Windows 11 Field Guide Update: More Progress on 23H2

In October, I revealed that I would update the Windows 11 Field Guide for Windows 11 version 23H2 for free. At the time, the e-book version of the book was over 900 pages long, and it was pretty obvious that the functional and visual changes that Microsoft was making in 23H2 would require many new screenshots and lots of new writing and rewriting.

But that’s the job. And since then, I’ve made good progress.

I started by mapping out a schedule for the first 23H2 update, figuring out where to add content to existing chapters, where to add new chapters, and what to focus on first, and I focused on the web version of the book first so that I could get feedback before adding the first 23H2 chapters to the e-book. And then Microsoft surprised me by releasing 23H2 earlier than expected, albeit in preview form. And so I published my first 23H2 update for the e-book in late October with 160 pages of new and updated content. At the time, it was over 950 pages long and was comprised of over 150,000 words.

Since that update, I’ve published new and updated chapters to the web and e-book simultaneously. And with another two months behind us, I figured it was time for another quick update on this work.

As of today, the Windows 11 Field Guide is 1058 pages long, an increase of over 100 pages in just two months. The word count has risen commensurately to over 169,000 words, up over 19,000 words in two months. And that’s because I added or completely updated the following chapters during that time:

• File Explorer
• App Basics
• Windows Hello, Presence Sensing, and Dynamic Lock
• Windows 11 Version 23H2 Personalization First Steps
• Customize the Display
• Customize the Lock and Sign-In Screens
• Customize Your Privacy Settings
• Desktop
• Start
• Taskbar
• Widgets
• Search
• Quick Settings
• Copilot (new chapter, with two major versions released)
• Notifications
• Work and School Accounts
• Secure Your Microsoft Account (new chapter)
• Passkeys and Security Keys (new chapter)

Fortunately, Microsoft hasn’t issued any new system features since it released 23H2. But there are still more new and updated 23H2 features to cover in the book, including Dynamic Lighting, the new AI features in Paint, Photos, Store, and the Snipping Tool, the new Outlook and Teams (free) apps, Dev Home and the other new in-box developer features, all of the Microsoft Edge functional and UI changes that have occurred since mid-2023, and more. I’ve started work on some of these topics, but I’ve run into a few roadblocks that include my inability to get Dynamic Lighting to recognize the Razer keyboard and mouse I purchased, despite the fact that they are explicitly compatible with that feature. Plus, I have other long-standing, incomplete topics to finish up too, like PowerShell, the Windows Recovery Environment, Microsoft To Do, and more. And are there are topics I’ve not yet tackled at all, like the Windows Insider Program and Windows 11 on Arm, but will. And probably more still that I’ve temporarily zoned on here.

There’s always more to do. And there will be more coming in Moment 5, probably in February. That’s fine: I’ll keep chipping away.

But in the meantime, be sure to check out the new content in the web version of the book if you’re a Premium member. And if you bought the book, download it again today because I’ve probably added a lot of new content since you last did so. Either way, thanks for reading and for supporting this work. My goal has always been to make the Windows 11 Field Guide as useful as possible, and it’s never been better.

Thanks!

–Paul