Hi Windows Insiders, File Explorer is one of the most used experiences on Windows. It's where you get work done: organizing files, finding what you need, and moving content seamlessly across local storage and the cloud. Earlier this year, we shared our commitment to improving Windows quality, with a focus on performance, reliability, and craftsmanship. In File Explorer, that means investing in the foundational work needed to improve the experience end-to-end: reducing hangs and delays, improving responsiveness and reliability, addressing customer-reported issues, and removing friction from everyday tasks. But quality is also about continually evolving the experience to feel more modern, intuitive, and efficient for the millions of people who rely on File Explorer every day. Today we're sharing progress on both fronts. Alongside continued investments in File Explorer performance and reliability, we are introducing a substantially redesigned context menu experience that's faster, simpler, and more customizable than ever before. This new context menu experience is now rolling to Windows Insiders and represents one of several major improvements underway as we continue to modernize File Explorer.

Fewer bad moments

What people remember most are the worst moments. A single freeze while renaming a file, a slow right-click, or a Home view that flashes and reloads can outweigh dozens of smooth interactions. That reality has guided our approach to improving File Explorer. We focused on the everyday experiences people rely on most and set clear goals to make those interactions faster, more reliable, and less disruptive. Improving the moments that matter most We've profiled and invested in improving the performance and responsiveness of File Explorer. File Explorer now launches faster, and the overall experience feels more consistent and predictable. We’ve analyzed the issues behind many of the freezes, hangs, and delays users encounter, and eliminated dozens of potential stalls and interruptions in the experience.  As a result, you'll see fewer freezes and flashes when browsing, renaming files, navigating, or selecting multiple files. There are many more improvements to come, and these changes are designed to reduce disruptions and make File Explorer feel more responsive and reliable day to day.

Improving the details that matter every day

Our work extends beyond performance and reliability improvements. Many of the requests we hear from customers aren’t about major new features, they’re about the small interactions that happen every day.  We’ve continued refining File Explorer based on that feedback, removing friction and improving the details that help make everyday tasks feel more natural and predictable. For example, file renames no longer get interrupted by background file synchronization, and case-only filename changes now appear immediately. We’ve also improved navigation workflows.  The Address Bar now supports a wider range of inputs, including paths with quotation marks and double backslashes. Support for opening folders in a new tab with a middle-click has also been expanded to the Address Bar and Home page folders, making multitasking faster and more intuitive. Smaller usability improvements add up as well. Home now preserves whether sections are expanded or collapsed so you can pick up where you left off. File sizes are now displayed using appropriate units such as KB, MB, and GB, making them easier to understand at a glance. The Details pane has been reorganized so file properties are easier to find and review. Many of these improvements came directly from customer and Windows Insider feedback. They represent just the beginning of our ongoing effort to improve the everyday experiences people depend on most.

Putting you in control of the context menu

Right-clicking is one of the most common actions in Windows. If it doesn’t work as intended, or is difficult to navigate, it can derail your workflow. When we launched Windows 11, we introduced a new context menu with a modernized design, improved organization, and a new approach to application extensions. Over time, though, the menu became cluttered and sluggish, and we recognized the need to dramatically reduce the time between right-clicking and having a menu that’s fully ready to use. Today, we're excited to announce an updated context menu that delivers a faster, simpler, and more customizable experience. The new design reduces top-level clutter, keeps commonly used actions easy to access, and introduces a new Settings experience that gives you more control over what appears in the menu. [caption id="attachment_179130" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The new right-click menu.[/caption] Faster to open The first thing you'll notice is that the menu opens much more quickly. For something used as often as the context menu, speed is part of good design. A lot of that comes from behind-the-scenes engineering improvements, and a good part comes from a cleaner default menu, with the full set of options just a click away in Settings. Clutter isn't only a visual problem; it slows the menu down because every app that adds its own options can make the menu do extra work each time it opens. Your menu, your control Part of the broader push we’re making across Windows 11 is making the operating system calmer by default, with more personalization and control. Each person uses the context menu in different ways, so we’re adding more customization to allow you to choose the layout that works best for you. At the bottom of the new context menu, you’ll now find “Customize menu”, as a shortcut to its Settings page, where you can shape the menu around your preferences, your habits, or the years of muscle memory you’ve built with a specific configuration. [caption id="attachment_179131" align="aligncenter" width="760"] The new Context Menu page in the Settings app, under Personalization.[/caption] The top section lets you turn built-in Windows commands like Send to or Create shortcut on or off. Some of these commands, like Print, weren't available in the Windows 11 context menu before and can now be switched on if you want them. The next section is about options for app extensibility, so you can choose which app extensions appear in the main menu or submenu, including hiding the submenu altogether. Finally, the last section is about where the most common commands live. We know many people have years of muscle memory from the Windows 10 menu, so we've added options to bring that feel back. You can list the main commands (Cut, Copy, Paste, Rename, Delete, and Share) inline directly in the menu instead of as a row of icons, and you can move Properties down to the very bottom. As we continue refining this experience with Insider feedback, our goal is to make right-click feel more responsive, predictable, and personal.

Building a healthier File Explorer for the long term

We are committed to continue doing the hard work and consistently improving File Explorer month after month. Not every update will be obvious on its own, but together they should make File Explorer feel faster, polished, and more dependable across tasks users do most. Your feedback continues to shape every step of this journey. Keep it coming through Feedback Hub, and we'll continue sharing our progress as this work evolves. The File Explorer team

Hello Windows Insiders, Today, we’re releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds to the Beta and Experimental Channels. This post also includes reminders about renewed flight certificates and the current Feature Flags settings issue in the Experimental channel. Renewed Windows Insider flight certificates As a reminder, all new builds include renewed Windows Insider flight certificates, replacing certificates that expired on August 11, 2026. Flight certificates are renewed periodically to help ensure Insider devices remain on supported builds and continue receiving future Windows Insider Preview updates. Devices that are not updated to a newer build with a current certificate may encounter compatibility issues with software such as anti-cheat applications. For more information, please visit the certificate renewal FAQ. Experimental Feature Flags We’re investigating an issue that causes the Feature Flags settings page to appear empty for Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel. We expect to resolve it in the next Experimental build and will share updates on the blog. New builds this week We’re releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds today. Select your channel below to view its release notes:

• Beta: Build 26220.9202
• Experimental: Build 26340.9212

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2731
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2738
• Experimental (Future Platforms): Build 29648.1000

Notable new features:

[File Explorer]

Release channel: Experimental Introducing the new, redesigned Context Menu in File Explorer

• We’re beginning to roll out an updated context menu experience in File Explorer, designed to feel faster, cleaner, and easier to tailor to the way you work. The new design reduces top-level clutter, keeps commonly used actions easy to access, and adds a new Settings experience that gives you more control over what appears in the menu. As we continue refining this experience with Insider feedback, our goal is to make right-click feel more responsive, predictable, and personal.

[caption id="attachment_179130" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The new right-click menu.[/caption]

[Emoji]

Release channel: Experimental

• We’re adding support for Emoji 17.0. This includes new emoji such as distorted face, fight cloud, and hairy creature. To try out the new emoji, you can press the Windows key plus Period (.) to open the emoji panel and insert them from there.

• As part of this effort, we’ve also made some slight adjustments the design of some of our current emoji to improve consistency across platforms. This includes the saluting face, face with peeking eye, goose, lotus, and kissing cat emoji.

Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Hello Windows Insiders, Today we’re releasing new builds for Release Preview across our supported versions of Windows 11.  Please see the build numbers and links to the release notes below:

• Windows 11 version 24H2/25H2: Build 26100.9267/26200.9267
• Windows 11 version 26H1: Build 28000.2796

Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Back in 2020, we committed to Manifest Version 3 (MV3) as the future direction of the Chromium extensions platform. Since then, we've worked with developers, listened to feedback, and continued evolving Microsoft Edge toward a more secure and performant extensions foundation. Today, we're announcing the next phase of that journey. With 95% of the top MV2 extensions on the Edge Add-ons website already moved to MV3, the ecosystem has made meaningful progress. Beginning in August 2026, Microsoft Edge will start the consumer transition away from Manifest Version 2 (MV2) extensions and toward MV3. Our goal is to complete the consumer transition by the end of 2026, with enterprise deprecation following in early 2027.

The ecosystem is ready for the next step

This is a significant milestone for the extensions community, and one we have approached deliberately. Microsoft Edge continued to support MV2 extensions so developers, enterprises, and users who depend on specific extensions had more time to adapt. The move to MV3 has come a long way. MV3 offers security and performance improvements over MV2, and developers across the ecosystem have done the work to modernize their extensions. To put some numbers around the progress the ecosystem has made, there are only 58 MV2-based extensions in the Edge Add-ons website with any meaningful usage. Of these, only three don't have a publicly available MV3-based extension already available. Developers and users have spoken: the vast majority of extensions of all types—from password managers to VPNs to ad-blockers—have successfully transitioned to MV3 with no loss of customer functionality. We're committed to working with all developers with MV2-based extensions to smoothly move their users to MV3 extensions.

What to expect next

Starting in August 2026, a subset of users with MV2 extensions installed will begin to see notices on the Manage Extensions page (edge://extensions) and on Microsoft Edge Add-ons product detail pages. The very few developers with an MV2 extension will see a similar notice in Microsoft Partner Center, along with a direct outreach from our team to help them complete the migration. Over the next few months, MV2 extensions will be gradually turned off by default. Users will be notified in advance and directed to recommended MV3 versions where available. These changes will start in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels and gradually broaden to Stable in the following months, with the goal of completing the consumer transition by the end of 2026. Managed devices will not be affected during the consumer rollout. Enterprise deprecation will follow in early 2027. We will keep the community updated on the status of the rollout on a regular cadence.

What developers should do now

For developers who still maintain MV2 extensions, now is the time to complete the move to MV3. Ship an MV3 version of your extension and submit the update through Microsoft Partner Center. The Migrate an extension from Manifest Version 2 to V3 guide outlines the required changes. This progress only works because of the developers who have already moved their extensions to MV3 and shared feedback along the way. Thank you for your partnership and continued support in improving Microsoft Edge. If you run into questions during your migration, please reach out to the Microsoft Edge extensions team. We're happy to help.

At a glance Edge for Business security connectors extend your security tools into the browser, so you gain visibility and enforcement where work happens. This update adds new partner integrations, including Cisco Secure Access, Tanium, and Clever.

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You’ve built a security stack to protect your organization. As work shifts into the browser, a critical question emerges: can those tools protect work at the point where it happens? Good news, they can—when combined with the Edge for Business security connector framework. The framework extends your existing security stack into the browser, bringing greater visibility and policy enforcement into everyday work without adding another control plane or duplicating tools. We’re expanding this ecosystem with new integrations so you can maintain consistent protection wherever work happens.

Now generally available

• Cisco Secure Access is an advanced enterprise browser integration for Edge for Business. As a single integrated connector, it brings not only secure access but also unified data protection and AI guardrails directly into the browser.
• Tanium Connector for Microsoft Edge for Business delivers real-time browser telemetry into Tanium Autonomous IT Platform, helping organizations gain deeper visibility into browser-based threats, close critical security blind spots, improve compliance validation, and strengthen overall endpoint security across the enterprise.
• Clever Classroom MFA TrustPass helps streamline logins in education environments by recognizing trusted devices in Edge for Business—reducing unnecessary MFA prompts while maintaining strong security.

Bringing it all together

Our goal at Edge for Business is to give you a simpler way to secure how work gets done. As our connector ecosystem continues to grow, you have more options than ever to easily integrate the security tools you already use into the browser. Easily Integrate Security Tools with Connectors

In March I wrote to you about our commitment to Windows quality. Four months in, the team and I have been reflecting on our progress and wanted to share an update. We know there is more to do, especially in getting these improvements to all customers. We’re not slowing down. What we said we'd focus on In my letter, there was a list of immediate changes we committed to making. This included:

• More taskbar customization
• Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful
• Reducing disruption from Windows Updates
• Faster and more dependable File Explorer
• More control over widgets and feed experiences
• A simpler, more transparent Windows Insider Program
• Improving the Feedback Hub experience

We also named three areas of focus at the start: performance, reliability, and well-crafted experiences. Since then, the team has been deeply focused on these priorities. Many of these improvements have been rolling out to Windows Insiders over the last few months, and they'll start rolling out more broadly across Windows 11 PCs beginning this fall. Here's what our work so far looks like

• Earlier this month, we began previewing improvements to Windows Search Box, including a calmer home screen, clearer results, removing promotional content from web results and more.
• At Build 2026 in June, we introduced a number of improvements to the developer experience on Windows including a developer-optimized Windows 11 experience to build and ship faster, announcing and later delivering a public preview of WSL containers, Windows 365 with developer configuration, Microsoft Execution Containers and much more.
• We've strengthened the fundamentals of WinUI 3 and extended it into more of the Windows shell, including Widgets and the new Run experience, with Autoplay dialog and more File/Folder Properties dialogs coming soon to Windows Insider Preview Experimental builds. And with substantial improvements in memory efficiency and latency, these investments are strengthening the platform foundation needed to accelerate the modernization of Windows 11 and the broader application ecosystem.
• In May, we began previewing changes to Taskbar and Start, which included the ability to move your taskbar positions as well as provide more personalization of Start.
• In May, we shared updates on how we've been simplifying AI throughout the OS, starting with inbox apps, part of a broader shift to make AI in Windows more intentional and focused on the experiences that provide the most value to customers.
• We have previewed several improvements to File Explorer, including foundational architecture enhancements designed to improve responsiveness and reliability across launch and navigation. We’ve addressed long-standing feedback about Home, including unstable transitions and blurry thumbnails. We also made updates to address File Explorer reliability, readability, and usability across the Address Bar, file size formatting, keyboard navigation, and renaming, and there’s more to come soon.
• In May, we previewed updates to the widgets and feed experience, giving you more control over and making them quieter by default.
• In May, we introduced the Driver Quality Initiative (DQI), a comprehensive, ecosystem-wide effort designed to fundamentally raise the bar on driver quality, reliability, and security across Windows. Since March, we've improved reliability across some of Windows' most common connectivity experiences, including improved USB4 docking performance, improved compatibility with Bluetooth devices like AirPods, as well as major gains in printer connectivity, including reducing in-network printer discovery failures.
• We're continuing to invest across the full stack, from the kernel and shell to the apps and developer tools built on Windows, so performance improvements benefit the broad range of ways people use Windows. Building on the responsiveness and scheduler work we described in May, application launches and experiences like Start, File Explorer, Search, and Snipping Tool are faster and more responsive. Our focus has been on improving these experiences, so they are responsive, free of stutters and delays, and customers enjoy a reliable experience every time. Boot and logon times are also improved. Additionally, developers benefit from faster compile times, streamlining enterprise workflows.
• Alongside all of these areas, we’ve steadily been introducing several improvements to the memory efficiency of Windows, from taking advantage of a more efficient memory allocator to reduce overhead across apps and components, continued tuning of WinUI 3 so that apps built on it use less memory by design, as well as driving efficiencies across Chromium and Webview2 components when they appear in the operating system.
• Throughout this effort, we've improved Windows Hello to make signing in with your face or fingerprint more reliable, helping you get to your desktop faster. It's part of our broader focus on the everyday experiences that should just work, making Windows feel more polished, dependable, and consistent every day.
• In April, we began previewing changes that reduced disruption from Windows Updates and provided more control like the ability to skip updates during the out-of-box experience (OOBE), extending update pauses and more.
• In April, we made changes to the Windows Insider Program to become simpler and easier to navigate, with fewer channels and more control over the features you flight.

