New Windows 11 Experimental build brings Task Manager upgrades and other improvements

Two "Canary" builds are out for testing, offering users new Task Manager features and general improvements.

In addition to new Windows 11 builds in the Experimental (Dev) / Beta Channels, Microsoft released two new "Canary" builds (now called Experimental and Experimental Future Platforms). Builds 28020.1921 and 29580.1000 contain only "a small set of general improvements," but one of them also brings new features for Task Manager.

Here is what is new for both builds:

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

And here is what is available in build 28020.1921 (Experimental, version 26H1):

[Task Manager]

• We’re updating Task Manager to provide better insight into NPU usage for PCs that include an NPU. New optional NPU and NPU Engine columns are now available on the Processes, Users, and Details pages. The Details page also adds NPU Dedicated Memory and NPU Shared Memory optional columns to give you deeper visibility into how workloads are using NPU resources. Additionally, if there are neural engines that are part of a GPU, they will now appear on the Performance page, providing a more complete view of AI‑related system activity.
• We’re also adding a new optional Isolation column to the Processes and Details pages, allowing you to see which apps are running in an AppContainer.
• Fixed the accuracy of CPU speed display on the Performance page of Task Manager for VMs after resume from hibernate, so it doesn’t sometimes show unexpectedly high, unrealistic numbers.

You can find full release notes for build 28020.1921 here and for build 29580.1000 here.

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Posted Saturday 2 May 2026 at 7:55 am AEST (my time).

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