By Delia / Last update January 7, 2022

On January 7, Microsoft pushed the Win11 Build 22526 update to Dev Preview users with a series of improvements to the system. The update does not introduce new features or major backend improvements, but only further improvements and fixes to details.

The updated version will effectively incorporate wideband speech support for Apple AirPods. When users connect their AirPods to Windows 11, the sound quality of their calls will improve dramatically. This change is very friendly to Apple users, and for the light office crowd, using AirPods for remote video conferencing under Windows 11 is a good option.

windows 11 pc

Improvements of Windows 11 Build 22526

  • Trying to display ALT + TAB as a window instead of full screen for some Insiders.
  • Added support for wideband speech for Apple AirPods products (AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max), improving audio quality for voice calls.
  • Starting with Build 22518, Credential Guard is enabled by default on Windows 11 Enterprise (E3 and E5) licensed PCs that join the enterprise.
  • Trying to index more file locations to find important files faster in File Explorer using the search feature.

What does Windows 11 Build 22526 fix

File explorer:

  • Resolved an issue where if a user used search in File Explorer and then explorer.exe crashed, the search would not work the next time it was attempted.

Search:

  • Resolved an issue where the recent search popup window was stuck on the screen (displayed transparent except for the border).
  • Improved the resolution of application icons displayed in search results when display scaling is set to greater than 100%.

Spotlight collections:

  • If the user is using a Spotlight collection, the current image will be migrated on upgrade (if the upgrade build is Build 22523 or later).

Widgets:

  • Fixed an issue where the widget panel may not display the correct resolution when hovering over an entry point on the secondary monitor.
  • Resolved an issue where the widget panel was temporarily blank.

Others:

  • Fixes an error check encountered by KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED remote desktop users when attempting to shut down or restart.
  • Fixes an issue where Microsoft Store prompts to try to install the latest Web Media Extension update returned error code 0x80073CFB.
  • Resolves a DWM crash issue that affected some users of the previous version.

Known issues of Windows 11 Build 22526

General:

  • Users may not be able to log in to certain applications, such as the Feedback Center. Restarting the PC should resolve the issue.
  • Investigating reports of some users seeing driver and firmware update failures in recent releases with error 0x8007012a.

Start menu:

  • In some cases, text may not be entered when searching from the Start Menu or Taskbar. If you encounter this issue, press WIN + R on your keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

Taskbar:

  • The taskbar sometimes blinks when switching between input methods.
  • The network icon sometimes disappears from the taskbar. If this happens to you, try using Task Manager to restart explorer.exe.
  • If you have multiple monitors connected to your computer and right click on the date and time on the taskbar of your primary monitor, it will crash explorer.exe.

Search:

  • The search panel may not open after clicking the search icon on the taskbar. If this happens, please restart the "Windows Explorer" process and open the search panel again.

Settings:

  • When viewing the list of available Wi-Fi networks, the signal strength indicator does not reflect the correct signal strength.
  • Settings may crash when going to System > Display > HDR.
  • There is a blank entry under Bluetooth and Devices.
  • Fixing an issue affecting some users that causes settings to crash when trying to access the Installed Apps, Startup Apps, and Default Apps pages, users can temporarily use winget to uninstall instead.

Widgets:

  • Changing the alignment of the taskbar can cause the widget button to disappear from the taskbar.
  • When there are multiple monitors, the widget content on the taskbar may be out of sync between monitors.
  • When the taskbar is left aligned, information such as temperature is not displayed, this will be fixed in a future update.

Voice access:

  • Some text creation commands, such as "select that" or "delete that", may not work as expected in Windows applications.
  • Inaccurate recognition of some punctuation and symbols, such as the @ symbol.