New Windows 11 Insider Builds Are Available on the Dev and Beta Channels

Microsoft is wrapping up the week with two new Windows 11 Insiders builds for Dev and Beta Channel testers. The Dev Channel build 23526 brings improvements to rich thumbnail preview in the Start Menu and the Cast flyout in Quick Settings, while the Beta Channel build 22631.2199 introduces native support for more archive file formats and other features that will ship with Windows 11 version 23H2 later this fall.

What’s new in the Windows 11 Dev Build 23526

As some of you may have noticed, Microsoft mistakenly released this build yesterday before pulling it from its servers. There was no official communication about this snafu, but anyway, this build is finally here for all Dev Channel testers. Here are the main changes:

New Build expiration date: All builds released on the Dev Channel will now display a new expiration date: September 15, 2024. This change also recently rolled out to the Canary channel.

Rich thumbnail preview in Start Menu: For files that do not display rich thumbnail previews in the Start menu, Windows 11 will now display an updated tooltip instead of a blank preview area.

Updated Cast flyout: The redesigned Cast flyout in Quick Settings now display a link to support for users encountering issues for discovering nearby displays, fixing connections, and more.

Never combined taskbar mode: This build disables the setting for uncombining taskbar buttons on other screens by default when no secondary monitors are connected.

What’s new in the Windows 11 Beta build 22631.2199

As usual, Microsoft released two different builds on this channel: The build 22631.2199 includes new 23H2 features, while the build 22621.2199 has these features disabled by default. Anyway, here are the main new features you should know about:

Native support for .rar files: This was announced at Build 2023, but Windows 11 now supports more archive file formats including .rar, .tar, .tgs, .7z, and more.

Rich thumbnail preview in Start Menu: See above

Never combined taskbar mode: There are now updated settings for the never combine mode for the taskbar, with a new option to enable this mode for other taskbars in a multiple monitor scenario.

Snipping Tool update: The Snipping Tool app is getting new buttons to edit in Paint for screenshots and edit in Clipchamp for screen recordings.

App defaults: apps can now direct users to the correct location in Settings where they can configure the default app to open a specific file type.

That’s it for the main changes in these new Insider builds. While the Beta Channel continues to receive new 23H2 features, Microsoft announced yesterday that it will hold a special event on September 21. While new Surface devices are almost guaranteed, we may also get a release date for Windows 11 version 23H2.