Hello Windows Insiders, Today, we’re releasing new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds to the Beta and Experimental channels. New builds this week Select your channel below to view its release notes:

• Beta: Build 26620.9343
• Experimental: Build 26340.9354

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

• Beta (26H1): Build 28020.2904
• Experimental (26H1): Build 28120.2912
• Experimental (Future Platforms): Build 29661.1000

Notable new features:

[Cross-device resume improvements]

Release channel: Experimental We're making it easier to continue where you left off on your PC. When you resume a webpage from your phone and the phone's browser isn't installed on your PC, the Resume hovercard now gives you two options: open the page directly in your PC's default browser or install the phone's browser for a native experience. This update helps you continue your work immediately without requiring an app installation first. [caption id="attachment_179156" align="aligncenter" width="864"] The Resume hovercard provides an option to open the webpage in the PC's default browser.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_179157" align="aligncenter" width="684"] The Resume hovercard provides an option to install the originating phone browser.[/caption]

[Narrator]

Release channel: Experimental Read and explore math equations with Narrator We are adding math reading and navigation support in Narrator, bringing clearer and more natural math experiences to users who are blind or have low vision. Math is at the heart of STEM education and learning, and this update helps students and professionals independently read, understand, and explore equations, formulas, and scientific notations with confidence. Read more in release notes link above. [caption id="attachment_179158" align="aligncenter" width="2303"] Screenshot of Windows settings page with Narrator Math reading settings page open[/caption]

[Magnifier]

Release channel: Experimental Magnifier now understands each of your displays

• Every screen keeps its own view, at its own zoom. In earlier versions of Magnifier, zooming in stretched a single magnified view across all of your displays, so one screen's zoom followed you everywhere and screen edges blurred together. With this update, each monitor's boundary is respected, and each monitor can hold its own zoom percentage. Your writing screen can sit at 300% while your reference screen stays at 150%, and the magnified view no longer spills from one display into the next. This matters because different tasks, and different screen resolutions, often call for different levels of magnification to stay comfortable to read. Read more in release notes link above.

[caption id="attachment_179159" align="aligncenter" width="758"] UI showing Magnifier settings with Zoom per display enabled, allowing each monitor to maintain its own zoom level.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_179160" align="aligncenter" width="1041"] UI showing Magnifier's multiple display controls, including independent zoom and view locking options.[/caption] Thanks, Stephen and the Windows Insider Program team

The latest Windows Family Safety improvements are part of a broader effort to create safer, age-appropriate digital experiences for kids and families. As we’ve recently outlined, Microsoft Family has been on a focused journey to raise the quality of the everyday offering that parents and kids rely on — and that journey started by listening to you. We gathered feedback from families and let it guide our priorities, month after month.   The result is a steady stream of meaningful fixes we continue to iterate on:  

• Parental approvals for offerings like screen-time extensions, app access, and purchases now happen faster, so kids aren’t left waiting and parents stay in control.
• We restored clear visibility into web and app activity so parents can trust what they see in their reports.
• Made spending more transparent, with wallet balances.
• We also gave adults in a family more control over their own experience, making it far easier to add, manage, or leave a family group 

We know these areas have presented pain points, and while we've made progress, we know some of you may still run into issues. We're continuing to improve and will continue to listen to your feedback as we improve the experience.  

Parental control: Faster and reliable approval flows 

Parents and children may have experienced inconsistent and noticeable delays while approving children requests such as app access, screen time extensions, and purchase approvals. During these delays, children are unable to access the requested content or continue their activities, while parents are left uncertain whether their approval has been received and applied.  Parental approvals for app access, screen time extensions, and purchases now happen faster than before, reducing wait times and frustration for parents and kids alike.  

Activity reporting: full app coverage 

Some parents noticed that certain apps were missing from activity reports, making it difficult to fully understand how their child was using their device. Activity reporting now includes broader app coverage across all applications used on a child's PC, providing a more complete and trustworthy view. Additional improvements to usage time accuracy are also on the way.  Both parent and children will have the broader view of apps used and time spend.  

