Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158 introduces a large Search the Web shortcut on the Taskbar
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158 has been released for testers who have opted in to the Developer Channel of the Insider Program. It introduces a couple of controversial changes to the user experience.
What's new in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158
Search the Web shortcut on the Taskbar
The magnifying glass icon for Search on the taskbar, has been replaced with a large Search the Web shortcut. The functionality of the app remains unchanged. Clicking on it opens the search panel, and also changes the background color of the bar to a blue accent.
That is just one of the 3 user experiences that Microsoft is testing, here is a screenshot that shows all 3 versions.
Notification badges for Widgets
The Widgets shortcut on the taskbar will display notification badges, when you click on it the Widgets panel opens, and you will see a banner at the top of the board that triggered the notification badge. So, that's essentially an alert for a new article.
Not a fan of the changes? You can hide the Search bar and Widgets icon from the Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar items, click the toggles next to Search, and Widgets.
(some images via Microsoft)
Other changes in Build 25158
DNS over TLS testing is now available for Windows DNS client query protection. Ethiopic language support has been improved with new texture of text, and the Nyala font has been updated to support syllables for the Gurage language orthography.
Fixes in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158
The net adapter green screen issue that was causing bugchecks with error message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in NetAdapterCx.sys, has been fixed. The entry for System in the Data Usage section under Settings > Network & Internet > Advanced network settings > Data Usage, has been renamed to System and Windows Update.
The Start menu should no longer crash while opening it or trying to move pinned apps to a folder with the hotkey CTRL + Shift + Right Arrow. An issue that was causing pinned app icons to get stuck on the taskbar after uninstalling the apps, has been resolved.
Users should not lose connectivity while turning on mobile hotspot. The option to toggle the hotspot should not be greyed out. Microsoft has fixed bugs that were resulting in the Microsoft Store failing to download apps with the error 0x80080204, and app remediation failures with error 0x803FB004.
Various crash issues have been patched, including scenarios where Suggested Actions were triggered, accessing the Your Phone App, navigating to the Bluetooth & Devices > Printers & Scanners page, trying to use Cast from the Quick Settings (ARM 64 PCs), navigating through File Explorer with OneDrive enabled, command bar flyouts, and opening the Widgets board.
Task View's performance has been improved. The two-finger triple tap touch gesture in Narrator will dismiss context menus correctly. The accessibility feature will read the uninstallation prompt when trying to uninstall an app from Start. Task Manager was grouping some services as child processes of Microsoft Edge, this bug has been patched.
Known issues in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25158
There are 3 new known issues in the latest build. SQL Server Management Studio may fail to launch. The notification bade may be misaligned on the taskbar. The new notification banner may not appear in the Widgets board.
Microsoft is yet to fix the issues related to Easy Anti-Cheat, misaligned up arrow in File Explorer tabs, the Widgets temperature units, and Live Captions.
File Explorer tabs were enabled by default for me in this build, I'm not sure if that applies to everyone since it hasn't been mentioned in the release notes.
Microsoft has been toying with the UI quite a bit in recent times, and never provides an option to choose which style users may want to use, for example, you can't switch between the new Search icon/bar or the old one. Why would they include a Search bar, and not allow users to type in it? That's why I recommend hiding the icon entirely, and use the Start Menu.
What do you think about the UI changes?
Dear Microsoft nobody is going to use Bing no matter how much you want the data. People will keep using Google. Why? It is a better search engine than Bing and people are used to it and see no reason to use Bing considering that it’s also an inferior service than Google Search.
You should know that better than anyone, that’s the reason people still use Windows, they are used to it or are tied to it because of games and software they have and run only there.
People don’t leave Windows when there are superior operating systems out there. Why do you think they will leave Google for Bing when it’s an inferior service in the first place? It will never happen lol. The only thing you achieve is to annoy Windows users even more.
Are the Windows devs completely daft? People have been asking they bring back the “Never Combine” option for taskbar icons for months (13K upvotes in Feedback Hub!) and they waste resources adding an idiotic search bar nobody’s ever going to use?
I wish I could switch to Linux, but unfortunately, all the distros look like garbage, plus there’s still tons of essential software with poor support. Still, with all the blunders of Win 11, MS is creating a massive opportunity gap for competitors. For all of their competitors in Silicon Valley, now is the perfect time to cobble together a decent OS and absorb a massive portion of their userbase.
How can Microsoft do such a good job with tools like VS Code and be so bad at upgrading Windows?
I agree
Thanks @Ashwin for this article! :]
Shoving the big Bing horse pill down your throat as usual.
Stop bending over.
Problem solved.
Windows 11 just goes from better to better , doesn’t it.
/s
With all the features people have been begging for from the Windows 10 taskbar, they instead bring back the most pointless waste of space that most users didn’t care about. It’s a shame this is what they are working on instead of “never combine” for taskbar buttons. They are more worried about the size of the search icon than the functionality of search? Windows search sucks so much. It’s only purpose is to fool people into using Bing and Edge in order to show a higher number of registered clicks for some low level executives excel document which they present to a board of sponsors at the end of the month.
How about they actually do something useful and fix the problem of it not actually finding local documents with any degree of accuracy? But nah lets change the icon on the task bar so it’s easier to accidently click. It’s been 1 year and the “new” and “amazing” Start menu in Windows 11 is still the same pile of useless garbage with half of its panel being entirely useless because it’s meant for “recommendations”. Even if you turn “recommendations” off it wastes half the Start menu telling you a message that you need to enable this feature to see “recommendations”. Instead of giving you access to the other half. And you still can’t add your own apps there. Taskbar is still useless and you can’t invoke Task Manager from it, only from Start which means I need to travel mouse across entire 27″ inch display to the left to get to it. Oh and right click context menu now has second unnecessary submenu to access all the 3rd party features like 7-zip. Ingenious design, really!
Fix your crap first before thinking of releasing more crap under bigger version number. If this was a 2 guys operation in a garage, I’d understand it, but this is freaking Microsoft. It’s beyond pathetic.
‘It’s a shame this is what they are working on instead of “never combine” for taskbar buttons. ‘ Hear Hear!