New Windows Insider Canary/Dev Channel Build Expands Availability of Widgets Improvements

Microsoft today issued Windows 11 build 26090 to Insiders with PCs enrolled in the Canary and Dev channels. The build represents an early peek at Windows 11 version 24H2, which Microsoft plans to ship in the second half of the year.

There aren’t many new features, but this build marks the return of the Widgets changes that Microsoft first started rolling out in build 26058 back in mid-February. That is, it again allows you to toggle the widget board between two views—the default view with widgets and the Discover feed (from Microsoft Start) and a widgets-only view—on the fly.

Build 26090 also delivers new SMB (Server Message Block) protocols that appear to date back to November, so it’s unclear what’s really new. And since this feature is only of interest to IT admins anyway, those who want to know more should check out the original post, which links to several other explanatory posts for each protocol change.

Beyond those two showstoppers, there are minor updates to Copilot and Settings, and fixes for issues with the Taskbar, system tray, File Explorer, Task Manager, and other system components. Microsoft had planned to ship an updated Windows SDK with this build, but that’s been delayed.

Overall, nothing dramatic.