Windows 11 Build 22000.71 Brings More Small Refinements

Microsoft has released the third official build of Windows 11 and, sure enough, the major build number is unchanged and it brings only a handful of small refinements. So it’s pretty clear that Windows 11 is “complete,” in the sense that all major work is done, and that we’ll only be seeing small changes—plus the eventual release of a few promised but still missing new features—going forward.

The minor refinements we see in this build include:

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Entertainment widget. The first feature that most Windows 11 users will immediately disable, Widgets, has a new entertainment widget that will display new and featured movie titles available in the Microsoft Store.

Context menu improvements. The context menus in Windows 11 have been updated to use the Acrylic material.

Taskbar previews improvements. The thumbnail previews you see when you mouse-over open apps on the taskbar have been updated to reflect the new visual design provided by Windows 11.

And that’s it. Beyond those, Microsoft has also fixed numerous bugs across the system. As with the previous update, this is a tiny install that does require a reboot but can be completed in just several minutes. Let’s all hope this is the way most Windows 11 updates will be going forward. What a difference.

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Conversation 30 comments

  • navarac

    15 July, 2021 - 2:33 pm

    <p>Best part is the fast download and update, of course.</p><p><br></p><p>The rest? : Entertainment Widget – Spot-on, Paul. I’ve got Widgets disabled in the Registry. The Store I haven’t looked at since Windows 8.1 and am unlikely to, especially for Film/Movie content. As for Acrylic in context menus, I’m with Mary Jo about that. Not a lot to see and really a waste of time. The taskbar remains totally emasculated, of course.</p>

    • Maverick010

      15 July, 2021 - 10:21 pm

      <p>Actually show/film/movie content is not bad in the store since Microsoft has partnered up with the studios and also offers Movies Anywhere. That is about the only way I purchase a majority of my digital movies now, as it makes it easier to use any device and OS movie/entertainment software I want, and am not platform locked.</p>

  • bart

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 2:38 pm

    <p>I am still expecting to see a long update process every time a Dev build is released, but then… &lt;sigh of relief&gt;</p><p><br></p><p>On a side note, it is interesting how MS keeps a focus on movies. We’re still awaiting those Xbox streaming stick(s). Right?</p>

  • innitrichie

    15 July, 2021 - 2:51 pm

    <p>I know that Windows is the best way to experience movies in the home. I’m excited to explore this new widget in Windows 11.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      15 July, 2021 - 3:06 pm

      <p>I assume that’s a joke. :)</p>

    • bluvg

      15 July, 2021 - 3:28 pm

      <p>Long live Media Center! ?</p>

  • MichaelDarby

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 3:00 pm

    <p>Sample screen images for articles would probably be better using the light theme. Still, thanks for all the great tracking of Windows 11.</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      15 July, 2021 - 3:34 pm

      <p>Or a dark theme for thurrott.com.</p>

  • yehuda

    15 July, 2021 - 4:02 pm

    <p>When are they gonna move a build to beta channel and out of dev channel.</p>

    • Pierre Masse

      16 July, 2021 - 9:43 am

      <p>My guess is they are waiting to put all the features they promised.</p>

  • fuller1754

    15 July, 2021 - 4:53 pm

    <p>Entertainment widget … ugh. Really not a fan of news feeds and entertainment suggestions in my face. I’ll probably turn widgets off, although there are useful ones, like weather. It could be good if it’s completely customizable. If devs start creating more widgets, I could imagine pinning widgets that show CPU usage and temperature, RAM usage, music play controls, upcoming calendar events, unread emails, and stuff like that. Remember sidebar "gadgets" from Windows 7? If this is Gadgets 2.0, I’m okay with that.</p><p><br></p><p>Another thought. If Windows 11 will run Android apps, why not Android widgets? Imagine the Widgets panel on your Windows desktop as a space where you can add and resize the Android widgets from your to-do list, calendar, email, Spotify, and messaging apps, and all the rest? Now we’re talkin’. This native ability would almost make up for the loss of my precious live tiles.</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 5:00 pm

    <p>Y’know, at one point I felt like moving away from the tiles would hurt Windows in a way that I’d never feel the same way about it.</p><p><br></p><p>Now they did that and I’m just like "Whatev, man."</p>

  • anderb

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 5:25 pm

    <p>Does the entertainment widget respect the user’s browser choice or does it always open links in Edge like that News and Interests one?</p>

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 5:33 pm

    <p>I’m only testing this on a Surface Pro X so far so hard for me to give a real account of how it is on Intel PC’s. I will say, the new full ARM 64 support seems a little worse than it did on Windows 10 without the official support. I used to be able to play many (if not most) STEAM/GOG games and I can’t get any of them to run on Windows 11 and ARM. Using Office, Edge, Visual Studio Code all seem fine and Windows 11 is pretty snappy on the Surface Pro X. </p>