What happens between now and the end of the year Across our focus areas, the work continues as we bring these enhancements to general availability and deliver ongoing improvements customers can feel across performance, reliability, and craft. We're going to take everything we've learned since March and keep listening and closing the loop on your feedback. The signal from you is clear: keep going. We intend to. We're staying focused on our initial areas, and we're expanding into four new ones.

• Onboarding and setup. Delivering a faster and more efficient out-of-box experience.
• Memory optimization for 8GB and above. Reducing Windows memory footprint to deliver a fast and responsive Windows experience across the PCs customers use every day.
• Family. Providing a faster set up and making it easier for families to access useful parental controls.
• Voice. Making voice more natural and fluid to interact across the apps you use every day.

What's energized us most The last few months have energized us. Meeting Windows Insiders at our monthly meetups and hearing what you think has been one of the best parts. This is work our engineers love and we want you to feel it in the product. We know we have more to do, and we're grateful to be on this journey with you. Pavan

Hello Windows Insiders, We have new releases today with builds across Beta and Experimental, including refreshed security certificates across all new builds. Renewed Windows Insider flight certificates All builds this week contain renewed Windows Insider flight certificates (Note: Experimental (Future Platforms) has already contained the renewed flight certificate since the build released earlier this week). Windows Insider Preview builds use flight certificates that are renewed periodically to help ensure Insider devices remain on supported builds and continue receiving future Insider Preview updates. The current flight certificate expires on August 11, 2026, so please update your device to a build containing the renewed flight certificate before that date. For more information, please visit the certificate renewal FAQ. New builds this week Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds. See your channel release notes here:

• Beta: Build 26220.9022
• Experimental: Build 26300.9032

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2623
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2630
• Experimental (Future Platforms): Build 29639.1000

Notable new features:

[Updated 4 August 2026: thank you for the feedback from Insiders who found that the taskbar improvements had not made their way to the latest Beta build on release. After a slight delay, those improvements are now included in the build, a reboot maybe required. We look forward to continuing receiving your feedback for the new Taskbar improvements.]

[Taskbar]

Release channel: Experimental, new to Beta and Beta (26H1) Alternate Taskbar Position

• You can now change the position of taskbar on your screen. In Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar Behaviors, you can select the side of the screen you want your taskbar on: bottom, top, left, or right. In these other positions, tooltips, flyouts, and animations will still come from the taskbar, and most customization settings like never combine taskbar icons will work with all locations.

• Support for touch gestures, Search box, and Ask Copilot in alternate locations is in progress. Auto-hidden taskbar and touch optimized taskbar are not currently supported. Smaller taskbar is currently supported only for top and bottom positions.

[caption id="attachment_178963" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Screenshot of the taskbar in the left-aligned position.[/caption] Smaller Taskbar

• We’re introducing a smaller taskbar for users who want to maximize screen space, especially on smaller devices. While the default taskbar remains unchanged, this setting provides a more compact experience with smaller icons and a reduced taskbar height, giving you more room for your apps. Core elements like Start, Search, and the system tray scale appropriately to stay aligned and consistent.

• To change your taskbar size, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Taskbar size. When set to Small, both the icons and the taskbar height become smaller.

[caption id="attachment_178959" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Side-by-side comparison of the standard and smaller taskbar heights on the same device and resolution, showing the additional screen space gained.[/caption]

[Adaptive Hibernate Policy]

Release channel: Experimental Updates to the adaptive hibernate policy to increase instances of instant-on resumes from Modern Standby and increased battery preservation at the low end of the battery.  Noticeable changes include less hibernation while the battery is above 80% and hibernating sooner when the battery is below 10%. Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Hello Windows Insiders, Today we’re releasing build 29634.1000 for the Experimental (Future Platforms) channel. Release notes can be found over in the Windows Insider Documentation Hub as usual, as well as below. Renewed Windows Insider flight certificate Today’s Experimental (Future Platforms) build contains a renewed Windows Insider flight certificate. Windows Insider Preview builds use flight certificates that are renewed periodically to help ensure Insider devices remain on supported builds and continue receiving future Insider Preview updates. The current flight certificate expires on August 11, 2026, so please update your device to a build containing the renewed flight certificate before that date. For more information, please visit the certificate renewal FAQ. Experimental (Future Platforms) moves to updated WIP UI We conclude the full transition of all Windows Insider builds to the updated WIP channel UI, with those on the 29600 Preview Builds now seeing Experimental (Future Platforms) in the Windows Insider channel settings.

Release notes for Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 29634.1000 for Experimental (Future Platforms)

Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out [Voice Isolation in Voice Access]

• We're introducing Voice Isolation, a new option in Voice Access that helps it focus on your voice, even when others are speaking nearby. Whether you're in a shared office, an open floor plan, or at home with family around, Voice Isolation filters out other voices and background noise so Voice Access can better understand you. All processing happens privately on your device.
• Getting started Voice Access now offers three speech recognition modes under Voice Access settings > Improve speech recognition:
  • Voice Isolation — Filters out other speakers and background noise (one-time voice setup required).
  • Remove background noise only — Filters out non-speech sounds like typing or door slams. No additional setup needed.
  • No filtering — Default microphone input with no additional processing.
• To set up Voice Isolation, select it from the menu and follow the short, guided setup where you'll read a brief paragraph aloud so Voice Access can learn your voice. It only takes a minute, and your voice data never leaves your device

[Narrator] Braille displays now connect instantly with Narrator

• We're making refreshable braille displays easier to use in Windows. Narrator now supports displays that use the HID standard — an open industry standard for braille displays. If your display supports HID, simply connect it via USB and start reading — true plug-and-play with no additional setup required. For Bluetooth, pair your HID braille display in Settings > Bluetooth & devices just like any other accessory, and you can work wirelessly without being tethered to your PC.
• Compatible HID displays include models like the Orbit Reader 20, Orbit Slate 340, Freedom Scientific Focus 40, and APH Mantis Q40.
• HID braille displays now work during the initial Windows setup experience (OOBE) over USB — meaning users who are deaf-blind can set up their PC independently, right from the first screen. You can customize braille input and output options anytime in Settings > Accessibility > Narrator > Braille.

[Account Control]

• The Windows 11 Account Control flyout has a refreshed, modern design and a clear subscription badge to make the user's account status instantly visible. This helps users easily identify their plan, discover benefits, and explore upgrades.

Feedback: Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Settings > Start Menu. [Input]

• The emoji panel (Windows key + period (.)) now uses GIPHY as the GIF provider, delivering a smoother GIF browsing and sharing experience following the deprecation of the Tenor API.

[Settings]

• Improved reliability of navigating to the Startup apps page in Settings.

[Taskbar]

• Improved reliability of loading the system tray area of the taskbar when using your PC in a tablet posture.

[Start menu]

• Improved reliability of Start menu view preferences, ensuring your selected view is retained.
• Improved keyboard navigation when keyboard focus is set to the apps list within Start menu.

[Date and Time]

• Improved detection for triggering time zone change notifications.

[Display and Graphics]

• Improves the reliability of rendering content while scrolling for certain apps spanning across multiple monitors.

Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Hello Windows Insiders, Today we're releasing build 28120.2546 for the Experimental (26H1) channel. Release notes can be found over in the Windows Insider Documentation Hub as usual, as well as below:

Changes and improvements gradually being rolled out

- This update includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.

[Smart card removal policy]

- Administrators can now configure Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365 sessions that use Microsoft Entra ID (RDS AAD Auth) authentication to automatically disconnect when a redirected smart card is removed. This extends smart card removal policy enforcement to Microsoft Entra authenticated remote sessions, helping organizations meet security and compliance requirements.

[Narrator]

- Braille displays now connect instantly with Narrator. - We're making refreshable braille displays easier to use in Windows. Narrator now supports displays that use the HID standard, an open industry standard for braille displays. If your display supports HID, simply connect it via USB and start reading with no additional setup required. - For Bluetooth, pair your HID braille display in **Settings > Bluetooth & devices** just like any other accessory, and you can work wirelessly without being tethered to your PC. - Compatible HID displays include Orbit Reader 20, Orbit Slate 340, Freedom Scientific Focus 40, and APH Mantis Q40. - HID braille displays now work during the initial Windows setup experience (OOBE) over USB, meaning users who are deaf-blind can set up their PC independently right from the first screen. - You can customize braille input and output options anytime in **Settings > Accessibility > Narrator > Braille**.

[Voice Access]

- Voice Access now supports Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), and Korean (South Korea).

[Settings]

- The Bluetooth quick settings page is now navigable using gamepad input. - Fixed an issue causing the Graphics page in Settings to crash for Insiders after the latest updates.

[Sounds]

- Improved system sounds when using Windows in dark mode. Thanks! Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Hello Windows Insiders, Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds across Beta, Experimental and Release Preview. See your channel release notes here:

• Beta: Build 26220.8925
• Experimental: Build 26300.8935

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2539
• Experimental (26H1): No new build today, please keep an eye out for future blog updates
• Experimental (Future Platforms): No new build today, please keep an eye out for future blog updates

We also have Release Preview builds today for 24H2/25H2 and 26H1: [Update: Corrected build numbers]

• Release Preview 24H2/25H2: Build 26100.8968/26200.8968
• Release Preview 26H1: Build 28000.2605

Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Hello Windows Insiders, You’ve been asking for search that is faster, more relevant, and easier to use—whether you’re opening an app, finding a file, or changing a setting. Because the Windows Search Box is where many people start, we focused first on making results more dependable, easier to scan, and clearer before you click.

Windows Search Box improvements gradually rolling out today to Windows Insiders

Today, we’re rolling out several improvements to Windows Search Box available to Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel. These improvements are gradually rolling out via Controlled Feature Rollout so not all Insiders will see them right away. You can reboot to see if you receive them today. They are also available via feature flags.

• A calmer home screen. Search home has been simplified to reduce visual clutter and make it easier to get back to recent searches quickly.

• Clearer results. Search does a better job showing where a result comes from—app, setting, file, web result, or Store suggestion—so it’s easier to tell what you’re looking at and where you will go before you click.

• Promotional content has been removed from web results. Web results show the most relevant answer, instead of first showing related products and promotions, helping search feel more focused and less distracting.

• You’re in control of web and Microsoft Store results. A new setting in Settings > Privacy & Security > Search lets you choose whether web and Microsoft Store suggestions appear alongside local results.

• Local results prioritized when they’re the better match. Apps, settings, and files more reliably appear ahead of web and Store suggestions when your content is the stronger match. System items like This PC and Recycle Bin are easier to discover.
• Finding apps is more forgiving. Search is better at handling typos, dropped letters, extra letters, and partial words for apps. Queries like “utlook” can still find Outlook.

• Settings results are improving. We’ve made a first round of ranking improvements to help more relevant settings appear higher in results, with more tuning planned in the coming months.

• Finding files is improving. Search is better at surfacing the right local files with added support for two-character file searches. We’ve also made improvements to show cloud and connected files in results when they’re the stronger match. These changes help you get to the document, download, or folder you are looking for faster.
• Reliability is improving. Improved search reliability, including reducing likelihood of crashing and loading issue, with more work underway.

Try the changes and give us feedback

These improvements become available to Windows Insiders today in the Experimental channel. The changes in this post reflect the feedback you’ve shared, and we’ll keep refining them as they roll out to more Insiders. Share your thoughts in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Search. Jeff & Anderson   NOTE: Experiences vary by region.

Windows has adapted to emerging threats for decades, all while operating at unparalleled scale. It's our responsibility to bring clarity, transparency and sustained investment so customers understand what is happening, what Microsoft is doing and how they can reduce their exposure. The pace of vulnerability discovery is changing with advances in AI making it possible to find more issues, faster, across more code, with new mechanisms that can accelerate both discovery and analysis. The fastest way to reduce customer exposure is to find issues before attackers can use them. Windows is expanding its ability across the platform to find issues earlier, accelerate the engineering work to fix them, strengthen validation and deliver timely, high-quality updates that keep customers protected.

Finding vulnerabilities earlier and at greater scale

By applying AI across security analysis, we can identify patterns faster, prioritize risk and scale vulnerability discovery across the Windows codebase. This helps reduce the time between discovery and customer protection. It includes using Microsoft Security’s multi-model agentic scanning harness (MDASH), which utilizes multiple models including leading third-party AI vulnerability discovery models. To run MDASH at Windows scale, Windows set up dedicated cloud infrastructure for scanning and proving. A scanner pipeline scans critical binaries and validates candidates using multi-model debate across multiple model families. Confirmed candidates then flow to a separate, Windows-specific prove pipeline that helps eliminate remaining false positives, so only the highest-confidence findings reach the engineering team. This automation helps handle a larger volume of potential vulnerabilities and shortens the review window for new ones, shrinking the attack window for zero-day exploits. This effort extends beyond Windows as we work across Microsoft to drive broader adoption of these tools and practices throughout both the company and the wider ecosystem. We partner closely with AI-powered scanning teams across Microsoft’s product divisions, sharing insights, comparing best practices and aligning on key findings. In parallel, we collaborate with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) to continuously refine the end-to-end process from vulnerability discovery and issue filing to remediation and validation. We also regularly reassess our prioritization and rollout strategy based on lessons learned and feedback gathered through our Chief Information Security Officers’ (CISOs) engagements with customers. We continue to evolve our internal systems and practices so that vulnerability discovery is not treated as a separate activity, but as part of how we build, review and improve Windows before new features or updates are released. As a part of this we are updating our Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) best practices to ensure our secure-by-design approach explicitly accounts for potential AI-enabled attack techniques and exploit paths. That means using AI to help identify potential issues earlier in the development process, while relying on human expertise to evaluate findings, make risk-based decisions and ensure fixes meet the quality bar customers expect. As AI helps defenders discover more issues, customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release. This is evidence that defenders are getting better at identifying and addressing issues. Our focus is to effectively utilize these AI tools to support faster protection, stronger engineering systems and more actionable guidance for customers.

