Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22598 has been released to the Dev and Beta Channels. It adds some new features to the Media Player app, Windows Spotlight, and fixes a number of bugs.
Media Player
The Media Player app in Windows 11 supports 2 views in the artist page. Click the buttons on the right to switch between Album view, and a List view that shows all songs from the artist.
A new context menu is available in the Now Playing screen for videos and audio, that you may use to open new files directly. If a music track is being played, the menu will display options to view the album or artist page.
The Media Player now supports Video Enhancements sliders that allow you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue and saturation levels of the movie. The options are disabled by default, and can be accessed via the right-click context menu > Video Settings > Video Enhancements. These features are available in Media Player version 11.2203.30.0.
Windows Spotlight
Windows Spotlight will be set as default background for new devices and clean installs of Windows 11, and for users who have Windows 11’s default wallpaper. Microsoft is A/B testing 4K desktop backgrounds on supported computers. Some users who upgrade to Windows 11 Build 22598 will be greeted by the Get Started app at boot.
Fixes in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22598
A bug that was preventing devices using Windows Information Protection (EDP) policies to access data from protected apps like Outlook, Word, Microsoft Edge, etc, has been fixed. File Explorer’s context menu should no longer render partially or transparent. The tooltip on the volume icon will indicate whether you’re using spatial sound.
Icons in the system tray should work more reliably, but they still cannot be rearranged. A glitch in the animation for Snap Layouts has been fixed. ARM64 devices can now mount the host file system properly.
Windows 11 Build 22598 will respect the Settings to hide Taskbar badges, even if Explorer.exe crashes. The Delete key’s functionality, to kill programs in the Task Manager, has been restored. The app now supports more keyboard shortcuts including ALT + N for Run New Task, ALT + E to End Task, ALT + V to switch to Efficiency Mode, etc. CTRL + Tab and CTRL + Shift + Tab can be used to cycle through the pages in the app. An issue that was preventing the GPU graph from being displayed in the performance tab has been mitigated.
An issue that was crashing the Start Menu when accessed with a gesture has been patched. The More button in the Recommended section will no longer result in a crash. Swiping to view a folder’s contents in Start will not close the panel. A bug that was cutting off the On-screen display (OSD) that appears when you adjust the volume or brightness using the keyboard, has been resolved. Explorer.exe should not crash when invoking Task View.
Known issues in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22598
An Administrative Template error may pop up when opening the Group Policy Editor, you can click OK to dismiss it and access the tool. The context menu in File Explorer is quite buggy, selecting the rename, copy, paste or delete options from the right-click menu may cause the file manager to crash. Users should use keyboard shortcuts for these functions instead. The Add to Favorites option is not displayed on the new Home page in File Explorer, it can be accessed from the “Show more options” menu.
The Widgets board may not open when using the swipe gesture from the side of the touch screen, it will work when accessed from the Widgets icon in the Taskbar. Microsoft is offering the new builds for Lenovo PC users in China, and is advising these users to update to Lenovo PC Manager version 5.0.0.3292 or later, which includes an important fix.
You can switch between the Dev and Beta Channel, since the current build is the same for both. Users may download the ISO for Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22598 from Microsoft’s website. Refer to the announcement on the Insider blog for a full list of known issues and fixes in this build.
The wallpapers are good, but Microsoft really needs to allow users to remove the “Learn About this Picture” icon from the desktop. Moving the Windows Spotlight controls to the Settings app would be a better way to manage it.
Do you prefer the Dev Channel or Beta Channel?
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