    • Maverick010

      15 July, 2021 - 10:38 pm

      <p>I cannot speak for ARM as I have no device to test Windows 11 on, but I did put Windows 11 on an HP Laptop Envy X360 with an AMD Ryzen 2500U and runs decently on it. I also went to the extreme and installed Windows 11 on my customer built gaming desktop and so far have not looked back. It is running pretty flawless and gaming is not seeing any problems or slow downs. Some games have actually even gained in performance some, and the OS is not finished being optimized.</p>

  • bettyblue

    15 July, 2021 - 5:35 pm

    <p>The machine I was using for Windows 11….got a fresh coat of Windows 10 last night. </p><p><br></p><p>Not feeling the Windows 11 vibe. The taskbar stuff, or lack of it, especially the task manager is just annoying. I do not use Windows all that much so I can stick with Windows 10 until it gets close to losing support or the change something to make it worse.</p>

    • Maverick010

      15 July, 2021 - 10:33 pm

      <p>The task Manager is pretty much the same as Windows 10 and lost no features. Actually it may of gain features, as the CPU scheduler supposedly is better and also geared at the new Hybrid CPU designs..</p>

    • navarac

      16 July, 2021 - 12:41 pm

      <p>I’ve also dumped Windows 11 stuff from a separate SSD, including W11 images of the builds so far. I was OK at first as it seemed as if it was W10 under the hood really. However, I feel Microsoft is emasculating it to the extent that I’m not interested (Taskbar and File Explorer just to start). I have removed the TPM 2.0 chip I fitted and disabled Secure Boot in an effort to deny any update of Windows 10 to 11.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    15 July, 2021 - 7:59 pm

    <p>One VERY NICE bonus from these micro-upgrades: I don’t need to hide shortcut icon overlays, may not need to run Ultimate Windows Tweaker after every upgrade.</p><p><br></p><p>OTOH, I still need to run Disk Cleanup, and this time I find that Feedback Hub Archive log files takes up 1.17GB. WTF?</p>

    • Maverick010

      15 July, 2021 - 10:29 pm

      <p>I may be wrong, but I think the feedback hub is only taking up that huge space if you have it save a local copy of diagnostics.</p>

  • blue77star

    15 July, 2021 - 8:24 pm

    <p>Sad part is that Windows 11 won’t support my Skylake X 18/36 cores 7980xe 7th CPU. I do not understand how it is not enough for Windows 11, it is beast CPU and my mobo supports TPM 2.0</p>

    • waethorn

      16 July, 2021 - 1:12 pm

      <p>Security.</p>

      • blue77star

        17 July, 2021 - 5:31 pm

        <p>Most likely I will end up installing hacked Windows 11 where security check is removed. There is no way for me to replace 18/36 Skylake X for something new.</p>

    • M. S. Chan

      20 July, 2021 - 3:10 am

      <p>I’m fairly certain that they’ll reverse course and support Win 11 on 7th gen Intel/1st gen Ryzen. I’m hoping that they’ll support it for 6th gen but then I’ll be asking too much. :)</p><p><br></p>

  • Maverick010

    15 July, 2021 - 10:25 pm

    <p>I get hybrid and full remote working became a thing big time with this pandemic, but knowing streaming was also big, I am surprised Microsoft does not resurrect Media Center, and build a new streaming friendly adaptive UI for those who would build entertainment PC/streaming devices. That would of been a huge win with Windows 11 alone IMO.</p>

  • chrisrut

    Premium Member
    16 July, 2021 - 10:39 am

    <p>This most recent "entertainment widget" thing got me thinking (dangerous). Something like this could be used to offer on-line VMs – Win 11 virtual machines – in a "free with ads" or "paid no ads" model that see so much success in the entertainment world. </p><p><br></p><p>It would be a very "unique selling proposition."</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • navarac

      16 July, 2021 - 12:43 pm

      <p>Don’t give Microsoft ideas !!</p>

  • mattbg

    Premium Member
    16 July, 2021 - 2:20 pm

    <p>I’m onboard with widgets if they get adopted by other vendors (which I guess they mostly won’t).</p><p><br></p><p>I’m not onboard with widgets as a portal to MSN and built-in Windows apps exclusively.</p>

  • blue77star

    17 July, 2021 - 5:29 pm

    <p>There are quite few bugs with Settings. One of them is rename link in Settings does not work. Also if you want to enable remote desktop connection to allow remote connection from other computers on your network, toggle does not work. To go around these two issues I used CMD and Control Panel.</p>

  • blue77star

    18 July, 2021 - 4:57 pm

    <p>If you are on Zen 2 processor, stay away from Windows 11. The performance drops almost 20%, tested on 3900x. I believe this is because Windows 11 CPU Scheduler is completely redone to accommodate for big / little Alder Lake Design. I hope Microsoft fixes issue for Ryzen CPU, I believe they will but for now stick with Windows 10.</p>

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