Fixing responsibly with AI and engineering discipline

Windows is evolving our engineering and validation systems to reduce the time from discovery to protection, with areas where customer risk is greatest. As we build our end-to-end system from discovery to remediation of vulnerabilities on Windows, we’re making the following investments to help ensure that we are not compromising update quality as we gain speed:

• We are integrating AI into our process to compress the path from discovery to a validated fix, helping engineers understand failures faster, propose candidate fixes consistent with the surrounding code, surface related issues elsewhere in the codebase and select the regression tests most likely to be affected by a change.
• Windows updates undergo validation across a range of testing environments, including the Security Update Validation Program (SUVP) and internal validation designed to help evaluate compatibility, reliability and real-world usage scenarios. This broad validation helps identify functional, application compatibility and quality issues before updates are broadly released.
• We’re also investing in new technology, including Windows-specific tools and agentic harnesses, to enable end-to-end generation and validation of fixes using AI, keeping humans in the loop when it comes to code review.

Customers rely on Windows updates to protect their environments, and they also need confidence that updates will deploy smoothly across diverse devices, applications and configurations. That is why quality remains central to this work. As we increase the pace of vulnerability discovery and remediation, we are also committed to giving customers practical ways to test, deploy and monitor updates in their own environments. In cases where customers see signals of potential issues or regressions, they can connect with Microsoft Customer Service and Support to report the issue and/or learn if it is a known issue. In the event of an issue, we are able to employ Known Issue Rollback (KIR), a mitigation technology that allows customers to quickly revert a targeted change, fix, functionality or feature that caused the problem, to its previous behavior. This approach allows the customer’s security protections to stay in place instead of uninstalling an entire update to fix an issue.

Helping customers safely stay current

The most important guidance is to stay current and take security updates as soon as possible. Timely patching is one of the most effective ways to reduce exposure, especially as AI accelerates the speed at which vulnerabilities can be discovered and exploited. We also recognize that every customer's situation is different. Many organizations need to assess risk, validate updates, sequence deployments and prioritize critical assets. When Microsoft releases security updates, we share Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) information and high-level guidance about the vulnerabilities addressed in the Security Update Guide, including available context on risk and mitigations where applicable. Customers should use that information to build a risk map for their own estate, prioritize protections for high-value targets and accelerate deployment where exposure is greatest. To help organizations prepare with less disruption, we also provide production-quality optional non-security preview ("D") releases ahead of the planned security update release for the following month for testing. These cumulative releases include new features and quality improvements. We target optional non-security preview releases for the fourth week of the month, two weeks before they'll see these features become part of the next monthly security update. These previews enable compatibility testing across a broad set of devices, applications and environments, helping identify issues earlier and increasing confidence in the quality and deployment readiness of the subsequent monthly security updates. Security is not just about responding faster to vulnerabilities. It is also about reducing exposure to security attacks. Windows is designed with multiple layers of protection enabled by default, strong identity protection with Windows Hello, the ability to reduce reliance on administrator privileges, trusted application experiences and hardware-rooted security. Together, these capabilities help organizations reduce exposure, strengthen resilience and provide a more secure foundation as organizations assess, test and deploy updates across their environment. To learn more about Windows security, see the Windows 11 Security Book or the Windows Server 2025 Security Book for your Server fleet. Windows also works closely with Microsoft Defender and the broader security ecosystem to help protect customers during the window between vulnerability disclosure and full deployment of security updates. Where possible, Microsoft Defender provides detections and protections that add another layer of defense. Through programs such as Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), Microsoft also collaborates with security protection and antivirus partners so they can prepare protections for customers as security updates are released. We recommend that customers update their security endpoint software to the latest version and take daily signature updates for best protection. Intune helps teams identify gaps, enforce compliance and deploy fixes across endpoints, and Azure Arc makes it easy to connect Windows Servers outside Azure to Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

Tools that make patching easier

A holistic patch strategy depends on tools that help teams move across the full lifecycle: automate what can move fast, identify what still needs attention and limit exposure when devices or apps fall behind. Modern management capabilities such as Windows Autopatch with hotpatch enabled, available in Microsoft Intune, can help accelerate security updates and minimize disruptions for your Windows 11 devices. With Autopatch, customers can configure the automatic deployment of Windows security updates, driver updates and firmware updates, across rings with the option to pause based on reliability signals, so issues can be contained before they spread. Autopatch now surfaces a security-risk and compliance overview with device-level drill-down, so customers can see where their estate is exposed and how to reconfigure their policies to stay more secure. Windows Servers can be hotpatched as well through Azure Arc, enabling rebootless security updates for your critical infrastructure and VMs across the fleet, manageable at scale with Azure Update Manager. Intune Enterprise Application Management helps keep apps current. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Windows and Intune insights help teams understand remaining exposure and prioritize remediation. Compliance policies, Conditional Access and security baselines help enforce the desired state across the endpoint estate, or harden devices when updates can’t be applied right away. Together, these capabilities help customers move from a time-based patching cadence to a more continuous, risk-based approach. For practical guidance on operationalizing patching across endpoint estates, see the Microsoft Intune blog on building a patch strategy for today’s threat pace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdjSkbKXoJw

Building trust through continuous improvement

The threat environment will continue to evolve as AI advances, with researchers continuing to find new classes of issues and attackers looking for ways to move faster. Our response is to keep strengthening the systems that help us find vulnerabilities earlier, fix them responsibly and support customers through safe, timely updates. As the pace of vulnerability discovery increases, customers shouldn’t have to choose between speed and stability. Our job is to help customers stay protected while deploying updates with confidence. Windows will continue investing in the systems, engineering practices and platform protections needed to reduce exposure responsibly at global scale.

Welcome to New in Edge for developers, a new series featuring recent web platform updates in Microsoft Edge that help web developers build better sites and apps. In this first edition, we'll look at CSS gap decorations for styling the space between layout items, the focusgroup attribute for easier keyboard navigation, same-site PWA origin migration for moving an installed web app without disrupting users, and other improvements such as text-fit, flex-wrap: balance, and faster clipboard reads. We'll also preview upcoming features you can test today and share feedback on early, and highlight a few updates from across the broader web ecosystem, such as Modern Web Guidance, an AI coding agent skill helping you write better code.

Style layout gaps

CSS gap decorations let you style the gaps between items in flex, grid, and multi-column layouts directly, without relying on border hacks, pseudo-elements, or extra DOM elements. The new row-rule and extended column-rule properties, as well as the rule shorthand, support colors, patterns, and even the repeat() syntax for rich, consistent designs with minimal CSS.

.grid {
  display: grid;
  gap: 16px;
  row-rule: 1px solid #ccc;
  column-rule: 2px solid #333;
}

Learn more about CSS gap decorations and try our interactive playground.

Improve keyboard accessibility with focusgroup

The focusgroup HTML attribute gives you arrow key navigation for composite widgets, such as toolbars, tabs, or menus, for free. With the focusgroup attribute you get automatic arrow key handling and focus memory, without any custom JavaScript roving tabindex code. To learn more, check out Making keyboard navigation effortless.

Migrate your PWA to a new origin

You can now seamlessly migrate your Progressive Web App (PWA) to a new, same-site origin, preserving user installations and permissions. When a user installs a PWA, its identity is bound to its web origin (for example, example.com/app). Previously, changing the origin forced users to manually uninstall and reinstall the app. This is no longer necessary. Now, moving to a new origin such as app.example.com can happen without interruption to your users. To learn more, see Seamless PWA origin migration: Change domains without losing users.

And many other features

We've added many more web platform features to Microsoft Edge over the past fews releases. Check out the links below to find out more:

• image-rendering: crisps-edges: scale an image in a way that preserves contrast and edges, without smoothing colors or introducing blur.
• OpaqueRange for form control text: measure, highlight, and anchor UI to the text inside <input> and <textarea> without mirror-div hacks.
• Performance improvements when reading clipboard data: the Async Clipboard API now defers reading clipboard data until you call the getType() method.
• text-fit: scale the font-size of a text node so it perfectly fits the width of the box.
• light-dark() function for images: easily switch images based on the user's preferred color scheme.
• flex-wrap: balance: distribute the content of a flexbox layout on each flex line.
• scrollBy() / scrollTo() completion promises: run code when a smooth scrolling finishes, instead of relying on timers or scroll polling.

For even more updates, check out our web platform release notes.

Ready for testing

While not yet available for general use, the following features are available for early testing and feedback. You can test these new features either locally, or on your production website with your own users, by registering for an origin trial. Your feedback is crucial to help us shape these next features and ensure they meet your needs as developers, and the needs of your users.

Network Efficiency Guardrails: monitor and improve your site's load performance

Complex sites that embed third-party content and are maintained by many different teams tend to run the risk of regressing load performance when strong guidelines and monitor practices are not in place. This is exactly what the Network Efficiency Guardrails feature provides. It surfaces performance violations automatically in production, so your teams can catch and fix them without manually auditing every page. To learn more and test the Network Efficiency Guardrails feature, see Monitor and improve your web app's load performance.

<install>: install web apps with a single HTML element

The new <install> element gives you a browser-trusted install button with no JavaScript required. The browser controls the button's label and appearance, so a user click is a genuine signal of intent. You can even use the installurl attribute to build an app catalog that installs cross-origin web apps.

<!-- Install the current app -->
<install></install>

<!-- Install a different app -->
<install installurl="https://awesome-app.com/"></install>

To learn more, and get started, see our blog post: Install web apps with the new HTML install element.

CSS Grid Lanes: space efficient masonry layout

Grid Lanes is a new type of CSS layout that allows items to be automatically placed in the next available space, creating a space-efficient masonry-like layout without needing to specify row heights or use JavaScript. Grid Lanes is ideal for galleries, portfolios, and any design where items have varying widths or heights.

.grid {
  display: grid-lanes;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(200px, 1fr));
}

To learn more, check out our demos.

New models and APIs for on-device AI

Our developer preview of the pre-release Aion-1.0-Instruct small language model is now available to use with the Prompt API and Writing Assistance APIs in Microsoft Edge. Aion-1.0-Instruct is smaller, faster, and more efficient than Phi-4-mini. It also expands support to significantly more devices. Check out our playground samples and share your feedback on GitHub. That's not all, starting with Microsoft Edge Canary or Dev 150, you can now also use the WebSpeech API to convert speech to text by using a local model, rather than a cloud-based solution. With on-device speech recognition support in Microsoft Edge, you can reduce your web app's running cost, be network independent, and improve privacy for your users. To learn more about Aion-1.0-Instruct, on-device speech recognition, and other on-device AI API updates, see Expanding on‑device AI in Microsoft Edge: New models and APIs for the web.

News from across the web platform

Beyond individual features, we also want to highlight a few updates from across the web platform and the broader web ecosystem.

Interop 2026 progress

The web moves forward by responding to new end-user and developer needs, and this is therefore a big part of what we do. But we also know that you need stability and consistency to build on. That's why we've been participating in the Interop project for the past five years, working with other browser vendors to identify and fix interoperability issues across browsers. This work is crucial to ensure that the web remains a healthy ecosystem where developers can build with confidence, and users can access content and applications regardless of their choice of browser. Interop 2026, the latest round of the project, is now well underway, and we've already made significant progress in fixing the issues identified during the planning phase. Between January and June 2026, Microsoft Edge's test pass rate increased from 77% to 97%, and we're hard at work on features such as Scoped custom element registries and WebTransport. Check out the Interop dashboard for more details on this year's focus areas and the progress made by all participating browsers.

Modern web guidance

We've partnered with the Google Chrome team to bring Modern Web Guidance to web developers. This ambitious project gives developers AI skills they can use with their AI coding agents, to build better web apps based on best practices under rigorous evals. We want to hear from you about this project. Did you try it? Did you find the results helpful? Are there other features you'd like to see included? Please let us know by using the public repo.

Closing words

On the Microsoft Edge web platform team, we're always listening to what users and web developers need, and pushing for a better, more capable web. Our work is never done; a healthy web is one that keeps improving to meet ever evolving needs. We hope these recent feature additions and early experiments are useful to you and your users. As always, let us know your feedback and other unsolved use cases. With your help, we can make your lives as developers easier, and your web products better for users.

Hello Windows Insiders, We have new releases today with builds across Beta and Experimental. New builds this week Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds. As a reminder, all Insiders can find the release notes for your device based on the new channel system, even if you haven’t moved yet. This is to make finding build information as easy as possible during the transition. See your channel release notes here:

• Beta: Build 26220.8764
• Experimental: Build 26300.8782

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 2820.2380
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2387
• Experimental (Future Platforms): We do not have a new build for this channel today, keep an eye out for future announcements.

Notable new features:

[Cloud Recovery]

Release channel: Experimental

• We're introducing Cloud rebuild, a new recovery option that restores a Windows 11 PC to a clean, known-good state by performing a full OS reinstall, even when Windows won't boot. Unlike Reset this PC, Cloud rebuild downloads both the target Windows image and the device's drivers from Windows Update, so the device comes back fully functional without USB media, without a custom image, and without depending on the health of the currently installed OS.

[caption id="attachment_179033" align="aligncenter" width="811"] The new Cloud rebuild option in Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), enabling a full Windows reinstall using files downloaded from Windows Update.[/caption] To learn more, see https://aka.ms/CloudRebuild.

[Account Control]

Release channel: Experimental

• The Windows 11 Account Control flyout has a refreshed, modern design and a clear subscription badge to make the user's account status instantly visible. This helps users easily identify their plan, discover benefits, and explore upgrades.

[caption id="attachment_179034" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] UI showing the refreshed Account Control flyout with subscription badges, account benefits, and storage details.[/caption] Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Fans of PC favorite Elder Scrolls Online can look forward to a new in-game event: the High Seas of Tamriel, which XBOX Wire’s Mike Nelson framed as one of the franchise’s bigger experiments, especially with naval combat. Nelson caught up with Game Director Nick Giacomini and Associate Design Director Jason Barnes to learn more about it. “It is very different from any of the events that we’ve ever done in The Elder Scrolls Online,” Giacomini says. “It is a destination as opposed to amplifying the world…It involves underwater combat. It involves these kinds of scavenger-hunt collection-type things, like messages in a bottle.” Find out more at XBOX Wire.

