Microsoft Releases Build 22518 for Windows 11 on Dev Channel: Spotlight Backgrounds

"Right-click your desktop and choose Personalize."
"On the Personalization settings page, choose Background."
"From the Customize your background drop-down menu, select Spotlight Collection."
When you enable the Spotlight collection, you'll see an image of Whitehaven Beach in Australia on your desktop, as well as the Spotlight icon.

Later in the day, will be changing Whitehaven Beach with a collection of up to five background images from around the world.This can take up to 24 hours. If you hover over the Spotlight icon, you can get more information about each image. Right-clicking the Spotlight icon on the desktop opens a context menu where you can switch to a different background image and tell us whether or not you like one of the images. Double-clicking the Spotlight icon opens the landing page where you can learn more about any of the Spotlight Collection images you viewed throughout the day.

Please note that the Spotlight collection experience is not yet localized and will only display the English text Full localization will come in a future update. The Spotlight Collection is available to Windows Insiders in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK, US.More countries will be added over time.

Widget button changes location

Testing to display the Widgets entry point on the left side of the taskbar with live weather content. You can also open the Widgets dashboard simply by hovering over the entry point.

For users who choose to align their taskbar, the entry point of the widgets will be to the right of the task view icon. They're starting to roll out this change, so it's not yet available to all Insiders, as they plan to monitor feedback and see the response before sending it to everyone.

Present Voice Access

Voice Access is a new experience that lets everyone, including people with mobility disabilities, control their PC and type text with their voiceFor example, voice access supports scenarios such as opening and switching between applications, browsing the web, and reading and creating mail. Voice Access takes advantage of modern on-device speech recognition to accurately recognize speech and is supported without an Internet connection. Voice access only supports US English language, so Windows display language should be set to US English; Otherwise, voice access may not work as expected.

You can enable voice access in Settings> Accessibility> Voice When you activate voice access for the first time, you will be prompted to download a template for voice recognition on the device.Once downloaded, you can choose the microphone you want to use with voice access and start using your voice to control your PC.

You can choose to automatically start voice access the next time you sign in to your PC in settings. You can also use voice commands or keyboard shortcuts (Alt + Shift + C and Alt + Shift + B) to control whether Voice Access is listening or not.

You can navigate and interact with Windows, even open and switch apps using your voice. You can also emulate your standard inputs, such as keyboard and mouse, through speech. Here you have a guide with all the voice controls.

It is easier to install WSL from the Microsoft Store

Install Windows Subsystem from Linux (WSL) from the Microsoft Store WSL is now available from the Microsoft Store. Installing WSL from the store will make it easier to get the latest WSL updates in the future.You can learn more about the Store preview in this blog post or by watching this video.

Starting with this preview release, make it easier for new users to get started with WSL in the Microsoft Store by changing the command wsl.exe –install to install WSL from the Microsoft Store by default. In addition, they have added some additional arguments to wsl.exe –install to make it easier to configure your installation, such aswsl –install – no-launch, which will install a new WSL distribution without starting it immediately. To see a full list of available commands, run wsl –help If you want to start the Store right away and already have WSL installed, just runwsl –update to immediately update to the Store version.

Changes and improvements

Starting with today's build, we are rolling out an underlying platform change to improve the overall performance and reliability of the input switcher for Insiders using multiple languages and keyboard layouts.

In addition to this, they are updating the input switcher to now have an acrylic background.

Updated the context menu in File Explorer to make these options top level according to feedback:“Install” when right-clicking font files and .inf files.Install certificate >"

Other arrangements

Fixed an explorer.exe crash related to having websites pinned to the taskbar.
Attempting to address an issue where an invisible window frame for the recent searches dropdown could end up getting stuck on the screen, consuming information in that area.
When hovering over items in the recent searches dropdown, truncated text in the sidebar (for example, when using accessibility settings to make text larger) will now have a tooltip so you can see the full text.
Improved visibility of text in the recent searches dropdown if a contrast mode was enabled.
The recent searches dropdown now has a name accessible when a screen reader sets focus on it, instead of just saying the button.
Fixed an issue that caused the search icon in the recent searches icon to become a garbage character for people using the Chinese display language.
Fixed a high impact seek crash.
The chance of missing keystrokes is reduced if you start your search by pressing the Windows key and start typing.
If you use Search to run commands, the ?Run as administrator? and ?Open file location? they should be visible again for you to select on the side of the search window. Also, CTRL + Shift + Enter should work again now for commands.