Family funding balance after top-up 

Family funding balance was not reflecting proper updated balance but now this issue has been addressed, and parents can now easily manage the funds for their children.   Each of these improvements came from a real family experience — from issues parents told us mattered most: speed, accuracy, control, transparency, and peace of mind.  This is the compounding effect of a team that treats every piece of customer feedback as a commitment to do better. Thank you to every parent who shared their voice; you’ve shaped this product, and we’re just getting started.  All of the above fixes are available in the latest versions of the Family Safety mobile app both iOS and Android are available. You can also access Family Safety on the web by visiting: https://account.microsoft.com/family/  

What’s next 

We also know the journey is not over. While we have made important progress, some families may still run into issues, and we want to hear about them.  If something is not working the way you expect, please reach out to us at familysafetyfeedback@microsoft.com. That inbox is more than a contact point — it is an open invitation from our team to yours. Your feedback helps us understand what families are facing today so we can fix issues at the earliest and keep improving.  Thank you to every parent who shared their voice. You have shaped this product, and you will continue to shape what comes next.  We have been listening. We have been fixing. And we will keep going.

Our children and teens are growing up in a digital world where apps, games, and AI-powered tools are part of how they learn, play, create, and connect. For parents and educators, that brings both opportunity and responsibility: digital experiences should help young people explore with confidence while supporting their wellbeing, building healthy habits, respecting their privacy, and providing protections that are appropriate for their age.  At Microsoft, we believe safety should be easier for families to understand and easier for developers to build into experiences for children to use. On Windows, that starts with the account. Microsoft account is a trusted foundation through which Windows brings age-appropriate protections and parental choices into more of the digital experiences encountered by children and teens every day. A child’s account should help unlock safer, more age-appropriate experiences wherever they use Windows. This is the first in a series of posts on family safety on Windows. Over the coming months I’ll share what we're building — in the account, in the platform, and in the tools we provide to parents, educators, and developers. As Pavan recently shared, Family is a key focus area in our commitment to improving Windows quality. We'll build in the open: shipping new capabilities, listening closely to what families tell us, and refining as we learn. 

From account to safer experiences 

Every experience on Windows starts with identity, and for consumers, that foundation is the Microsoft account (MSA).  MSA enables Windows to understand key context about the user in a consistent and privacy-conscious way: 

• Whether the user is a child, teen, or adult 
• Whether parental controls or consent apply 
• Whether age verification has been completed 

This creates a simple, scalable model:  User account → age signal → age-appropriate experience and controls  Because this foundation is tied to the account, protections are designed to follow the user across Windows and apps, creating safer experiences consistently, not just in individual features. This enables product experiences to support a user’s stage of life. Protections are matched to children, teens, and adults. 

Extending safety across the ecosystem with the Windows Age APIs 

As experiences expand across apps, services, and AI, one challenge becomes clear: how can these experiences consistently understand and respect a user’s age?  To address this, Windows is introducing a new platform capability: the Windows Age API.  This API brings age awareness beyond the operating system by making it available across the entire Windows ecosystem so that apps and services can deliver age-appropriate experiences using the same trusted foundation. By making age awareness available as a platform capability, Windows helps developers build safeguards into experiences from the start rather than placing the burden on children and families to manage protections app by app.  The Windows Age API offers the following capabilities: 

• GetUserAgeRangeAsync: Provides non-personally identifiable age group categories for apps to utilize in providing safe and age-appropriate user experiences, while protecting the date of birth data and overall privacy of users. Age groupings available via the API include- under 10, 10-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18+.
• GetAgeVerificationStatusAsync: Provides verified age status for scenarios when self-reported age is not sufficient.
• CheckAgeStatusAsync: Extends the functionality of the legacy CheckUserAgeConsentGroupAsync API to offer child, minor, or adult classification globally and as defined by regional policies.

These signals are designed to protect privacy: 

• Apps receive only the age-related signal needed for the experience and not sensitive personal data such as full date of birth
• Users remain in control through consent and platform-level controls
• Age information is handled consistently at the platform level to reduce unnecessary sharing and fragmentation 

This enables a new level of consistency across Windows experiences. Apps can recognize when a user is under a certain age and adjust features accordingly, helping create safer, more appropriate interactions without requiring manual setup. This platform approach also helps make protections more consistent and accessible, so safer experiences do not depend on whether a family discovers or configures controls in each individual app.  Just as importantly, this extends to emerging experiences, including AI, where applying age-appropriate safeguards is increasingly important as innovation continues to evolve.  By making this a platform capability, Windows drives safety which is built-in and available across apps, services, and new scenarios.   For more details, including developer guidance, check out the Windows Age API documentation found at https://aka.ms/windows-age-api. 

Building toward high-confidence age assurance 

In many cases, understanding age is not enough. Increasingly, certain experiences require high confidence that a user is an adult.  To support this, Microsoft is expanding age assurance through the Microsoft account using Microsoft Age Verification (MAV), a centralized platform that enables users to verify their age once and use that status across Microsoft experiences. Developers can access this verified status through Windows Age APIs.   Age verification is already available in Microsoft Storefronts in Singapore, Brazil, and Australia. As more regions around the world expand regulatory requirements for age verification, Microsoft will add support for those geographies and product scenarios.  MAV creates a simple, consistent model:  Verify once → use everywhere  Verified status is stored with the Microsoft account and can be used across Windows and apps to enable appropriate experiences, helping reduce friction while improving safety.  

Making safety clearer from the start 

We’re also improving how parental controls are surfaced during device setup, so families can more easily understand available protections and make informed choices from the very beginning.  In regions such as France and others, Windows is raising the visibility of parental controls and consent experiences during setup, designed to increase awareness of the available offerings and enabling early application by parents.  

Family Safety and Parental Controls 

With Family Safety built into Windows, parents can set up a child's device and manage screen time, apps, and content in one place. Over the past six months, we’ve focused on making those everyday moments more dependable – faster parental approvals, clearer activity reporting, and more overall control – guided by what parents told us mattered most. You can read more about what’s improved and what’s coming next here: Listening to families. Improving Microsoft Family. 

Raising the bar for digital safety 

Digital safety must be built into the platform—not added on later.  With Microsoft account as the foundation, and with investments like the Windows Age API expanded age assurance, and available parental controls, Windows is working to support a safer digital environment that is also age-appropriate, privacy-conscious, and easier for families to navigate.  Our goal is to help create experiences where safety, privacy, and participation can work together across the Windows ecosystem. 

Availability 

The Windows Age APIs are broadly available to Windows Insiders now and will be available to all Windows users soon. The CheckAgeStatusAsync API will be available with a future update.

Building an extension has never been easier. Rapid adoption of AI-assisted coding is enabling developers to build extensions faster than ever. We have seen that momentum on the Edge Add-ons site. More developers are building, iterating, and submitting extensions, which is great for the ecosystem and ultimately gives users more choice. It also creates a challenge: how do we keep up with the pace at which the ecosystem is growing, while maintaining a high bar for quality?

Speeding up extension reviews

We know time matters to developers. Whether launching an extension, fixing an issue, or making improvements, waiting for a review can slow progress. Last year, we introduced an expedited review process for high-quality and high-value extensions. Since then, submission volumes have continued to increase, and our review pipeline has experienced additional strain, causing an increase in extension review turnaround time. At the same time, at Edge we have always held a very high bar on quality. So, the challenge in front of us was to reduce the turnaround time for extension updates while ensuring the quality of extensions is maintained. To address this challenge, we've introduced automation for many of the repeatable validation checks that are part of the review process and streamlined how reviews move through our pipeline. This doesn't change our review standards or reduce the checks an extension must pass. Instead, it helps us identify known policy violations and security issues more consistently while allowing reviewers to spend more time on complex cases that benefit from human judgment. The result is a more efficient review process that helps extensions move through the pipeline faster while maintaining the high quality and security standards developers and users expect from the Edge Add-ons site. For developers, this mean bug fixes and new features reach your users sooner. Our objective is to make Edge the easiest place to build, publish, and grow an extension. Faster reviews are just one part of that investment. We continue to look for ways to reduce friction across the developer journey while maintaining a trusted marketplace for users.

Recognizing quality as it improves

As more extensions become available on the Edge Add-ons site, helping users discover extensions they can trust is equally important. The Featured badge has long helped users identify high-quality extensions in the Edge Add-ons site. It serves as a trust signal, highlighting extensions that demonstrate a strong commitment to quality, reliability, security, and user experience. The Featured badge is awarded to select extensions that align with Best practices for extensions. Our evaluation considers more than 60 quality signals across multiple dimensions of an extension. Today, much of our evaluation process is automated to make it more consistent, objective, and scalable as the ecosystem expands. But quality is not static. As we continue to refine our badging criteria, and as developers continuously improve their extensions by fixing issues, refining experiences, and responding to user feedback, we automatically update badges on the Edge Add-ons site. And now, to more quickly recognize quality improvements, we're refreshing Featured badges every 15 days. With this more frequent cadence, high-quality extensions can earn recognition sooner, and developers receive faster feedback on their investments in quality. At the same time, users benefit from a more up-to-date view of the extensions that meet our quality standards. Our goal is simple: make it easier for users to find extensions they can trust while ensuring developers who invest in quality are recognized more quickly.