Windows 11 Patch Tuesday updates are usually important when it comes to security but lack any exciting changes. That's mostly the case this month, but there are some improvements that ship with the update that are more noticeable, though I'm not sure I'd go as far as to call them exciting.
Following the February Patch Tuesday update, Windows 11's system tray will show an icon when you open an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. The taskbar now features improved animations and previews for apps as well. Windows 11 gains other handy features in the update, including support for changing time zones through the Date & Time section of the Settings app.
This month's Patch Tuesday update brings several fixes and security updates as well. While important, the security fixes in this update are not detailed extensively in Microsoft's support document.
"This update makes miscellaneous security improvements to internal OS functionality. No additional issues were documented for this release," states Microsoft. The company links to the Microsoft Security Response Center website to get more details about the security improvements.
The update should roll out to eligible systems through Windows Update automatically.
Below are the highlights of the other improvements that ship with this month's Patch Tuesday update, as listed by Microsoft. The mention of the system tray icon for Windows Studio Effects appeared at one point in Microsoft's documentation but does not appear if you view the support document now. It is unclear if the feature did not ship or if the documentation needs updating.
Improvements
- [Taskbar] New! This update improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. The update also improves their animations.
- [Windows Studio Effects] New! An icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings. To view the app that is using the camera, hover over the icon for a tooltip.
- [Fonts] New! This update adds Simsun-ExtG, a new simplified Chinese font. It includes the Biangbiang noodles character. Some apps might not be able to display these new extension characters yet. The font has 9,753 ideographs that support Unicode Extensions G, H, and I. See the list below.
- Unicode range G 30000-3134A (4,939 chars)
- Unicode range H 31350-323AF (4,192 chars)
- Unicode range I 2EBF0-2EE5D (622 chars)
- [File Explorer]
- New! When you right-click items in the left pane, the “New Folder” command appears on the context menu.
- New! Windows restores all the previously open tabs in each File Explorer window. This occurs when you enable “Restore previous folder windows at logon.”
- New! Windows turns on specific File Explorer settings for you. This occurs when you enable “Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in.” Go to Settings > Accounts > Sign in options.
- Fixed: After you do a search, that search might repeat when you don’t want it to.
- Fixed: The date and time properties of a file might update after you copy it.
- Fixed: Icons on the details pane might not update as you expect when you change a theme. This makes it hard to view the change when you switch between dark and light themes.
- Fixed: The search box might lose input focus as you type.
- [Settings] New! You can change time zones in Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time. You don’t have to be an admin to make this change.
- [Mouse]
- Fixed: The mouse cursor might disappear. This occurs when you hover over text fields in certain applications.
- Fixed: If you turn on pointer trails, the mouse cursor becomes transparent, and a black box appears behind it.
- Fixed: The mouse cursor might stutter when it moves across the screen. This occurs even when the system is not using a lot of resources.
- [Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME)] Fixed: When you switch app windows, the IME language might change from Chinese to English.
- [Snipping Tool] Fixed: Snipping Tool screenshots might be distorted. This occurs when you use two or more monitors that have different display scaling.
- [Microsoft Excel 2016] Fixed: When you open certain files, Excel opens, but the screen might remain on the loading screen.
- [Game bar] Fixed: Game bar recording fails with error 0x82323673.
Fixes
- [High dynamic range (HDR)] Fixed: The display of some games appears oversaturated. This occurs when you use Auto HDR.
- [Digital/Analog converter (DAC) (known issue)] Fixed: You might experience issues with USB audio devices. This is more likely when you use a DAC audio driver based on USB 1.0. USB audio devices might stop working, which stops playback.
- [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.
- [Chinese Pinyin input method editor (IME)] Bing will stop giving automatic suggestions in the search box for search engine sites, like Baidu. To get manual suggestions, use Ctrl+Tab or the chevron button (>).
- [USB cameras] Fixed: Your device does not recognize the camera is on. This issue occurs after you install the January 2025 security update.
- [Passkey] Fixed: This update removes the one-minute timeout when you use a passkey on a phone.
- [Power] Fixed: Shutdown might be slower on some devices when a controller is connected.
- [Wi-Fi] Fixed: The Windows Security dialog stops responding. This occurs when you sign in to certain Wi-Fi networks. The same issue might occur for some other options in Settings.