Hello Windows Insiders, We have new releases today with builds across Beta and Experimental, and are excited to begin rolling out the new Windows Insider experience to retail Windows 11 builds this week! New Windows Insider Program changes launching into retail After validating through the Windows Insider channels, and receiving much feedback from the Insider community, we are excited to begin rolling out the new program changes into retail. This means those on standard retail Windows 11 builds (i.e. non-Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds) will begin seeing the new channel experience in the WIP UI settings. This can be found under Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program. Please note this will be a gradual roll out, so don’t worry if you are on a retail build and do not see the new channel options just yet – these will roll out to everyone over the coming weeks. For more information about the changes that the new WIP experiences bring, read the original announcement blog here. We have also updated the Windows Insider Program website, as well as the Windows Insider Program Documentation Hub to reflect the new program changes. If you are not currently running a Windows 11 Insider Preview Build, there has never been a better time to start flighting – you’ll get early access to new Windows 11 features, enhance your say in the development of Windows, and now in most cases, you will be able to switch channels or exit the program without having to do a full reinstall of Windows if you find it's not working for you. See the WIP Documentation Hub for more information. Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback on the new WIP experiences – we continue to listen to your feedback and look forward to providing more resources and updates in the coming weeks! New builds this week Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds. See your channel release notes here:

• Beta: Build 26220.8754
• Experimental: Build 26300.8758

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2366
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2374
• Experimental (Future Platforms) – Including Canary 29600 series: Build 29617.1000
  • Please note we have not yet launched the new Windows Insider program changes for those in Experimental (Future Platforms), currently Canary 29600 builds. We will be providing an update on this in the very near future.

Notable new features:

[Taskbar]

New Taskbar size setting Release channel: Experimental

• Taskbar customization just got easier. As we continue to make improvements to the Taskbar experience mentioned last month, we've introduced a dedicated Taskbar Size setting, making it simpler to find, understand, and personalize your ideal taskbar experience.

[caption id="attachment_179025" align="aligncenter" width="998"] Screenshot showing ability to change Taskbar size[/caption] Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Great news for players of Age of Empires Mobile! The game is now available on Steam and the Microsoft Store for PCs. Players who’ve started on mobile can continue to play between their phone, tablet and/or PC without losing progress. The PC Edition optimization includes mouse control and full keyboard navigation. Get all the details on Age of Empires.

Hello Windows Insiders, We have new releases today with builds across Beta and Experimental, including Windows 11, version 26H2 for Experimental. Windows 11, version 26H2 Windows 11, version 26H2 represents our yearly second half major update as part of our standard annual Windows 11 update cadence. As Windows 11, version 26H2 shares the same servicing branch as Windows 11, version 25H2, the update is implemented through an enablement package (eKB). This means your device will be updated to the next version through a single restart – providing a familiar, fast, and reliable update experience. Devices already enrolled in the Experimental channel will begin seeing their versioning updated to version 26H2 under Settings > System > About (and winver). If you are in the Beta channel and would like to switch to the Experimental, you can easily do so under Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program. Remember, you can easily switch back to Beta at any time, without having to do a full Windows reinstall. Not currently enrolled in the Windows Insider Program and wanting to preview version 26H2? Register for WIP selecting the Dev channel, while it's transitioning to Experimental. Once the transition is complete, the new channel name to preview version 26H2 will appear as Experimental. For more information on Windows 11, version 26H2, especially for IT professionals, please see Get ready for Windows 11, version 26H2. Note: Devices running Windows 11, version 26H1 will not be able to update to version 26H2. Instead, they’ll have a path to update to a future Windows release. This is because Windows 11, version 26H1 is based on a different Windows core than Windows 11, versions 24H2, 25H2, and 26H2. Here’s What to know about Windows 11, version 26H1. New builds this week Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds. As a reminder, all Insiders can find the release notes for your device based on the new channel system, even if you haven’t moved yet. This is to make finding build information as easy as possible during the transition. See your channel release notes here: • Beta: Build 26220.8690 • Experimental: Build 26300.8697 For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes: • Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2308 • Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2315 • Experimental (Future Platforms) – Including Canary 29600 series: Build 29613.1000 Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

For more than 13 years, Surface has been shaped by the people who use it. Architects sketch buildings, developers train models, students build startups and field engineers solve problems that rarely make headlines. We didn't intend to design for one audience, but the people who’ve chosen Surface have defined it through their work. They build, shape, solve and ship, often before anyone else sees what’s coming. That pattern is now the platform: new devices, new features and a continued commitment to the makers who show us what Surface means by how they use it.

Expanding Surface for the work ahead

2026 has brought important updates for Surface. We delivered our broadest Surface for Business lineup to date, with new enterprise features including an integrated privacy screen. Later this year, we’ll deliver Surface Laptop Ultra, our most powerful Surface Laptop ever, built for developers and creative professionals pushing their work further. We’ll also deliver Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, an entirely new category of Surface hardware purpose-built for AI developers who need sustained local compute. Surface is investing everywhere: from entry points to ultra-premium performance, from the enterprise to the individual maker. Today, we’re introducing the next Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, powered by Snapdragon X2 processors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsles7xMMFA

New: Surface Pro and Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X2

The next Surface Pro and Surface Laptop ship with Snapdragon X2 processors, delivering more performance for the work people do every day. These new PCs are available starting June 16, with Surface for Business availability beginning July 14.

Surface Pro 13-inch: The most versatile 2-in-1 PC

Available in Platinum, Black and Dune [1], the new Surface Pro combines the flexibility of a tablet with the capability of full Windows, so you can move from sketching and notetaking to real desktop work on one device. Starting at $1,499 (MSRP), the new Surface Pro 13-inch with Snapdragon X2 delivers up to 53% faster graphic performance than the previous generation [2], up to 15.5 hours of battery life [3] and a 1440p Quad HD camera with ultrawide field of view for clear video and natural framing on screen. With a stunning optional OLED display, it delivers deeper blacks, higher contrast and greater color accuracy, so you can trust what you’re seeing without second guessing. Paired with the optional Surface Pro Flex Keyboard, now available in Dune, this is the 2-in-1 for the makers who want a lightweight tablet without stepping down from the power and flexibility of Windows. No tradeoffs required.

Surface Laptop 13.8-inch and 15-inch: All-day performance

Starting at $1,599 (MSRP), the Surface Laptop pairs the premium build quality Surface is known for with the power of Snapdragon X2 with up to 58% more graphics performance than the previous generation [4]. The new Laptop delivers up to 20 hours of battery life on the 13.8-inch and up to 19 hours on the 15-inch [5]. Whether you're running local models, collaborating across time zones or deep in a creative workflow, it keeps up when the work stacks up. That focus carries through to the display. Both models feature bright, color-accurate LCD screens, and the new Surface Laptop 15-inch display gets sharper, jumping from 201 PPI to 262 PPI for greater detail and clarity. In addition to Platinum, Black and Dune, the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop comes in a beautiful new color: Jade. Round it out with the No.1 ranked laptop camera by DXOMARK [6], and Surface Laptop holds its place as the everyday workhorse of the lineup.

Making AI work for real work

We don't believe AI should be confined to one place. Some workloads belong on device: processed locally, fast always available. Others need the scale of the cloud. Most real work moves between both, sometimes in the same session. Surface is built for that reality. With dedicated NPU silicon, optimized Windows integration and full cloud connectivity, every new Surface device is designed to run AI workloads wherever they make the most sense. On-device inference. Cloud-scale processing. Create hybrid workflows that can move seamlessly between both. Wherever the work moves, Surface is built to move with it.

Feedback you can feel

A good interface gives back more than you put in. Across the touchpad on the new Surface Laptop and Slim Pen with Surface Pro, feel subtle haptic feedback across Windows and the apps you use every day. Snap a window into place. Scrub through a video. Create in Affinity. Every move lands. This isn't a feature for the spec sheet. It's clarity, so actions feel certain. Inclusion, so feedback reaches past what you can see and hear. Delight, so the small moments feel made for you. Learn more at Microsoft Design about how advanced haptics in Windows 11 bring clarity, inclusion and delight to everyday interactions. Our partnership with Affinity runs deeper than a touchpad gesture. Surface Pro and Surface Laptop ship with Affinity pinned to the Start menu [7], ready the moment you sign in with professional-grade design, photo and publishing tools, tuned to take full advantage of Surface hardware for a smooth and responsive experience.

Designed with sustainability and repair in mind

Surface devices are built with sustainability in mind. Surface Laptop 13.8-inch and 15-inch and Surface Pro 13-inch are made with a durable 100% recycled aluminum enclosure, reducing reliance on virgin materials [8]. These devices are also built for high performance and energy efficiency. Each device is certified by ENERGY STAR, all outperforming the efficiency baseline by at least 50% [9]. The new Surface Repair Tool gives you guided repair workflows designed by Microsoft. From one screen, you can see your device’s model and key device information, run tests on supported components (including the battery, display, or camera) and walk through guided repairs for eligible parts like the battery, display, touchpad or motherboard.

Find your next Surface on Microsoft.com

Discover the new Surface lineup and find the one that’s right for you at Microsoft.com. For a limited time, customers in the U.S. can take advantage of our exclusive hero offer from June 16 through June 30, including a free Surface Pro 13-inch Keyboard when purchasing a Surface Pro 13-inch or a free Surface Arc Mouse when purchasing a Surface Laptop 13.8-inch or Surface Laptop 15-inch, plus 50% off Microsoft Complete for added protection. When you shop at Microsoft Store, you’ll also benefit from added value. Our trade-in plus-up offer can save you up to $900 when you trade in your old device. Our 60-day return policy provides additional peace of mind and a one-year manufacturer warranty included with every device makes it easier than ever to upgrade with confidence.

What you make next

Thirteen years in, we’re driven by the same goal we’ve always been: empowering people to realize their vision and create new worlds. We’ll keep building. The rest is yours. Visit Surface.com to explore the new lineup. [1] Colors available on selected models only. Available colors, sizes, finishes and processors may vary by store, market and configuration. [2] Tested by Microsoft April 2026 using 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark comparing Surface Pro, 13-inch (12th Edition) with Snapdragon X2 Elite to Surface Pro 13-inch (11th Edition) with Snapdragon X Elite devices. [3] Based on local video playback test. Battery life varies significantly based on usage, network and feature configuration, signal strength, settings and other factors. See aka.ms/SurfaceBatteryPerformance for details. [4] Tested by Microsoft April 2026 using 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite benchmark comparing Surface Laptop, 13.8 -inch and 15-inch (8^th Edition) with Snapdragon to Surface Laptop, 13.8-inch and 15-inch (7^th Edition) with Snapdragon. [5] Based on local video playback test. Battery life varies significantly based on usage, network and feature configuration, signal strength, settings and other factors. See aka.ms/SurfaceBatteryPerformance for details. [6] Based on commissioned testing by DXOMARK in April 2026 of Surface Laptop, 13.8-inch with Snapdragon X2 M10 16GB/256GB and the DXOMARK laptop camera ranking as ofJune 16. 2026. Claim applies only to devices with the same camera hardware, firmware and settings as tested. Rankings may change. More information: Laptop Ranking - DXOMARK [7] On Surface for Business devices, Affinity app requires installation. [8] Surface Pro, 13-inch enclosure includes bucket, kickstand. 86% recycled content in the enclosure, consisting of 100% recycled aluminum alloy in bucket, and 100% recycled rare earth metals in the magnets. Surface Laptop, 13.8-inch and 15-inch, enclosure includes A Cover and C Bucket. 64% recycled content in the enclosure, consisting of 100% recycled aluminum alloy in A Cover and C Bucket, and 100% recycled rare earth metals in the magnets. Based on validation performed by Underwriter Laboratories, Inc. using Environmental Claim Validation Procedure (ECVP) for Recycled Content, UL ECVP 2809-2, Second Edition, dated June 2024. [9] Comparison based on product energy consumption vs. ENERGY STAR certification limits for personal computers. Actual performance varies by configuration and usage.

Hello Windows Insiders, We have a number of releases today with new builds across Beta, Experimental and Release Preview. Release notes for inbox Windows 11 apps Windows 11 inbox apps are now getting their own release notes section on the Windows Insider Program Documentation Hub site. This is to help make finding app updates easier, with each inbox app getting its own dedicated page as new updates rollout. Check out some of the app updates rolling out to Experimental across Calculator, Camera, Clock, Media Player, Paint, Photos and Sound Recorder. More apps will be added over time. New builds this week Today we are releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview Builds. As a reminder, all Insiders can find the release notes for your device based on the new channel system, even if you haven’t moved yet. This is to make finding build information as easy as possible during the transition. See your channel release notes here:

• Beta: Build 26220.8680
• Experimental: Build 26300.8687

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2298
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2302
• Experimental (Future Platforms) – Including Canary 29600 series: Build 29610.1000
  • Note: The issue affecting AMD machines supporting System Guard has been resolved meaning these devices will be offered the Experimental (Future Platforms) build as usual

We also have Release Preview builds today for 24H2/25H2 and 26H1:

• Release Preview 24H2/25H2: Build 26100.8728/26200.8728
• Release Preview 26H1: Build 28000.2333

Notable new features

[Windows Update]

Release channel: Experimental

• As announced in the Windows Update announce blog, we are rolling out a new unified update experience to reduce the number of reboots you see per month. We are starting by coordinating driver, .NET, and firmware updates to align with the monthly quality update, reducing the update experience to a single monthly restart. See the blog for more information.

• Finding apps is more forgiving. Search is better at handling typos, dropped letters, extra letters, and partial words for apps. Queries like “utlook” can still find Outlook.
• Settings results are improving. We’ve made ranking improvements to help more relevant settings appear higher in results.

Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

Microsoft Edge is moving to a two-week release cycle, bringing new features and improvements to users and organizations faster than ever. This is great news for teams that thrive on innovation: instead of waiting a full month for the next update, you get a steady, continuous stream of new capabilities to put to work sooner. For organizations that prefer a more deliberate pace, Extended Stable is not changing. We introduced it in 2021 to provide a longer, predictable rhythm, and that commitment remains firmly in place. Extended Stable remains unchanged in timing.

Changes to the release schedule

Starting with Microsoft Edge 152 (Stable on August 27), Edge will move to a 2-week release cycle. Extended Stable will now receive updates every fourth release (for example, 156, 160, 164). The time between Extended Stable updates stays the same, at every eight weeks. For customers on Stable, the practical effect of the new cycle is smaller, steadier change. Each release brings about half as much new content as before, delivered twice as often. Security and platform improvements reach your users faster, and each change set is smaller, which can make validation more manageable. Both channels receive critical security updates. The difference is how quickly new features arrive: Stable delivers them on the new 2-week cycle, while Extended Stable spaces feature updates over an 8-week window for organizations that prefer a longer planning rhythm.

