Windows 11 Insider Build 25201 Brings Expanded Widgets Board

Microsoft has released today the Windows 11 Insider build 25201 for Insiders on the Dev Channel. In this build, the company is starting to test an expanded view for the Widgets board as well as improvements for the new Game Pass widget.

The new expanded view for the Widgets board will let Insiders see more widgets at a glance. There’s a new expand and collapse button in the top right corner of the board to expand or reduce the size of this board.

“The size of your board is remembered, so if you prefer your widgets board to always show you more content and leave it expanded then that’s how it will be the next time you open it,” the Windows Insider team explained. This new expanded view for the widget boards is rolling to a subset of Insiders today.

The new Game Pass widget that Microsoft introduced in the Windows 11 build 25174 last month is also getting better today: Insiders can now sign in with their Xbox account to see their recently played games and other PC Game Pass titles to try out. These Game Pass widget improvements are also rolling out to a subset of Insiders today.

The Windows Insider team also warned that it’s ending the test that led some Insiders to see different visual treatments for the Search entry on the taskbar. “Starting with this week’s flight, we are concluding the exploration of these treatments, so if you received this experience, it will be removed on your next reboot,” the team said. It’s not clear yet if this experiment will lead to more taskbar changes in a future build.

The last notable change in this build is that File Explorer will now show results as you type. Again, this feature will only be available for a subset of Insiders on the Dev channel.

As usual, today’s build 25201 also brings various bug fixes and improvements for File Explorer, the Taskbar, and other features. If you want to do a clean install of this build, ISOs are also available to download on Microsoft’s website.