Remediated an issue that could cause failure to add network drives as a source in Media Player.
Fixed an issue that could lead to seeing an unexpected blank icon after compressing a file, instead of the one for your default application to handle that type of file.
Right-clicking on a folder and then quickly closing and reopening the File Explorer window should no longer cause explorer.exe to crash when the option to run as a separate process>"
Removed some unexpected characters in dialog box when moving user account folders to another location.
If you right-click files like .htm in File Explorer, the icon next to Microsoft Edge Canary, Beta, or Dev should now display correctly (if installed) in Open With, instead of displaying a generic icon.
Fixed an issue that could cause icons in application entries (such as Windows Terminal) in the context menu to disappear or become invisible at times.
Improved the consistency of the background color of the command bar and dropdown menus when a contrast mode is enabled.
Made some smaller improvements to help with File Explorer folder browsing performance.
If you press WIN + Period and navigate to the emoji or gifs section with a search term, when you return to the main page , we will now clear the search query so you can start over.
The IME candidate window should now appear more reliably when typing in search immediately after starting your PC.
Fixed an issue where u-mode / v-mode / name-mode did not display candidates when typing with the Simplified Chinese IME.
Fixed an issue where the Japanese IME unexpectedly displayed candidates in landscape mode instead of portrait mode.
Fixed an issue where the IME toolbar could be displayed randomly on the lock screen.
Fixed an issue where keyboard focus was not always in the correct place after pressing WIN + Period, depending on where you left focus the last time the window was used.
When customizing your family emoji in the emoji panel, the UI should no longer unexpectedly dismiss when clicking on white space.
Clicking the custom family emoji in the most recently used list in the emoji panel should no longer unexpectedly invoke the customization UI.
If you try to start voice typing (WIN + H) without setting focus to a text box first, the popup suggesting to move focus should now work again.

Fixed issue where thumbnails of snapshot groups were not updating in real time in Task View after to move a group window to a different desktop.
Fixed an issue that caused Settings to crash when opening options for added languages for some Insiders.
Fixed some issues on the Text Entry page in Personalization, including:
The preview image of the current configuration should now be displayed.
Added some keywords to help find this page.
Improved page reading for screen reader users.
Searching for the word widgets should return you to the corresponding Settings page with that switch now.
Mitigated an issue that was believed to cause Insiders with certain devices to experience bugchecks with the SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION error on recent flights.
Fixed an issue where users upgrading from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to older Dev Channel builds new ones using the latest Dev Channel ISO, they received the following warning message: The build you are trying to install has Flight Signed. To continue with the installation, enable flight signing.
Removed some excess padding to the left of the boot logo, making it appear off-center compared to the progress wheel.
Fixed an issue where UAC unexpectedly displayed Unknown Program>" "
Fixed an issue that caused Narrator to say unexpectedly No item in view>"
Fixed a crash that caused OOBE login issues (if you had to reset your PC) and issues resetting your PIN from the lock screen in the last 2 flights.
Fixed an issue that resulted in acrylic not working unexpectedly in certain places in the preview flight.
"Mitated an issue that caused some people to unexpectedly see Something went wrong when trying to click the stop recording button while recording a message on the voice recorder."
OTA: Some fixes noted here on Insider Preview builds from the active development branch may make their way into servicing updates for the release build of Windows 11 that became generally Available October 5th XX .

Known Issues

Investigating Insider reports that DWM crashes (causing the screen to flash repeatedly) when trying to use certain apps.
In some cases, you may not be able to enter text when using Search from the start or taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog, then close it.
Sometimes the taskbar will flicker when switching input methods.
The network icon sometimes disappears on the taskbar when it's supposed to be there. If you encounter this, try using Task Manager to restart explorer.exe.
If you have multiple monitors connected to your PC and you right-click the date and time on your main monitor's taskbar, explorer.exe will crash
After clicking the search icon on the taskbar, the search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the Windows Explorer process and reopen the search pane."
When viewing the list of available Wi-Fi networks, the signal strength indicators do not reflect the correct signal strength.
Changing the alignment of the taskbar may cause the Widgets button to disappear from the taskbar.
The widget board may not have the correct resolution when hovering over the entry point on a secondary monitor.
Widget dashboard can be temporarily blank.
Links may not open correctly when opening the widget panel with the cursor.
When having multiple monitors, the content of the widgets on the taskbar can become out of sync between monitors.
Speech access is not yet fully supported by screen readers such as Narrator, and you may experience gaps or unexpected behavior when running them together.
Some text creation commands may not work as expected.
"or you can use the command press Windows L to lock your PC by voice."
Recognition of some punctuation marks and symbols such as the @ sign is not exact.

If you belong to the Dev Channel within the Insider Program with Windows 11, you can download the update by going to the usual path, that is, Settings > Update and Security > Windows Update ."

Via | Microsoft