Microsoft Delivers New Windows 11 Builds to Insider Canary, Dev, and Beta Channels

The Windows Insider Program has stumbled back to life in the wake of the initial release of Windows 11 version 24H2 and the first Copilot+ PCs, with new prerelease Windows 11 builds in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels. None are particularly interesting.

Here’s what’s new.

Canary

This is the least notable of the three builds, with Windows 11 Insider Preview build 26244 delivering just “a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.” That said, the Windows Backup program can now back up sound settings (including sound scheme).

Dev

In the Dev channel, Windows 11 Insider Preview build 26120.961 adds three new accessibility features—hands-free dictation using voice access in Narrator, Voice Access auto-restart, and Voice Access Command for Windows Search—plus a variety of familiar changes and improvements like the account manager in Start, Clipboard Copy and QR code generation in Share, Emoji 15.1 support, the sound support in Windows Backup noted above, and so on. Also, the Rename PC dialog has been restyled to match Windows 11 finally.

Beta

Finally, the Beta channel is receiving Windows 11 Insider Preview build 22635.3858, which is getting a few small changes and improvements like an indicator for multiple tabs in the File Explorer thumbnail in Alt + Tab and Task view and minor UI changes in Share.

In other words, nothing exciting.