Windows 11 Insider Build 25381 Adds SMB Signing Requirement for All Connections

Microsoft has just released the Windows 11 preview build 25381 for Insiders on the Canary Channel. This build introduces new SMB signing requirement changes for the Enterprise edition of Windows 11 to improve security.

Starting with this build, SMB signing is now required by default for all SMB connections to prevent any interception of data from malicious parties. The Windows Insider team noted that SMB signing can impact the performance of SMB copy operations, though this should be less of an issue on PCs with enough CPU cores.

The team also highlighted that these SMB signing requirement changes may lead to users encountering errors when trying to connect to a remote share on a third-party SMB server that doesn’t allow SMB signing. In that case, Microsoft just recommends enabling SMB signing on the third-party SMB server.

The second change mentioned in the release notes for the build 25381 is that the camera app will now display a pop-up with troubleshooting steps when a camera issue is detected. This will happen when a camera fails to start or when users forgot to remove the camera shutter.

Yesterday, Microsoft also released the Windows 11 build 23471 for Insiders on the Dev channel. This build brought the new File Explorer Gallery to all Dev Channel testers, plus a new option to set up access to the OneDrive Camera Roll.