Microsoft experiments with new search buttons on the Taskbar in latest Windows 11 Dev Channel build

What you need to know

• Microsoft is rolling out Windows 11 build 25158 to Insiders in the Dev Channel.
• Today's build includes notification badges for the Widgets button.
• It also features experimental new search buttons on the Taskbar for some testers.

It's time for another Windows 11 preview build to grace Microsoft's Insider Dev Channel. Today's build is 25158, and features a handful of notable changes and experiments that Microsoft rolling out to some Insiders. The first notable change is with the Widgets panel, which will now present notification badges on the Taskbar when breaking news alerts go live.

The other notable change in this build is a new experimental UI for how the search button presents itself on the Taskbar. Microsoft is testing three new designs, the first being a traditional search icon, the second being a short search bar, and the third being a slightly longer search bar.

Microsoft says these are only experiments, and if they go down poorly with testers Microsoft will revert them back to the current design. Lastly, Microsoft is removing the search bar widget from the desktop, as it says it has concluded that experiment. It doesn't say whether said feature will return in the future.

Build 25158 changelog:

• Thank you to all the Insiders who gave us feedback on our first exploration of lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop! Starting with this week’s flight, we are concluding this initial exploration, so if you received this experience, it will be removed on your next reboot.
• As described in our in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts. Starting with this build, some devices will receive different visual treatments for search on the taskbar. We are excited to learn from your feedback on this, so please use the Feedback Hub to provide feedback if you receive this experiment
• We’re beginning to roll out even more dynamic Widgets content to your taskbar with notification badging for Widgets. When you open the Widgets board a banner will appear at the top of the board providing more information on what triggered the notification badge.
• DNS over TLS testing is now available for Windows DNS client query protection. DoT is another protocol in addition to DNS over HTTPS (DoH) which is already supported in Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. For setup instructions, see this Windows Networking blog post. The setup requires command line use and is recommended for advanced networking users.
• The Nyala font has been updated to support syllables for the Gurage language orthography from the Ethiopic Extended-B Unicode range. Also revised and replaced Ethiopic kerning to fix gaps and errors in earlier implementation improving the overall texture of text in Ethiopic languages.
• Fixed an issue causing some Insiders to experience bugchecks with error message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in NetAdapterCx.sys in recent flights.
• Fixed an issue which was leading some PCs hanging at black screen when resuming from a low power state in recent flights.
• Fixed an issue believed to generally be impacting performance across Windows shell experiences in the last few flights.
• Fixed an issue where the Mica material and Acrylic blur effect was rendering incorrectly in OS surfaces like the Start menu, Notification Center and other areas sometimes in recent flights.
• Fixed an issue where closing command bar flyouts could in some rare cases crash explorer.exe.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to explorer.exe crashing when navigating through File Explorer with OneDrive enabled.
• CTRL + F4 should work to close the current tab now.
• Opening a zipped folder in a new tab should no longer have a blank tab name.
• If focus is on the tab row, CTRL + W will no longer unexpectedly close two tabs instead of just the tab in focus.
• Fixed an issue where CTRL + Tab wouldn’t cycle in the correct order after rearranging tabs.
• We made some adjustments so when using “Show full path in title”, the folder name is always visible in the tab at the top of File Explorer.
• Fixed an underlying issue which could lead to pinned app icons getting stuck on the taskbar after uninstalling the app in recent flights.
• Fixed a high hitting explorer.exe crash in the last few flights related to loading Widgets.
• Start shouldn’t crash anymore when using CTRL + Shift + Right Arrow to move a pinned app into a folder that’s the last item in Start.
• Fixed a crash some Insiders were experiencing when opening Start.
• Narrator will now read the prompt that opens when trying to uninstall an app from Start correctly.
• Fixed an issue when using IRowsetPriorititization where setting the scope priority for a query rowset did not properly alter the indexing speed of the rowset, resulting in slower indexing overall.
• Searching for “power mode” should now return an entry for power modes in Settings.
• Updated the “System” entry under Network & Internet > Advanced network settings > Data Usage, to now be called “System and Windows Update” to help make it more clear.
• Made another fix to address an issue where the “Listen to this device” option for audio devices would stop working after a reboot.
• Fixed a crash some Insiders were seeing when navigating Bluetooth & Devices > Printers & Scanners.
• Fixed an issue where the “Allow Bluetooth devices to find this PC” checkbox under Bluetooth & Devices > Devices > More Bluetooth Settings wouldn’t display the correct state sometimes.
• Fixed an issue which was causing Quick Settings to crash for ARM64 PCs when attempting to use the Cast section to cast to certain devices.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the eye icon beside the Wi-Fi password box in Quick Settings to disappear after its first use.
• Fixed a crash in textinputhost.exe initialization which was happening in some cases in recent flights.
• Fixed an issue where the “Sync across your devices” option under Settings > System > Clipboard wouldn’t stay enabled.
• Updated the Times New Roman font family so it includes U+061D / ARABIC END OF TEXT MARK.
• We made some improvements to help with the performance of opening Task View.
• Made a fix so the two-finger triple tap touch gesture to dismiss context menus with Narrator is working correctly again.
• Fixed an issue where some services were being unexpectedly grouped under Microsoft Edge when they weren’t actually child processes.
• Fixed an issue which would lead to losing network connectivity after turning on mobile hotspot.
• Addressed an issue that could result in the mobile hotspot button getting unexpectedly stuck in a greyed out state in certain cases.
• Fixed an underlying issue which was leading to Your Phone crashes in certain cases.
• Fixed an underlying issue where Microsoft Defender Application Guard windows weren’t visible in the last few flights.
• Fixed a crash that could happen when using suggested actions.
• Fixed an underlying issue when recording game clips using the Xbox Game Bar, which could lead to the resulting saved video not displaying correctly when viewed later on an iOS device.
• Made some improvements to help address an issue resulting in apps in the Microsoft Store failing to download with error 0x80080204.
• Addressed an underlying issue leading to Microsoft Store app remediation failures with error 0x803FB004.
• Did some work to address an issue where the print dialog wasn’t launching centered in the application (for example, in Notepad).