Microsoft has released Windows 11 build 22499 to Insiders in the Dev channel. It adds a promised Windows 11 feature that didn’t make the original release: the ability to share an app’s screen directly from the taskbar. But you won’t be shocked to discover that this feature, like Taskbar mute/unmute, is a lot more limited than originally described.
“We are beginning to roll out the ability to quickly share the content from open app windows directly from your taskbar to your meeting calls starting with Microsoft Teams,” Microsoft writes in the announcement post. “This experience eliminates the need to flip back and forth across applications just to share or reshare a window. There are no interruptions to your meeting attendees or what they see on screen – share any open window during your call.”
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What’s odd about this one is that it doesn’t appear to map to the feature Microsoft showed off back in June. As I wrote in Windows 11’s Broken Promises (Premium), Microsoft promised of Taskbar share that “you can confidently share any file directly from the taskbar with just one click,” and the demo showed a Share feature in the preview pane that appears when you mouse over an application icon in the taskbar.
But that’s not what this is. Instead, Taskbar share appears to be a way to quickly share any application’s display with others in a Teams meeting. As with Taskbar mute/unmute, it requires apps to access a Windows 11 API, and so it won’t work with non-Teams apps until developers use that API.
In other news, Microsoft also updated the Clock app in build 22499 so that it now supports signing in with Microsoft work and school accounts for focus sessions purposes. And there’s an ISO of this build available, which is rare. You can download that here.