Recommended action

In summary, here is what to do, depending on the channel you run:

• If you are on Extended Stable: no action needed. Your 8-week cycle and the same support model continue.
• If you are on Stable: plan for smaller, more frequent change sets and faster delivery of security improvements.
• Whichever channel you run: add a pilot group to Beta and start testing from day one to maximize your validation time.

Early testing gives you more time to identify issues, provide feedback, and address them before the Stable release reaches your organization. Enterprise Preview is our supported path for piloting Beta, with setup guidance built for IT admins, which helps you stay ahead of the faster cadence. To prepare for the transition, please refer to the updated Microsoft Edge release schedule and the Microsoft Edge Lifecycle page. We will continue to share updates through the Microsoft Edge Blog and the Microsoft 365 Message Center. The pace of Edge is accelerating, and your users get to enjoy the payoff: more features, more improvements, arriving sooner and more often. And whatever pace suits your organization, you stay in control of it. We appreciate the partnership of our customers, and we are committed to supporting every team, on every channel, as Edge keeps getting better, faster.

Computex has always been one of the most important moments of the year for the PC industry — a stage where our partners come together to show what is next for hardware, silicon and the experiences they unlock. This year our partner ecosystem is shaping the future of the PC for more than a billion daily users around the world. Partners unveiled a new wave of Windows 11 PCs that span every form factor and customer need. Together, these announcements reflect the deep collaboration across the Windows ecosystem and how it is accelerating industry‑wide transformation — delivering greater performance, more efficiency and thoughtful new designs for the way people work, create and play. The power of the Windows platform means that there’s a Windows device for every person and purpose no matter what price point. Let’s look at a selection of the key announcements from our partners at Computex 2026.

New Windows 11 PCs from across the ecosystem

Acer

Acer announced a comprehensive lineup of innovation, with all new laptops running on Windows 11. The lineup featured Copilot+ PCs prominently, including several new entries to Acer’s mainstream Aspire product line: the high-powered Aspire X 16 AI laptop for prosumers, the Aspire 18 AI laptop with greater screen space for creative workflows and productivity and the Aspire C AI Series all-in-one desktops with an innovative new ErgoStand design. Acer also added two new Copilot+ PCs to the premium Swift line with two versions of Swift Spin 14 AI — one powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors and the other by Snapdragon X2 Series processors — also marking Acer’s first convertible 2-in-1 laptops under the Swift line. [caption id="attachment_263872" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Acer Swift Spin 14 AI[/caption]

ASUS

ASUS showcased its latest AI PC portfolio designed to make AI more practical and accessible for every user. The new ProArt P16 and P14, powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark, bring next-generation agentic AI workflows and powerful local AI capabilities to creators and developers. For mainstream consumers, the new Zenbook 14 delivers a Windows experience with premium design, all-day mobility and fresh new Ceraluminum colors, while the Snapdragon-powered Vivobook S series expands AI-enhanced productivity to an even broader audience. Together, these innovations demonstrate ASUS’ vision of bringing advanced AI experiences across every category of personal computing. [caption id="attachment_263865" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Asus ProArt Laptop[/caption] The 2026 ROG Strix SCAR 18 redefines the gaming flagship laptop with up to 320W total system power, powered by up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor 290HX Plus and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU, and featuring the world’s first 18-inch 4K 240Hz Mini LED ROG Nebula HDR display with ROG Nebula Extreme Low Motion Blur (ELMB) for uncompromising gaming and creator experiences [1].

Dell

The new XPS 13 starting at $699 proves that a lower price doesn't mean accepting less. As Dell's thinnest and lightest laptop yet, with up to 17 hours of streaming battery life, it delivers true all-day portability. Every detail reflects XPS craftsmanship – from the durable CNC aluminum chassis to the 2.5K touchscreen, backlit keyboard and Intel Wi-Fi 7 that all come standard, redefining what a premium laptop can be at this price.

“With XPS 13, we’re proving that a lower price doesn’t mean accepting less. It's the thinnest and lightest XPS we've ever built. This reflects where XPS is headed: more power, more innovation and stronger competition across price points.” - Donnie Oliphant, XPS Product Lead, Dell Technologies

[caption id="attachment_263866" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Dell XPS 13[/caption] The XPS 16 Creator Edition is a creator-class laptop built for the most demanding creative and developer work on the go. Powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark with a powerful RTX GPU and ultra-efficient CPU, it's the first XPS laptop to deliver NVIDIA's full stack AI platform and complete suite of NVIDIA RTX technologies in a portable form factor. It delivers smoother playback on 4:2:2 4K timelines, faster exports, more responsive multitasking across complex 3D scenes and compositing work, and a more fluid experience with AI-assisted creation. [caption id="attachment_263864" align="alignnone" width="720"] Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition[/caption]

HP

Beginning later this year, HP will bring RTX Spark to its HP OmniBook Ultra 16 and HP OmniBook X 14 laptops, built for powerful performance. The company is also planning to expand its RTX Spark offerings with a compact desktop, bringing new choices to creators, AI enthusiasts and developers. RTX Spark is designed for creators, gamers and AI developers, bringing NVIDIA’s full-stack AI platform and suite of RTX technologies to slim laptops with all-day battery life. [caption id="attachment_263873" align="alignnone" width="1024"] HP OmniBook Ultra 16[/caption]

MSI

MSI unveiled the Prestige N16 Flip AI+, the company’s first laptop developed in collaboration with NVIDIA powered by the new RTX Spark. It reinvents personal computing, combining advanced content creation, AI development and high-performance gaming in a new platform engineered from the ground up for the next wave of Windows PC experiences. It features a 16-inch UHD+ Tandem OLED display with a dual-layer emissive structure that stacks two OLED layers to share light output. This advanced panel technology delivers over 1000 nits of peak brightness while improving display longevity and power efficiency. Designed for versatile everyday use, the 2-in-1 flip design allows seamless transitions between laptop, tablet, tent and presentation modes, adapting easily to different workflows and environments. [caption id="attachment_263874" align="alignnone" width="960"] Prestige N16 Flip AI+[/caption] MSI also announced its latest innovation in handheld gaming, the Claw 8 EX AI+, powered by Intel Arc G3 Extreme processors. It delivers a significant leap in graphics performance, enabling exceptional AAA gaming on handheld devices while maintaining strong power efficiency for extended play sessions. Designed for sustained gaming on the go, the Claw 8 EX AI+ features an 8-inch 120Hz VRR display, delivering fluid visuals. [caption id="attachment_263887" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Claw 8 EX AI+[/caption]

Surface

The Surface Laptop Ultra is the most powerful Surface Laptop ever built, designed for world makers, creative pros, developers and AI builders. Powered by an NVIDIA RTX Spark superchip, Surface Laptop Ultra combines a powerful NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU, full CUDA support and up to 128GB of unified memory to help creators and developers take on demanding local AI, rendering, compiling and multi-model workflows in a thin, precision-engineered laptop. Surface Laptop Ultra brings uncompromising craft and raw power to the people creating what’s next, with up to 1 petaflop of AI compute, capable of running up to 120B parameter models with 1 million token context locally [2]. It pairs that performance with the hardware world makers need on the go: a 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen, all-day battery life and creator-ready ports. To learn more, visit the Devices blog by Brett Ostrum, Corporate Vice President, Surface. [caption id="attachment_263860" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Surface Laptop Ultra[/caption]

Next generation silicon powering AI PCs

Intel

Intel introduced Intel Arc G-Series processors, a new family of products designed for next-generation handheld gaming systems. Launching with Intel Arc G3 and Intel Arc G3 Extreme processors running on Windows 11, the series builds on the architecture of Intel Core Ultra Series 3 to bring optimized performance and power efficiency to portable play. Designed for handheld with optimized core counts, power management and software, Intel Arc G3 processors deliver leadership performance and efficiency for smooth, immersive gameplay and exceptional battery life without compromise. Handheld designs from leading partners will launch in the coming months, beginning with Acer’s Predator Atlas 8, MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and OneXPlayer.

"Intel Arc G-Series represents years of focused innovation and a deep commitment to gaming. It delivers uncompromising PC performance in the palm of your hand, combined with the console-like accessibility and immediacy gamers expect. With cutting-edge graphics technologies like XeSS 3 and breakthrough efficiency for longer unplugged play, Intel Arc G-Series proves that while others make tradeoffs, gamers don't have to." – Dan Rogers, Vice President and General Manager, PC Product, Client Computing Group

NVIDIA

At Computex 2026, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced the RTX Spark, a new Arm-based AI superchip developed in collaboration with MediaTek and Microsoft, designed to run personal AI agents locally on Windows laptops and compact desktops. It is designed for AI, creating and gaming, delivers up to 1 petaflop of AI performance, Blackwell RTX cores, industry-leading power efficiency, full-stack NVIDIA AI and graphics technology and up to 128GB of unified memory. NVIDIA and Microsoft collaborated to bring NVIDIA OpenShell runtime to Windows, built on MXC. Integrating MXC through OpenShell provides an easy-to-integrate package for developers to deploy autonomous, always-on agents safely. Beginning this fall, RTX Spark will power a full range of Windows laptops and small form factor desktop PCs, with Microsoft Surface, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI. Jensen also announced the NVIDIA DGX Station for Windows, a deskside AI supercomputer powered by the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip. It allows enterprise developers to run frontier AI models with up to 1 trillion parameters locally on Windows environments without cloud costs. [caption id="attachment_263879" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Beginning this fall, NVIDIA RTX Spark will power a range of Windows laptops from Microsoft Surface, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box from Microsoft Surface, and small form factor desktop PCs from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo and MSI. We're also introducing the NVIDIA DGX Station for Windows that puts a trillion-parameter AI supercomputer on every enterprise desk.[/caption]

Qualcomm

Ahead of Computex, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the Snapdragon C Platform, a new entry-tier processor designed to make modern, responsive computing more accessible for students, families and small businesses. It delivers efficient performance with cool, quiet designs and all-day battery life. In tandem with Qualcomm’s announcement, Acer unveiled the Acer Aspire Go 15, expanding access to capable laptops at more affordable price points, becoming the first PC maker to announce a device powered by the new Snapdragon C processor. The company also introduced the Acer Swift Spin 14 AI, powered by Snapdragon X2 Elite or X2 Plus, delivering up to 80 TOPS of AI performance. ASUS announced the ASUS Ascent QN10, the world’s first AI mini PC powered by the Snapdragon X2 Elite platform, featuring an 80 TOPS NPU. The device supports intelligent, agentic AI experiences and expands Snapdragon X2 Elite into a new mini PC form factor. Together, these announcements highlight a significant leap in performance and AI capability while broadening Qualcomm Technologies’ compute portfolio across tiers and form factors.

“As costs rise and customer expectations evolve, Snapdragon C brings together value-oriented computing, all-day battery life, AI capabilities and responsive performance in cool-quiet devices for expanded platform choice. We’re delivering modern computing experiences that help our ecosystem reach new audiences and expanding access to reliable, efficient technology for students, families, customer-facing small businesses and beyond.” - Kedar Kondap, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Compute and Gaming, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

“Acer’s announcements reflect the strength and breadth of the Snapdragon portfolio from premium AI experiences with the Snapdragon X2 Series to accessible, everyday computing with the new Snapdragon C Platform. Together, these platforms are helping expand the Windows ecosystem, while giving our partners new opportunities to reach more users.” - Nitin Kumar, VP, Product Management, SVP & GM, Compute and Gaming, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Empowering a billion users together

These announcements and many more from our partners last week are a powerful reminder of what makes Windows special: an open ecosystem of partners pushing boundaries together, delivering performance, longer battery life, AI experiences and thoughtful design across more form factors than any other platform. From everyday productivity to premium consumer devices to commercial fleets and frontline workhorses, the Windows ecosystem is meeting customers wherever they work, create and play. Thank you to every partner who joined us in Taipei, to the teams who made it happen, and to the more than a billion daily users who continue to choose Windows. If you are looking for a new Windows 11 PC, there has never been a better time to explore the wide range of devices available from our partners and find the one that best fits the way you live and work. [1] Based on publicly available information as of April 2026, ROG Strix SCAR 18 is the only gaming laptop known to feature a 4K resolution and 240Hz refresh rate in a single 18" mini-LED panel with ELMB.  [2] Source: NVIDIA. Based on 1 Theoretical FP4 TOPS using the sparsity feature.

[Update 6/11/2026: Release notes have now been published to Windows Insider release notes - Windows Insider Program | Microsoft Learn.]   Hello Windows Insiders,   Announcing several new builds today across Beta and Experimental, including a new build train for 26H1!  New build series for Windows 11 26H1  Today we are releasing a new Windows 11 Insider Preview Build train for Windows 11 version 26H1. As mentioned in previous blogs, Insiders in the Experimental (26H1) channel who had since selected to move to the Beta experience, were still receiving the same build version while we worked to introduce a new branch.   Starting today, Insiders in the Experimental (26H1) channel will begin receiving a new 28100 series build number, while we officially introduce a new Beta (26H1) channel based on the 28000 series builds. This enables our goal of giving Windows 11 26H1 Insiders the same choice between Beta and Experimental development branches, with the associated differences outlined in our original blog announcing the program changes. As part of that commitment, Insiders in Experimental (26H1) can easily switch to Beta (26H1), or vice versa, by simply switching the experience selection in Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program. This entails a simple in place upgrade (IPU), meaning no clean reinstallation of Windows is required.   As a reminder, while Insiders do have the ability to specifically select Windows 11 version 26H1 under the Advanced options tab in the Windows Insider settings, Windows 11 26H1 is a targeted release of Windows supporting specific silicon launching this year, including Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Series devices. It is generally otherwise recommended to stick with the default Windows core version selected within Advanced options.   New builds this week See below for today’s Insider Preview build numbers and detailed release notes:  

• Beta: Build 26220.8575
• Experimental: We do not have a new build for this channel today. Keep an eye out for future flights. 

For those on other specific build versions, here are today’s new builds and release notes:

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2236
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2242
• Experimental (Future Platforms) – Including Canary 29500 series:  We do not have a new build for this channel today. Keep an eye out for future flights.  

As a reminder, you can always find your build number in the watermark on bottom right-hand corner of your desktop.  Thanks,  Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team 

If you weren’t able to catch the XBOX Games Showcase 2026 over the weekend, our colleagues over at XBOX Wire have you covered, with a recap of all the major news on titles, hardware and accessories – such as the XBOX Series X25 Limited Edition and XBOX Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition that commemorate the 25^th anniversary of XBOX. Among the announcements were a bevy of PC-focused games: world premieres for Senua, Spyro: A Realm Beyond and DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations; a new trailer for Fable (and its lead villain, played by Hayley Atwell); release dates and brand new gameplay for Halo: Campaign Evolved and Minecraft Dungeons II; fresh looks at State of Decay 3 and Clockwork Revolution; and a peek at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4‘s DMZ experience. Head over to XBOX Wire to find out more about these and all the other reveals from the Showcase.

