Microsoft Begins Development On Windows 11 23H2 With Preview Build 25115

Microsoft has released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25115 to the Dev channel for Insiders. The release has been published from a different branch than usual (rs_prerelease), but Microsoft is not focusing on it anymore. The update includes one new feature and a few other improvements for the Windows 11 OS, which are discussed in detail down below.

Since the Beta channel has also been updated with a higher build (Build 22621), users can now no longer switch from Dev to Beta channel.

Since Microsoft has nearly finalized Windows 11 22H2 with this release in the Beta channel, any further features in the other Insider channels are meant for the next release, which will be Windows 11 Version 23H2 (which will be released the following year). Note that features and improvements may or may not be included in the final 23H2 release.

If you want to get on board the train to next year’s OS, you can install build 25115 right now using the given guide below. But before you do, let us discuss new features and improvements, as well as the known issues it accompanies.

Note: This release is not being offered for ARM64 devices at the moment.

New in Windows 11 Build 25115

Suggested Actions

This new feature is exactly what the name implies. Windows 11 users can now perform actions faster through inline suggestions. These suggestions will be offered by the OS, depending on what you have highlighted or copied. For example, if you copy a date, you will be advised to save an event in your calendar. If you copy a phone number, an inline suggestion will appear with the methods you can use to make a phone call.

Here are the in-depth details:

• When copying the date and time, an inline light dismissible UI will appear suggesting you create a corresponding event in the calendar. When you select an option, the Calendar app will launch automatically to that specific event creation page and the date and time fields will be filled automatically as well.

  

• When copying a phone number, you will be suggested methods to make a phone call through the Microsoft Teams app, Skype, or other installed applications.

  

Other Improvements and Fixes

Other changes and fixes have also been made with this flight:

• [General]
  • The icons in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) have been updated.
  • The underlying speech platform to improve voice activity detection for voice access, live captions, and voice typing has been updated. Some issues with how punctuation is recognized have also been addressed.
• [Taskbar]
  • An issue related to loading the system tray icons in Settings >> Personalization >> Taskbar causing the Settings app to crash has been fixed.
• [File Explorer]
  • An issue leading to Insiders seeing the error 0x800703E6 when copying files from Google Drive has been fixed.
  • A change has been made to improve the performance of loading Home.
  • An issue where if you had ever opened the context menu, Using the CTRL + ALT + DEL shortcut keys to cancel it would lead to explorer.exe crashing, has been mitigated.
  • A sporadic explorer.exe crash when closing File Explorer windows has been addressed.
• [Settings]
  • An issue where if the Settings app is suspended, it could lock up explorer.exe in certain cases has been fixed
  • Improvements have been made to the way the Narrator reads out the remaining space available in System >> Storage.
• [Task Manager]
  • Some issues related to access key use in the Task Manager have been made.
  • If the CPU reaches 100% utilization, the CPU column header should no longer unexpectedly become unreadable in dark mode.
• [Windows Security]
  • An issue that could lead to Smart App Control unexpectedly blocking correctly signed applications has been addressed.
• [Other]
  • An issue that was leading to Memory Integrity unexpectedly being turned off after rebooting has been fixed.
  • The issue causing the Update Stack Package to show install error 0xc4800010 has been addressed.

With these new features, improvements, and fixes, there are also several new known issues we think you should know about before upgrading to this build.

Known Issues

• [General]
  • Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.
• [Live captions]
  • When using certain apps in full-screen mode (e.g., video players), live captions may not appear.
  • If some apps are positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions run, they will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at the top. If you experience these issues, use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.

How to Install Windows 11 Build 25115

To install this update, you need to be running Windows 11 and subscribed to the Dev channel. If you have enabled Windows updates, you will automatically get a “New features are ready to install” prompt.

If not, follow these steps to install Preview Build 25115:

1. Navigate to the Settings app and then click Windows Update on the left.

2. Here, click Check for updates on the right side of the window.

   

3. You will then see the following update available under Updates available to download:

   Windows 11 Insider Preview 25115.1000 (rs_prerelease)

   Click Download now.

4. The update will now begin to download and then install. Once complete, click Restart Now.

   

Once the computer restarts, you can verify that the OS has been updated by typing in winver in the Run Command box.

Rollback/Remove Windows 11 Insider Preview Update

If you do not wish to keep the installed preview update for some reason, you can always roll back to the previous build of the OS. However, this can only be performed within the next 10 days after installing the new update.

To roll back after 10 days, you will need to apply this trick.

Cleanup After Installing Windows Updates

If you want to save space after installing Windows updates, you can run the following commands one after the other in Command Prompt with administrative privileges:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup