Microsoft releases its first canary releasing for Windows 11 Insiders this week. Build 25314 offers a handful of new features, including File Explorer hotkeys and file recommendations and Local Security Authority (LSA) protection. However, as Microsoft has already mentioned, the release could be unstable in many areas, which may be faced by former Dev Insiders who have chosen to switch to this channel.
This week, Microsoft released the addition of the new Canary channel to its Windows Insider program. It also brought a change to Insiders, especially those in the Dev Channel, as Microsoft said these testers would be moved to the Canaries. Those who wanted to stay in the Dev Channel were advised to have a clean install of Windows 11, but Insiders who moved to Canary will get better builds. As some believe, the new Canary channel could be where Microsoft is testing the rumored features windows 12. The downside to this, however, is unstable builds.
In this first version of Canary, Microsoft has included several features and improvements for Insiders. Here is a quick overview of them:
- File Explorer access key shortcuts. Shortcuts are added to the XAML context menu. They will serve as a “unique hotkey” for users for specific commands using designated letters for display names in the context menu.
- File Explorer file recommendations. After testing the AI-recommended Start menu content in Preview build of build 22621.1343, Microsoft is now trying to test file recommendations in File Explorer. And like in the previous test, this feature will only apply to users logged into Windows with an Azure Active Directory (AAD) account.
- Protection LSA. In this release, Microsoft enables LSA protection by default, and this decision just makes sense for Microsoft to implement. As the company says, the feature “helps protect against the theft of secrets and credentials used for login by preventing the execution of unauthorized code in the LSA process and preventing the memory dump of the process”.
- Retrieving Narrator Outlook Support Update. Microsoft said Narrator will now fetch updates to its Outlook support when Narrator starts.
- Disabling the Remote Mailslot protocol. Microsoft noted that the release will also disable the default Remote Mailslot Protocol in Windows 11 systems, as it is “a simple, unreliable, insecure, one-way inter-process communication protocol between a client and a server”. As part of that, the software company said it plans to drop it in a future version of Windows.