Software developers are some of the most ambitious makers we serve. They push devices harder, ask more of their tools and expect their environment to help define the pace of modern software creation. Development today means longer running jobs, larger models and a growing need to prototype and iterate locally rather than paying for every cloud call. That is why we embarked on a project to build two new Surface devices designed specifically for the needs of these makers. Earlier this week, we introduced Surface Laptop Ultra, a high-performance laptop built for developers, creators and technical professionals who need serious performance wherever they work. Today at Microsoft Build, we are introducing Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a compact developer PC engineered with NVIDIA RTX Spark superchip and built on the Windows developer platform, designed for local-first AI development. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is for developers who want to prototype, fine-tune and run capable models on their desk, and reach for the cloud when the work calls for it. Together, Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box represent the next step for Surface: purpose-built devices for the people building what’s next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlAI1_JkXL4

A new category of Surface, built for developers

The way developers build software is fundamentally changing. AI models are growing in capability and complexity, agentic workflows demand sustained compute, and every iteration can incur cloud costs, even when the work doesn’t require state-of-the-art models. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box changes that equation. It’s a purpose-built Windows AI developer box that puts up to 1 petaflop of AI compute directly on the desk. By bringing powerful AI compute to the edge, developers can reserve frontier model calls for truly frontier problems and handle the rest on their own hardware. The result is a development workflow that can be more efficient and responsive, with developers in control of where their compute dollars go.

Sustained AI performance in a compact form factor

At the heart of this new developer machine is the NVIDIA RTX Spark superchip, combining a powerful NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU and an ultra-efficient NVIDIA Grace CPU to deliver up to 1 petaflop of AI compute with 128 GB of unified memory. That’s enough compute power to run 120B+ parameter models with 1 million token context locally at interactive speeds or fine-tune models that previously required cloud GPU instancesⁱ. With an aluminum chassis engineered to double as a heatsink, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is designed for the workloads that matter most to developers: long-running training jobs, large model inference and complex agentic pipelines that benefit from consistent, sustained performance.

Built for the tools and workflows developers already use, out of the box

Surface RTX Spark Dev Box ships with Windows 11 Pro pre-configured for developers at the image level. This brings a purposeful set of defaults, preinstalled tools and tuned settings so the development environment is the default from first sign-in. The setup keeps developers in their workflow: dark theme, taskbar simplified for development, Widgets removed, Do Not Disturb on. Developer Mode is enabled. PowerShell 7 is the default shell. Under the hood, WSL 2 is configured with GPU passthrough and CUDA support. VS Code, GitHub Copilot, Git, Python and Node.js are installed. Your favorite IDEs, agents, coding assistants, frameworks and libraries all work on Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, whether you prefer the Windows side or WSL. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is also a world class entry point to the rest of the Microsoft AI stack. AI Toolkit for VS Code brings model conversion, fine-tuning and evaluation into the editor developers already use. Windows ML with TensorRT, and Windows Copilot Runtime give you a consistent local inference surface. Microsoft Foundry connects local prototyping to production deployment, so the model you tune locally ships through the same tools and identity you use every day. GitHub Copilot scales from CLI to enterprise on the same machine. That is what we mean by best Microsoft experience for developers: the local box, the OS, the developer tools and the cloud platform working as one stack.

Secure by design

For developers working with sensitive models, proprietary data and valuable IP, security isn’t optional. It’s foundational. The powerful GPU and unified memory mean more of your models and IP can stay local and lets developers keep more of their models and data local. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is built on chip-to-cloud security aligned with Microsoft’s Zero Trust principles:

• Secured-core PC architecture
• BitLocker encryption
• Microsoft Defender protection

For organizations, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box integrates with Entra ID and Intune for management and governance at scale. With Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, we’re expanding the Surface line with two products built specifically for makers. Surface Laptop Ultra is built for high-performance work that moves with you, from compiling and debugging to creative production and AI experimentation, while Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is built for the local compute developers need when models, agents and long-running workloads belong on the desk. Different form factors, same direction: giving developers the best option and more choice in where and how they build. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box will be available later this year in the U.S. exclusively on Microsoft.com. Learn more at microsoft.com/devboxⁱⁱ. i Source: NVIDIA. Based on 1 Theoretical FP4 TOPS using the sparsity feature.  ii Microsoft Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and Surface Laptop Ultra are pre-release products. Products and features are subject to regulatory certification/approval; actual sale and delivery is contingent on compliance with applicable requirements.  

Making Windows the trustworthy OS for agents

AI agents are no longer just answering questions, they are taking actions across systems with increasing autonomy. As they become persistent participants in how software runs, they introduce new risk to control and trust, challenging the security assumptions that have defined computing for decades. Developers are building agents that read files, invoke services, modify environments and chain operations together at increasing speed. That capability is powerful, but it raises a critical question: how do you ensure these systems remain trustworthy when they operate autonomously, at scale, on real data? This shift changes what developers, IT and security teams need from the platform. Security for agents must be built into the foundation by design so they can be developed, deployed and governed with confidence. When that foundation is in place, organizations can scale agent adoption while maintaining control and trust. Containment, identity and manageability are built as foundational primitives in Windows, extending security beyond the app and model into the OS. We’ve previously shared the principles guiding how we secure agent workflows on Windows. Then in May we announced how Microsoft Agent 365 was expanding its capabilities, including the ability to discover and manage local agents on Windows, starting with OpenClaw agents and expanding soon to other widely used agents like GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code.  We also announced that "beyond monitoring, organizations will be able to apply policy-based controls to set guardrails for what agents are allowed to do."  At Build 2026 we are sharing an update on how Agent 365 and Windows are working together to provide those capabilities with the introduction of Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) SDK. For developers, Windows will provide the building blocks needed to implement agents that are more secure on both consumer and enterprise systems. For IT teams looking to balance deploying agents at scale while managing risks, Agent 365 and Windows provide the observability, governance and security capabilities that are critically needed.

Policy-based controls

Containment bounds what agents can access and do, so non-deterministic behavior doesn’t translate into uncontrollable risk. Unlike traditional applications, agent behavior is dynamic and often generated at runtime. The agent often uses models to generate complex code for each prompt that can read, act and chain multiple operations. Containment ensures agents can do useful work without being granted the full authority of the user’s session.

The Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) SDK

To contain agent impact without limiting productivity gains, we’re introducing an early preview of the Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) SDK, a cross-platform, policy-driven execution layer for agents on Windows and WSL. Developers define what to constrain in their apps and agents, and Windows enforces those constraints consistently at runtime through MXC. MXC provides an abstraction layer across isolation primitives, so developers do not have to manage low-level isolation details.

The composable sandbox and containment spectrum

The composable sandbox is how Windows applies isolation and containment in practice, with MXC as the control surface for developers. The same policy model and SDK can map to different isolation constructs depending on the workload and containment requirements. A coding agent and an enterprise data-processing agent may not need the same guardrails, but they do need one coherent trust story. The composable sandbox delivers the flexibility and control that developers and IT need. Agent 365's policy-based controls with Microsoft Entra and Intune will be used to apply those MXC constraints to a specific agent. Windows supports a range of containment options so that guardrails can match the nature and risk of the workload. Additional functionality and security enhancements will be added to subsequent releases. The following will be released in early preview shortly after Build to meet the needs of the agent ecosystem:

Process isolation

Windows is simplifying how developers enable process isolation for agents. Process isolation provides fast, lightweight containment within the user’s environment for scenarios like running model-generated code within a dedicated process boundary that restricts access to files and network domains outside defined policy. It is ideal for use cases like coding agents where the developer inner loop must stay responsive. GitHub Copilot CLI has adopted MXC process isolation to constrain what dynamically generated and executed code can do. We are excited to share the results of this deep partnership between Windows and GitHub with our shared customers.

Session isolation

Workloads that span across large numbers of long running processes or ones that need their own resources like a desktop to run automation may find process isolation overly limiting. Sessions in Windows separate the agent’s execution from the human user’s environment, such as the interactive desktop, clipboard, UI, input devices and active sessions. This mitigates UI spoofing, input injection and cross-session data leakage, and is suited for sustained workflows that run alongside the user’s own work. Sessions in Windows run with distinct user accounts, which enables isolation. Windows assigns a local ID or a cloud provisioned identity backed by Entra and attributes all activity from the container to that identity, so you can clearly differentiate human from agent. MXC session isolation paired with unique local ID on Windows enables precise control, least-privilege access and full auditability. Access policies can be applied to Windows session isolation so agents run independently with controlled local access and full lifecycle governance managed through Microsoft Entra and Intune in the cloud. Teams can use Intune policies to require MXC isolation with guardrails such as filesystem rules. Our initial release will support non-interactive sessions with additional capabilities targeted for future releases. As agents evolve, we are continuing to expand MXC containment capabilities and invite developers and the broader ecosystem to share feedback, including through engagement with the project on GitHub. Some other MXC containment capabilities currently on our roadmap are:

Micro-VM

Research at the cutting edge of agent security shows how LLMs are developing capabilities around escaping sandboxes. Is there a way to provide the desirable properties of process isolation like low overhead with a stronger isolation boundary? Micro-VMs that use hardware-backed isolation via the hypervisor with lightweight images can be well suited for higher-risk workloads. The micro-VM construct raises the bar against sandbox escapes by using a hypervisor while facilitating higher density than is possible with full VMs. They are desirable for agents processing sensitive data or running untrusted external code.

Linux containers

Will bring the containment model to Linux-first agent toolchains via WSL. This enables compatibility with Linux ML frameworks and package ecosystems with OS-enforced boundaries.

MXC integration for cloud VM Windows 365 for Agents

Windows 365 for Agents, now generally available, extends containment beyond the local device. The agent runs in an Intune-managed Cloud PC, fully separate from the user’s machine. If compromised, impact is contained to a disposable cloud instance. Suited for enterprise-managed agent fleets with centrally provisioned policy and compliance. To learn more, check out our Windows 365 blog. With the future addition of MXC integration, Windows 365 for Agents will scale from lightweight local isolation to stronger hardware-backed boundaries - through a single SDK and policy model. With the combination of these new Windows capabilities and Agent 365, Microsoft is continuing to expand its full stack offering to help enterprises to observe, govern, and secure their agents.

Innovating with partners in the ecosystem

We are partnering with leading innovators in the industry like Hermes, Manus, NVIDIA, OpenAI and OpenClaw, to ensure the containment we are building supports real developer needs. OpenClaw now runs the node and gateway securely on Windows leveraging MXC. You can use the new Windows companion app to easily set up your own claws or connect to existing ones. NVIDIA brings OpenShell to Windows, built on MXC. Integrating MXC via OpenShell provides developers with an easy-to-deploy package for autonomous, always-on agents safely. Hermes Agent will be integrating OpenShell and MXC in their new Windows application. "Continuously running local agents, like Hermes Agent, require intentional isolation. Developers need control over what an agent can access and trust that those controls will hold,” said Dillon Rolnick, CEO of Nous Research. “Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), integrated with OpenShell, provides a policy-driven foundation for private, on-device agents on Windows.” "Working with Microsoft on the Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) allows us to explore new patterns for AI agents to safely and efficiently generate and execute code. By combining Codex's capabilities with MXC's execution environment, we aim to help developers move from intent to reliable execution faster, while maintaining the security and control enterprises need," said David Wiesen, Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI “Manus is built to help users move from intent to completed work across tools, files, code and workflows,” said Tao Zhang. Chief Product Officer. “With Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), Windows gives developers a policy-driven way to define what an agent can access and enforce those boundaries at runtime, so more autonomous agents can operate safely in enterprise environments.”

Built on a secure foundation by design

This agentic security model runs on a Windows platform designed to reduce risk by default. Decades of investment in Windows provide the foundation for everything running on top of it including agentic security capabilities. Under the Secure Future Initiative, continuously strengthening this foundation remains a company-wide priority. Windows reduces the attack surface and raises the security baseline by default – so agents inherit that protection without additional work. It shows up in capabilities like passwordless sign-in with passkeys, Hotpatch updates without restarts, production drivers written in Rust to reduce memory-safety vulnerabilities and post-quantum cryptography in Insider builds. Secure Boot enforces a hardware root of trust on every startup. Defender provides real‑time protection against prompt injection and other emerging agent threats. It uses advanced scanning engines and continuously updated intelligence to detect and respond to attacks. These protections are available to all Windows customers - including consumers using Windows Defender as their primary antivirus. Enterprise manageability has been a longstanding platform capability that IT and security teams depend on Windows to provide. Agent 365 now provides native integration of observability, governance and security capabilities for agents running on Windows OS environments, like MXC and Windows 365 for agents, so agents running on Windows can start secure and stay secure. Windows will continue to raise the bar for platform security with capabilities like our recently announced Baseline Security Mode. Together, these investments help provide the secure foundation on which trustworthy agentic computing is built.

Start building secure agents today

The value of an agent is not just what it can do, but whether it can be trusted in production. Windows enables agents that are secure, governable and ready for real-world deployment. Many of these capabilities are available today in Windows Insider builds, with more coming through our developer preview program. Windows continues to evolve so developers and organizations can move fast on AI while maintaining trust and security. We are excited to see what you build. To get started:

• Explore the Microsoft Execution Containers SDK.
• Try process and session isolation in Windows Insider builds when available shortly after Build.

Build is one of our favorite moments each year - a chance to connect with the global developer community and share what we’ve been building. Over the past year, we have connected with many developers pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on Windows. What we consistently hear is that you want a platform that meets you where you are, removes friction and gives you the flexibility to choose how and where you build across local and cloud, across platforms, languages and frameworks. That feedback has shaped everything we are announcing today. The foundation of great development starts with strong fundamentals, coupled with a great developer experience. We are continuing to raise the bar on Windows 11 quality and deeply focused on making Windows more secure, more reliable across the shell - from Explorer to Start to Search – with a simple goal to reduce cognitive load. Whether you are building modern applications or experimenting with agent-driven workflows, we are committed to making Windows more adaptable, capable and aligned with how development actually happens today. And as AI continues to reshape how software is built, we are investing deeply in enabling you to run your AI workloads securely where it makes the most sense on-device, in the cloud or across both without trade-offs. Our goal is simply to give you a platform that accelerates your ideas.

What’s new for Windows platform at Build?

