update screens and a few settings dialogs like the Windows Activation troubleshooter, yet they're still there on the login screen and shutdown/restart screens for some reason.

It has been 4 and a half years since "We are working to replace this animated circle of dots in other areas of the OS over time" was mentioned in build 22449's blog post, since then the dots were replaced in the comparatively less commonly seen (cont.)

Windows 11 signing out screen, with old Windows 8-style spinning dots above the text.

Windows 11 login screen, with Windows 8-style spinning dots between the username ("Phantom") and the "Welcome" text.

With more talk and hope around UI consistency in Windows 11 recently, I really hope these old Win8 spinning dots on the login and shutdown/sign out/etc. screens finally get updated this year. Please.

Windows 11 Notification Center. Two separate screenshots are in this one image - on the left is the notification center with the 3 dots button clicked to show a menu including the option to "Hide focus session". On the right is the notification center after doing so, with the little panel offering a Focus button and focus session time at the bottom no longer present.

Alongside the upcoming agenda view, Windows 11's Notification Center will soon let you choose whether you want to show/hide the focus session UI at the bottom.

As of 26300.8276 (with the bits enabled), it is hidden by default, presumably to make way for said agenda view.

EVERYTHING new in Windows 11's April 2026 Update! (KB5083631) YouTube video by phantomofearth

Video on April's feature bundle (with KB5083631), including Xbox mode, performance improvements, Settings changes and more youtu.be/6Yj0MyEWdD8

Coming soon:
🐦 29570.1000 + 28020.1863
🧑‍💻 26300.8276
🐟 26220.8271

The error is not found and it's forbidden to try again

These are rolling out alongside the new right click zone size setting, which *has* been documented, and can be enabled with ID 58429068 (GE_EssentialsBundle_N)

Scroll & zoom touchpad settings in Windows 11. with options for automatic scrolling at edge, accelerated scrolling, scroll speed, single-finger scrolling and zoom speed among the options.

Today on "undocumented stuff in WIP": recent Dev/Beta builds added a bunch of touchpad options to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Touchpad!

New: automatic scrolling at edge, accelerated scrolling, sliders for scroll and zoom speed, and single-finger scrolling.

Latest episode of news sites dropping not very good headlines: betanews.com/article/microsoft-is-int...

No. Just no. The ability to pause updates has been a thing for years, what do you mean "introducing a way to pause updates".

Windows Terminal in Windows 11 build 26300.8170, showing format being used to format a 150 GB volume with FAT32.

If FAT32 formatting over 32 GB isn't working for you in the latest Dev/Beta builds, enable ID 60772592 (SFS_CD_BugFixes_2604).

To try out the new pause updates controls in Settings enable ID 61410885 (feature name WuSettings_ExtendablePause). Present in 26300.8170, not sure about other channels but I would guess Beta 26220.8165 likely has it given how similar weekly 26300/26220 flights are to each other.

Windows Update settings in Windows 11. The calendar for Pause updates is open, allowing the user to select an exact date to pause until.

Windows Update settings in Windows 11. The calendar for Pause updates is open, allowing the user to select a month they want to pick a day in.

Windows Update settings in Windows 11. The calendar for Pause updates is open, allowing the user to select the year they want to find a pause until date in.

More screenshots. (Don't make any assumptions purely based off the dates available to choose from in these screens, this is in a preview build where it isn't even rolling out.)

Windows Update settings in Windows 11. The calendar for Pause updates is open, allowing the user to select an exact date to pause until.

First look at changes coming to Windows 11's pause updates option!

The button/dropdown menu are being replaced with a button for a calendar view, which lets you choose a specific date to pause until (instead of 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. and having to manually resume early).

Improved the performance when navigating to see storage on large volumes via Settings > System > Storage > Advanced Storage Settings > Disks & Volumes.

Really happy to see these performance improvements to storage settings in Dev, went from taking 9 seconds to load the page for a 150 GB volume in .8155 to < 1 second in .8170 🎉

Updated Windows Insider Program settings page, with options to "select your experience", advanced options, feature flags and device unenrollment.

Updated WIP Settings page shown in today's announcement blog post is present in build 26300.8170 and if you want to see it for yourself, it can be enabled with feature ID 61157505 (Flighting_PageV3).

It's that time of the week again
🐦 29565.1000 + 28020.1812
🧑‍💻 26300.8170
🐟 26220.8165
soon.

Windows Insider Program | Preview Windows features & influence what comes next for Windows Join the Windows Insider Program to preview Windows features, provide feedback, and shape what's coming next to Windows.

Feedback: https://aka.ms/AA10hlw7

System tray in Windows 11. The volume icon context menu is open, showing three options: "Troubleshoot sound problems", "Open volume mixer" and "Sound settings". The latter two have a small cog icon next to them, while "Troubleshoot sound problems" has no icon.

It would be nice if an icon was added to "Troubleshoot sound problems" in the systray volume icon's context menu. "Diagnose network problems" got one in 24H2, would be cool for the consistency even if not super significant lol

Advanced Settings in Windows 11. The "Turn on developer mode?" dialog box is visible, warning the user that doing so may expose their device and personal data to security risks. In the bottom right hand corner of the screenshot is a watermark indicating that the current build is 26300.8155.ge_prerelease_im.260326-1030.

If you're wondering, yes, the modernised Developer Mode confirmation dialog in Settings mentioned in 28020.1803's blog post is already in all other Insider paths (except 295xx) and retail with KB5079391 or newer (.8116+) installed, it just wasn't mentioned in their release notes.

Two screenshots of Paint. The first one, at the top, shows the app settings page with an option to "Include a watermark when content is AI-generated", set to Never. The second one below it shows a confirmation dialog prompting the user to include a watermark to indicate that the image has been generated or edited using AI.

Paint 11.2601.421.0 (for Insiders) adds an option to put a watermark on AI slop- I mean AI generated images. Off by default with options to always add one, or ask you every time you save AI generated images.

Notepad app settings in Windows 11. At the bottom is a heading called "Advanced Features" with a toggle for "Writing tools", set to On.

The "AI Features" heading in app settings has also been renamed to "Advanced Features":

Notepad in Windows 11. The "Writing tools" menu button is highlighted, with a tooltip stating its name.

Latest Notepad app update for Insiders (11.2512.28.0) removes Copilot branding from the write/rewrite/summarize tools. They're now simply called "Writing Tools" and the icon is now a sparkly pen.

I may or may not have misunderstood the post completely 😅 thought it was mentioning 27 AI sessions for some reason, whoops

When I saw this in my notifications, I went "Huh, only 27 of 99? That seems a bit low?"

Of course it's a typo and too good to be true, lol

Feature Flags settings in Windows 11, with greyed out buttons for "Reset all" and "Apply Changes".

More bits: the new feature flags page will have a button to reset all flags to their default state. (+ Apply Changes button)

This is a successor of the "Experimental Features" page that never truly did make it out of internal builds whereas this actually got into an Insider build, velocity and all, so there's reason to be optimistic.

Two screenshots of Windows Insider settings. The first, at the top, shows several options, among them "Feature Flags". The second, below it, shows the Feature Flags page, with a search box to find flags, a banner warning that features are in development and toggling them may affect performance/stability, and a section for inactive flags.

Microsoft is FINALLY adding a "Feature Flags" page to Windows Insider settings that will let you manually toggle new features on or off without needing to use vivetool or suffering through CFR! (Hidden bits in 26300.8155)

🐦 29560.1000 + 28020.1803
🧑‍💻 26300.8155
🐟 26220.8148
🔜

An out-of-band/updated version of the March nonsec is coming soon (KB5086672/26200.8117)