (in this area, anyway), I kept failing to make it happen. But now, in updating the existing book, in replacing older chapters with new chapters, in removing out-of-date content, and, more recently, in consolidating multiple chapters into single chapters, I see that I’m achieving the most important goal for that abandoned 25H2 edition.

The book is getting smaller. Much smaller.

Yesterday, after adding a new Hardware Device Basics chapter–which consolidates several previously separate chapters (USB, Bluetooth, keyboards, mice, and more) into a single, smaller chapter–the full book came in at a bit under 105 MB in PDF form and, for the first time in years, was under 1,000 pages in length.

Today, after adding a new Internet Connectivity chapter that replaces previously separate Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Cellular Data, Airplane Mode, and Mobile Hotspot chapters, the book is about 103 MB and comes in at 990 pages.

This book was over 300 MB in size at one point and was over 1150 pages long. This is a big deal to me.

And this tells me that this is what I should have been doing all along, that I could have simply been updating the existing book chapter by chapter and would have slowly chipped away at the length and weight. I still want to move to a per-year edition format, and will. But this is obviously the right way to get to that.

It’s going to take awhile, of course, but that’s why I’m focusing on this for the rest of the month. And into July, I’m sure. And beyond as I finally get past the most pressing matters and can work to fix inconsistencies and continuing working on a new edition for 26H2 (and/or whatever’s next for 26H1) with a new layout and formatting.

This is alternatively tedious and exciting. I understand that it’s largely thankless work (and I’m not looking for someone to prove me wrong there) and that few people will even read most of it. But this is something I’ve wanted to figure out for a long time, a very long time. And though it will only be partially realized in this edition, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Finally.

So I will keep going. I have content I want to add, chapters I would like to consolidate, and slimmer new screenshots to add all over. I can’t wait to see where it lands.