• Developer-optimized Windows 11 experience to build and ship faster.
  • Coreutils for Windows - a set of Linux-like command line utilities that run natively on Windows, now generally available.
  • WSL containers - a built-in way to create, run and interact with Linux containers using familiar CLI & API, coming soon to public preview.
  • Windows Development Skills - gives agents structured knowledge to build great native Windows apps end-to-end using WinUI3 skills and WinApp CLI, now generally available.
  • Intelligent Terminal – intentionally brings context-aware intelligence to your favorite agents directly into a terminal based experience to help debug errors, run multi-step tasks so you can stay in your flow, available in experimental preview.
  • Windows Developer Configurations - powered by WinGet, sets up a distraction-free dev environment with VS Code, GitHub Copilot, WSL, PowerShell 7 and developer-optimized settings with one command on any Windows 11 device, now generally available.
  • Windows 365 with Developer configuration – Windows 365 comes pre-configured with the same Windows developer configuration, available in public preview.
• Secure Windows platform to build and run agents with OS-enforced agent identity, containment and enterprise-grade manageability.
  • Introducing Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) SDK– A policy-driven execution layer that lets developers declare what an agent can access (e.g., files, network) with containment boundaries enforced at runtime. MXC offers a spectrum of isolation semantics that are dynamically composable based on intent and risk, available in early preview.
  • Agent 365 native integration with MXC enables agents running on Windows to start secure and stay secure. Integration will deliver Defender, Entra, Intune and Purview protections so security and IT teams can constrain and secure local agents to prevent enterprise risk, available in preview in July.
  • OpenClaw runs natively on Windows leveraging MXC - The Windows node and gateway run contained, so your system stays secure. You can easily install and use OpenClaw in Windows with its own companion app and set up your own claws or connect to existing ones, available in open-source. We are invested in continuing to make OpenClaw run securely on Windows.
  • NVIDIA is bringing OpenShell to Windows built on MXC - Integrating MXC via OpenShell provides developers with an easy-to-deploy package for autonomous, always-on agents safely.
  • Windows 365 for Agents - provides computer-using agents with secure, managed Cloud PCs to execute enterprise workflows, now generally available.
• Unmetered intelligence on Windows powered by on-device AI
  • Introducing new on-device SLMs - Aion 1.0 Instruct, a smaller, faster and smarter on-device SLM, and Aion 1.0 Plan, a reasoning and tool-calling model that enables fully local agentic capabilities, available in the coming months.
  • Expanding Windows AI APIs to more Windows 11 PCs across CPU and GPU Speech-to-text recognition API available on NPUs and CPUs. On-device SLM expands to capable dGPUs enabling text-intelligence capabilities locally and Video Super Resolution available on CPUs so developers can deliver richer experiences without a cloud round trip.
• Introducing Surface RTX Spark Dev Box – purpose-built for developers powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark silicon, delivering up to 1 petaflop of AI compute paired with 128 GB of unified memory shared across the CPU and GPU. Comes with all of the above developer optimized Windows 11 experience so developers can build, test and run AI and agent workloads locally without setup friction or unpredictable cloud costs.
• Introducing DGX Station for Windows — the world’s most powerful deskside AI supercomputer for developing and running agents on Windows — powered by the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Superchip. It is purpose-built to develop and run up to 1 trillion-parameter frontier AI models locally, as well as connect always-on, frontier AI agents to enterprise applications and workflows, coming in Q4 this year.
• New capabilities in Microsoft Store – We are committed to making Microsoft Store a trusted platform for app distribution, delivering free and faster company onboarding with Entra ID support, accelerated app certification times, and new near real-time analytics and subscription insights for developers.

Introducing Project Solara

We're introducing Project Solara, a new platform built from the ground up to power agent-driven experiences, including two new concept devices that reimagine how this comes to life. With agents becoming a both a new unit of programming and an emerging new unit of human-to-machine interaction, the mission of Project Solara is to pioneer agent-first experiences that are shaped around you: your agents, your tasks, your environment, under your control.

Developer-optimized Windows 11 experience to build and ship faster

We have optimized the Windows 11 experience for developers, bringing frequently used command line utilities, a familiar comfort shell, faster setup experience, a built-in way to create and interact with Linux containers on Windows and a new experimental Intelligent Terminal.

Announcing general availability of Coreutils for Windows

Developers constantly move between platforms, but familiar commands don't work consistently, forcing workarounds, lost speed and context switching. To address this, we've built Coreutils for Windows from the uutils open-source project, a cross-platform reimplementation of GNU Coreutils in Rust. These are Linux-like command-line utilities that run natively on Windows. Whether you're moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers or cloud environments, the commands and workflows you've built over years just work in your Windows environment. Explore and get started with Coreutils for Windows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bcFOTI35gI

Announcing WSL containers, coming soon to public preview

Containers and Linux are core to modern development workflows. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has become foundational for running Linux workloads on Windows. Last year at Build 2025, we open-sourced WSL, and community contributions have grown to over 200 PRs per month. We're building on this momentum by integrating WSL more deeply into Windows with WSL containers. Modern container workflows on Windows often depend on third‑party tooling, adding setup overhead, licensing cost and limited enterprise control. IT teams also lack consistent visibility into what’s running and how containers interact with the underlying host. WSL containers provide a built-in way to create, run and interact with Linux containers on Windows. Whether you are working on local development, AI/ML workflows or containerized testing, Linux containers run out of the box. To enable you to build WSL containers, we are offering WSL containers CLI & API.

• WSL containers CLI: Use the new exe binary to directly build, run and deploy Linux containers on Windows, out of the box.
• WSL containers API: Access functions to run Linux containers programmatically in your native Windows apps - unlocking scenarios like running local AI workloads, testing pipelines, and Linux based processing.

For enterprises, WSL containers provide policy‑based enablement and management using familiar Windows controls. IT admins gain visibility into what Linux containers are running on developer machines, can control where images are sourced from, and can govern how containers interact with the host. WSL containers will be available in public preview in the coming months as a regular update to WSL. Since WSL is open source, you can view the team’s progress at our WSL GitHub. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c78ZMB7SgHM

Announcing general availability of Windows Developer Configurations

We understand that getting to a code-ready state quickly matters, regardless of your development workflow. Windows Developer Configurations enables you to go from a fresh machine to a ready-to-code environment in minutes. It includes:

• dev-config.winget - a WinGet configuration file, to get an optimized, distraction free development environment with the right versions of essential developer tools installed – WSL, PowerShell 7, Git, GitHub CLI, Visual Studio Code, Python and more. It also applies developer-optimized settings — like Git version control in File Explorer, file extensions visible and hidden files shown. It’s fully customizable, so you can adapt it to your needs and add your favorite third‑party tools.
• Workload-specific scripts for container, cloud and infrastructure development - make it easy to install the exact tools, libraries and dependencies you need for your specific use case.
• WSL comfort setup scripts - enable you to bring your preferred tools and workflows to Windows - like homebrew, zsh, starship, and more.

Get started or tailor it to your needs by exploring Windows Developer Configurations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaR-JpaWFqw

Announcing Intelligent Terminal, available as experimental version

Developers spend a significant part of their workflow in the terminal, but today that experience lacks integration with agentic tools and context they rely on. They must leave the terminal to look up fixes, and copy suggestions from multiple sources, which leads to increased context switching. To address this, Intelligent Terminal provides context to your favorite agents via ACP (Agent Communication Protocol) so you can stay in the terminal and query, debug or complete any task on hand. It is based on the existing Windows Terminal experience, so you get everything it offers (tabs, profiles, themes, settings, shells) plus native agent CLI integration in the agent pane. If no agent is installed, GitHub Copilot is available for you to get started. In a typical scenario, when a command fails, Intelligent Terminal automatically surfaces the context and suggests fixes you can run immediately in the dedicated agent pane. Instead of debugging step-by-step across multiple tools, you can resolve issues, iterate and move forward quickly while staying in your flow. To learn more, check out the Intelligent Terminal blog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1DmM6_z4zk

Announcing general availability of Windows Development Skills

We are introducing Windows Development Skills to enable agents to directly leverage structured knowledge to execute across the full lifecycle of building a native Windows app using WinUI3 skills and winapp CLI. By powering agents with Windows specific application development knowledge, these skills help achieve token efficiency. To add Windows Development Skills to your favorite agents visit https://aka.ms/winui-skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OK30hI5h-I

Announcing Windows 365 with Developer configuration, available in public preview

Alongside local development, enterprises often increasingly need a cloud-based option to standardize development environments across teams, scale on demand and to be ready to code from any device - without managing local infrastructure or setup. To address these needs, we are bringing new developer capabilities to Windows 365, a cloud-based service that securely streams a full Windows desktop experience to any device. Windows 365 with Developer configuration offers ready‑to‑code environments in the cloud. This image provides a consistent, preconfigured Windows 11 development experience from first sign‑in, with commonly used tools such as Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI and WSL already set up.  The environment can also be extended with additional SDKs, CLIs, packages and build tools based on project requirements, while remaining aligned with organization policies and controls. With flexible performance configurations and seamless access from any device, Windows 365 helps streamline development workflows, whether working on-site or remotely, across Windows and Linux (via WSL) environments, running AI models or moving between local and cloud setups. To learn more, check out the Windows 365 blog. All these improvements share a common goal: giving developers an environment they can rely on, one that stays out of the way and keeps them in the flow. And as AI becomes integral to how software is built and shipped, the platform must evolve too. That's why we're taking the next step: making Windows the best place to build and run agents.

Windows is the secure platform to build and run agents with OS-enforced containment, agent identity and enterprise-grade manageability

As agents become more capable and autonomous, they're delivering material productivity gains. But they're also introducing new risk, and the issue isn't just the agent. It's the entire system the agent operates across. Every interaction — between agents and humans, tools, apps, models and even other agents — exposes new attack surface and introduces different failure modes. This is a multi-layer systems problem. That's why we've built containment, identity and manageability as foundational primitives in the operating system — making Windows the most trusted platform to build and run agents.

Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) — now available in early preview

It's critical to contain agent impact without limiting productivity gains. That’s why we are introducing Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), a cross-platform, policy-driven execution layer for agents across Windows and WSL. Developers declare what an agent can access, like files and networking related policies configured in Intune, and MXC enforces those boundaries at runtime. Windows delivers a composable sandbox spectrum through MXC — a single SDK and policy model that maps to the right isolation construct for any agent workload.

• Fast process isolation (adopted by GitHub Copilot CLI) and session isolation separates the agent's execution from the user's desktop, clipboard, UI and input devices, and critically, binds the agent to a strong user identity — mitigating UI spoofing, input injection and cross-session data leakage. Process isolation and session isolation will be available to Windows Insiders shortly after Build.
• Windows 365 for Agents, now generally available, extends containment beyond the local device and agents run in an Intune-managed Cloud PC, fully separate from the user's machine.
• Micro-VMs, Linux containers and MXC integration for Windows 365 for Agents are currently on our roadmap as additional MXC containment capabilities.
• Agent 365 layers Entra and Intune policy on top so IT can govern containment centrally while developers choose the guardrail weight their workload demands.

OS-enforced Agent Identity and enterprise manageability on Windows

Beyond containment, every agent activity must be attributable and governed. Windows assigns agents a local ID or a cloud provisioned identity backed by Entra and attributes all activity from the container to that identity, so you can clearly differentiate human from agent. Native Windows integration with Agent 365 provides a common foundation for observability, security and governance, including native Intune integration to set policies that gate the agent runtime execution and control how agents run. Defender, Entra, Intune and Purview will provide runtime protections for evolving threats across access, sensitive data, malicious prompts and risky behavior so security and IT teams can prevent enterprise risk. Get started at: Microsoft Execution Containers. Learn more at: Windows Platform Security for AI Agents and aka.ms/BUILD_SecurityBlog.

Innovating with partners in the ecosystem

We are partnering with leading innovators in the industry like Hermes, Manus, NVIDIA, OpenAI and OpenClaw, to ensure the containment we are building supports real developer needs. OpenClaw now runs the node and gateway securely on Windows leveraging MXC. You can use the new Windows companion app to easily set up your own claws or connect to existing ones. NVIDIA brings OpenShell to Windows, built on MXC. Integrating MXC via OpenShell provides developers with an easy-to-deploy package for autonomous, always-on agents safely. Hermes Agent will be integrating OpenShell and MXC in their new Windows application. "Continuously-running local agents, like Hermes Agent, require intentional isolation. Developers need control over what an agent can access and trust that those controls will hold,” said Dillon Rolnick, CEO of Nous Research. “Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), integrated with OpenShell, provides a policy-driven foundation for private, on-device agents on Windows.” "Working with Microsoft on the Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) allows us to explore new patterns for AI agents to safely and efficiently generate and execute code. By combining Codex's capabilities with MXC's execution environment, we aim to help developers move from intent to reliable execution faster, while maintaining the security and control enterprises need." said David Wiesen, Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI. “Manus is built to help users move from intent to completed work across tools, files, code and workflows,” said Tao Zhang, Chief Product Officer.  “With Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), Windows gives developers a policy-driven way to define what an agent can access and enforce those boundaries at runtime, so more autonomous agents can operate safely in enterprise environments.” Get started here: OpenClaw Windows Node.

Announcing Windows 365 for Agents generally available within Agent 365

Windows 365 for Agents provides Cloud PCs that enable AI agents to execute multi-step workflows across software, including opening apps, navigating interfaces, entering inputs and processing data. Today, we are making Windows 365 for Agents generally available within Agent 365, enabling Agent builders to build computer-using agents for a variety of enterprise use cases. To learn more, check out Windows 365 for Agents documentation | Microsoft Learn.

Unmetered intelligence delivered on Windows

We're entering a new era of software development. As AI models grow more powerful, agentic workflows demand continuous compute, escalating cloud costs. By shifting some of that intelligence to the edge, we are transforming the developer experience: frontier models tackle frontier problems, while everything else runs locally at scale. A new generation of on-device small language models (SLMs) on Windows is making this easier. Windows ML is the platform that unlocks unmetered intelligence on Windows, enabling developers to build, optimize and deploy AI at scale, across all silicon. Today we are bringing new capabilities to accelerate your local AI development.

A new generation of on-device models - Aion 1.0 Instruct and Aion 1.0 Plan in preview

We are introducing a new generation of models purpose-built for local execution, each designed for a specific tier of device capability. Together, they represent a clear progression: from efficiency at scale to local agentic reasoning, all running without cloud dependency or per-token cost.

