Windows Insider Canary Channel Gets a Substantial Update

Microsoft has just released the Windows 11 Insider build 27898 on the Canary Channel, and the new bits enable various new features that Microsoft previously tested on other Channels, including taskbar icon scaling. The Quick Machine Recovery feature, which is part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative, is also available for IT Pros.

Here are the main new features included in the Windows 11 Canary build 27898:

Taskbar icon scaling: This feature automatically scales down the size of taskbar icons when it starts to get crowded with pinned or open apps.

Custom words dictionary in Voice Access: Insiders can now add their own words (including hard-to-pronounce ones) to the dictionary in the Voice Access accessibility feature, which is also getting support for the Chinese and Japanese languages.

Screen Curtain in Narrator: This privacy feature blacks out the display to ensure that only the user hears what’s on the screen through Narrator/

Quick Settings: This build adds text descriptions for assistive technologies like Narrator, Voice access, etc. in the Accessibility flyout in Quick Settings.

File Explorer: This build adds dividers to the top-level icons that show at the top (or bottom) of the File Explorer context menu.

Adaptive energy saver: This opt-in feature automatically enables and disables energy saver based on the power state of the device and the current system load, all without changing screen brightness.

Windows Share improvements: Windows Share now shows a preview when you share linked/web content, and you can choose from three compression levels when sharing an image.

Quick Machine Recovery: When enabled, this IT Pro feature can help to address boot issues on Windows 11 PCs by automatically detecting and applying fixes directly from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

It’s pretty rare for the Canary Channel to get so many new features in a single flight. However, this Channel is still playing catch-up with the Dev and Beta Channels, which is where Microsoft usually starts testing new Windows changes.