• Aion 1.0 Instruct: efficiency at scale. Aion 1.0 Instruct is our next-generation small language model, smaller, faster and more efficient than our current Windows OS SLM. Designed from the ground up for on-device workloads, Aion 1.0 Instruct powers everyday text intelligence (summarization, rewrite, intents, accessibility) and extends beyond Windows APIs with integration into the Edge browser and availability as open weights. Developers can start experimenting with Aion 1.0 Instruct in preview today in Edge Insider channels and as an open source model in July on Hugging Face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHWGFYNlLI

• Aion 1.0 Plan: local agentic reasoning. Aion 1.0 Plan is a 14-billion parameter reasoning and tool-calling model with 32K context length that ships in-box as part of Windows on capable devices. It enables applications to reason over user intent, invoke tools, manage files and orchestrate sub-agents, bringing fully agentic workflows onto the device.

Announcing new Speech Recognition API

Last year at Build, we introduced Windows AI APIs powered by local on-device models. Today we are adding Speech Recognition API to this list. Speech Recognition API enables real-time or batch, on-device speech-to-text from live audio. Developers can enable their apps to produce transcripts from recordings or embed captions anywhere audio plays, using microphone, streamed or audio file inputs, with hardware-accelerated execution where available. By running locally, transcriptions can still be generated without network connectivity, saving on cloud costs. This unlocks new possibilities for modern text entry, audio-video applications, dictation-enabled workflows and accessibility tools that need reliable, low-latency transcription regardless of connectivity. The Speech Recognition API will enter public preview. The API will initially be limited to English-language speech recognition and will expand as it gradually roll outs across global markets. Learn more about the new Speech Recognition API when it becomes available this week at: aka.ms/speech-recognition-api.

Announcing Expansion of Windows AI APIs across GPUs and CPUs, now available

Windows AI APIs offer the fastest and easiest path for developers to integrate local AI into their apps using ready-to-use APIs powered by on-device models specializing in specific tasks. We are thrilled to share that Windows AI APIs are expanding beyond NPUs to CPUs and GPUs, bringing local AI experiences to a much broader set of Windows 11 devices. In addition to existing NPU support, our existing Windows inbox SLM is available on capable GPUs and Video super resolution and Speech Recognition on CPUs, all in public preview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mSUNPLDZNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWsBdlZsy_w This expansion gives developers a broader audience for their AI-powered applications with OS-optimized performance. Learn more about Windows API support and minimum hardware requirements here: aka.ms/WinAI/APIs The Windows inbox models that power the AI APIs are not automatically downloaded to every device. They are only acquired when an application on the device requests them, keeping storage and bandwidth impact minimal for users who do not need them. Many app developers are leveraging Microsoft Foundry on Windows to enable local AI in their applications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=she5m9OTT7Q With Microsoft Foundry on Windows, local AI is no longer a compromise - it is a platform for breakthrough developer experiences. From efficient small models to agentic reasoning to frontier coding, this is unmetered intelligence on Windows.

Windows on next-generation hardware purpose-built for developers

We are bringing purpose-built developer devices which are the best expression of the full suite of advancements and new capabilities we are introducing today from developer optimized experience, secure platform to build and run agents to our local AI platform. With the increase in capability of agentic and coding models that run locally on this class of device, we can take the next step for hybrid compute – bringing the best of cloud and client together. In GitHub Copilot CLI we will enable developers to configure selective task delegation to subagents powered by a local model. Using /fleet, the primary agent running in the cloud builds a plan, assesses the complexity of each task, and routes appropriate ones locally based on the models’ size and capability. This approach harnesses available local compute to reduce cost without compromising on quality. With Windows 11 PCs powered by capable silicon from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm including workstation-class machines powered by AMD Ryzen™ AI MAX+ 395, new NVIDIA RTX Spark, and data-center-class systems like NVIDIA DGX Station for Windows, developers now have access to unmetered, tiered AI capabilities tailored to specific needs, from everyday development to frontier-class tasks.

Announcing Surface RTX Spark Dev Box available later this year

Surface RTX Spark Dev Box delivers GPU-first AI performance with the new NVIDIA RTX Spark silicon, providing 1 petaflop of AI compute[i] and 128GB of unified memory shared dynamically across CPU and GPU in a single memory address space. This hardware foundation is designed for model optimization, fine-tuning and large inference workloads. By making these workloads practical to run locally, it reduces reliance on cloud only workflows, helping avoid recurring token costs and usage spikes while keeping iteration fast and predictable. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box ships with developer optimized Windows 11 experience - preconfigured with all your essential developer tools - Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot available inline in Windows Terminal, WSL, PowerShell 7 and Windows settings tuned for development - so you spend less time configuring your machine and more time building from the moment you sign in. To learn more, check out the Devices blog. Surface RTX Spark Dev Box will be available later this year in the U.S. exclusively on Microsoft.com. Learn more at microsoft.com/devbox [ii]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzD4OvMIECM

Introducing DGX Station for Windows, available later this year

For decades, we have partnered with NVIDIA to bring the most powerful computing experiences to the world. DGX Station for Windows is the next step in a multi‑year journey to bring the full power of Windows and unlock breakthrough AI performance on the Windows platform. Building on the NVIDIA DGX Station™ system design, DGX Station for Windows is the ultimate deskside AI supercomputer bringing NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell-class AI infrastructure directly into the Windows ecosystem — providing the compute needed to build, run and connect powerful AI agents to the applications and infrastructure Windows users already harness.  It can run frontier AI models up to 1 trillion parameters locally.

Stronger Windows security, reducing risk by default

Windows is strengthening its security foundation to reduce risk by default. New capabilities strengthen this foundation across key layers by reducing legacy risk, enforcing code trust and advancing cryptography. This raises the security bar at the platform level, protecting earlier in the lifecycle, not just after code runs.

• Prepare your applications for a post-quantum world on Windows. Windows continues to expand post-quantum cryptography (PQC) support across the platform, broadening algorithm coverage and integrating it more deeply into the platform. This includes PQ hybrid key exchange in the Windows TLS stack, support for composite PQC algorithms through Windows cryptography APIs (CNG) and certificate functions, and PQ certificate issuance via Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS). Read more here.
• Move away from legacy authentication to stronger, more secure defaults, reducing exposure to known attack paths. IAKerb and LocalKDC (in WIP Server and Client) are configurable via new registry keys, helping reduce NTLM usage and enable stronger Kerberos-based authentication across more scenarios. Read more here.
• Ensure only trusted drivers run on your device by default. Driver signing now follows a higher security bar with an updated certification process. Windows is moving toward Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) certified drivers as the default, with a staged transition from audit to enforcement and stronger trust requirements over time. Read more here.
• Protect devices from untrusted apps without disrupting users. Smart App Control for consumers and App Control for Business are expanding in coverage across millions of devices, with stronger reputation-based enforcement, new integration APIs and policy-driven control for enterprise environments.

Looking ahead

Build is always a moment to pause, reflect and look forward. As development continues to evolve, Windows will continue to provide developers with the flexibility to choose their tools, shape their workflows and decide how intelligence runs. Whether you’re building applications, deploying AI models or experimenting with agents, our goal is the same: to make Windows the best place to build - today and into the future. We’re excited to see what you create next. Join us throughout Build to learn more, explore the sessions and dive deeper into the updates shaping the Windows developer platform. [i] Source: NVIDIA. Based on 1 Theoretical FP4 TOPS using the sparsity feature. [ii] Microsoft Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and Surface Laptop Ultra are pre-release products. Products and features are subject to regulatory certification/approval; actual sale and delivery is contingent on compliance with applicable requirements.  

At Build 2025, we introduced the Prompt and Writing Assistance APIs in Microsoft Edge with the Phi-4-mini language model. Since then, we've heard from web developers, incorporated your feedback, and expanded Edge's on-device AI capabilities with new models and APIs. Today, we're introducing three updates:

1. A developer preview of the pre-release Aion-1.0-Instruct small language model for early testing and feedback.
2. The Language Detector and Translator APIs in Edge 148, powered by on-device, task-specific models.
3. Experimental on-device speech recognition with the Web Speech API, available in Edge Canary and Dev channels.

Developer preview of Aion-1.0-Instruct

For the past year, the Prompt and Writing Assistance APIs have used Phi-4-mini, a highly capable 4B-parameter language model, in Edge. While it delivers strong text understanding, reasoning, and instruction-following for web scenarios, the model's hardware requirements have limited its availability across devices. Today, we're introducing a developer preview of the pre-release Aion-1.0-Instruct small language model in Edge Canary and Dev channels. This language model is smaller, faster, and more efficient. It expands support to significantly more devices — including those with less capable GPUs and, through CPU-inference, devices without a GPU — while delivering strong quality for a wide range of web use-cases. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RMUnykaFTY This preview allows you to evaluate Aion-1.0-Instruct in real-world web scenarios, test API interoperability, and provide feedback that will guide final optimizations, ahead of its planned open-source release on Hugging Face in July. To try out the model, explore the documentation for the Prompt API and Writing Assistance APIs, experiment with the playground samples, and share your feedback on GitHub.

Language Detector and Translator APIs in Edge 148

The Language Detector and Translator APIs enable websites and browser extensions to identify the language of text and translate between language pairs. These APIs are now available in Edge 148, powered by on-device, task-specific models built directly into the browser. They deliver fast, high-quality translation, support 145+ languages, and are optimized for translation workloads on the web. You can use these APIs from JavaScript in your site or extension, gaining improved user privacy, network independence, and zero translation costs compared to cloud-based services. In their simplest form, the Language Detector and Translator APIs can be used as shown:

// Create a Language Detector session.
const detector = await LanguageDetector.create();

// Detect the language of the text.
const results = await detector.detect(userText);

// Use the results.
for (const result of results) {
  // Show the full list of potential languages with their likelihood,
  // ranked from most likely to least likely.
  console.log(result.detectedLanguage, result.confidence);
}

// Create a Translator session.
const translator = await Translator.create({
  sourceLanguage: "es",
  targetLanguage: "en"
});

// Translate the text and wait for the translation to be done.
const translatedText = await translatorSession.translate(userText);

// Use the translation. 
console.log(translatedText);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRLG6jXEs50 To learn more, check out the documentation for the Language Detector API and Translator API, try our playground samples, and share your feedback in the Language Detector and Translator feedback issues on GitHub.

On-device speech recognition with the Web Speech API

The Web Speech API enables you to incorporate voice or audio input into websites and browser extensions. This API is typically backed by cloud-based services for speech recognition (speech-to-text) and synthesis (text-to-speech). In the latest Edge Canary and Dev channels, we're introducing a task-specific model that processes speech locally on the user's device. This on-device implementation improves user privacy, reduces latency, and unlocks low-connectivity scenarios that require network independence. Using the new on-device speech recognition capability requires only minor updates to your existing Web Speech API code, as shown:

// Create a SpeechRecognition instance.
const recognition = new SpeechRecognition();
recognition.lang = 'en-US';

// Use on-device speech recognition.
recognition.processLocally = true;

// Start speech recognition.
recognition.start();

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svw3dQn52YY To get started with on-device speech recognition, check out the documentation, try the playground demo, and share your feedback on GitHub.

Try it out and let us know

With the Aion-1.0-Instruct small language model, the new Language Detector and Translator APIs, and on-device speech recognition in Microsoft Edge, you can build AI-powered web experiences by leveraging models built into the browser, without relying on specialized hardware, cloud services, or domain-specific expertise. We invite you to explore these capabilities, experiment with the new models, and tell us what you build. Your feedback will shape the next iteration of on-device AI in Microsoft Edge, and we're excited to partner with you as we continue expanding what's possible for AI on the web.

On June 7, the annual XBOX Games Showcase returns, offering a look at what’s next from XBOX and its partners. This year marks 25 years of XBOX, and this Showcase is poised to be a true celebration, offering world premieres, new gameplay, fresh updates and more. Gears of War: E-Day Direct will stream immediately after Showcase. Find out how and when to watch on XBOX Wire.

The world is full of makers. Only a few make the world. Surface Laptop Ultra is for them. For those building the systems, the breakthroughs and the infrastructure the world runs on and gets changed by. The ones who see limits as flaws and have the vision to push past them. Surface Laptop Ultra is the most powerful Surface Laptop ever built. Engineered with NVIDIA from the silicon up, optimized for RTX Spark, built on Windows. Made for a kind of work that does not fit in a standard laptop. The work from creators, developers and AI builders has a common shape: massive scenes, long compile cycles, local models and datasets that no longer sit politely in the background. We built Surface Laptop Ultra to meet that work without flinching. From the start, we channeled these makers, pushing through thermal and structural challenges, refining every detail from the inside out to create a device where uncompromising craft meets raw power. Surface Laptop Ultra is our first laptop to combine a powerful NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 128GB of unified memory and full CUDA support. Unified memory allows the pool of RAM to be dynamically allocated wherever your workloads need it most across CPU and GPU, so AI creation, 3D rendering and multi-model workflows run simultaneously, with 1 petaflop of AI compute, capable of running up to 120B parameter models locally[i]. No walls. No compromises. And it does all of it quietly. The ultra-efficient CPU architecture gives creators the headroom to push further. And with all-day battery life[ii], Laptop Ultra keeps moving when the work does. The kind of endurance that lets you finish the work. No matter how ambitious. No matter how demanding. Every detail was considered. We designed Surface Laptop Ultra from the inside out. Mechanical, electrical, thermal, acoustic, materials, industrial design and software engineers at the table from day one. The internal architecture and the external form built as one system. Our engineers designed it with the same discipline we know you bring to your craft, where every micron matters and every choice is deliberate. Precise and light. Available in two finishes: Platinum and Nightfall. The 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen runs up to 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness, 262 pixels per inch and high-precision color accuracy. The brightest display we’ve ever shipped. The haptic touchpad is the largest we’ve ever put on a Surface. Every port you actually use is on the device: HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, SD card, headphone. These are the ports creators need, and they were picked on purpose. This is Surface craft at its most considered. Performance, durability and repairability living together rather than trading against each other. Nothing wasted. Everything intentional. Surface Laptop Ultra was purpose-built for world makers, in a partnership between Windows, Surface and NVIDIA that approached every challenge with the same intention and the same standard. A machine like this should not sit still. It should be pushed. Taken to the edge. Used to make real what others call impossible. It belongs in the hands of world makers. Surface Laptop Ultra will be available later this year[iii]. Learn more at microsoft.com/ultra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Oj792qc80 [i] Source: NVIDIA. Based on 1 Theoretical FP4 TOPS using the sparsity feature. [ii] Based on internal testing of pre‑release units. Battery life varies significantly based on usage, settings and other factors. [iii] Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra is a pre-release product and features are subject to change and may vary by country/region. Product and features are subject to regulatory certification/approval; actual sale and delivery is contingent on compliance with applicable requirements.