According to a new post in the official Windows 11 Health Dashboard documentation, systems running Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2) may have problems detecting all the features in printers using Microsoft IPP Class Driver or Universal Print Class Driver. If the operating system cannot connect to the printer, it defaults to a standard feature set. Once the connection is back, a bug prevents Windows from accessing specific features. Microsoft says the problem can cripple printers' ability to use color, two-sided or duplex printing, paper size and type settings, resolutions, and so forth.

A printer itself is not a fun or the most stable device, so, naturally, users will not be happy to see Windows 11 2022 Update crippling most of its features. Microsoft applied a compatibility hold to help users keep their sanity, meaning affected systems will not get Windows 11 2022 Update until Microsoft has a solution for the problem.

Microsoft says the safeguard currently blocks the update on all computers using the Microsoft IPP Class Driver or Universal Print Class Driver. You will not get the Windows 11 2022 Update, even if your printer works fine. The company is working on more accurate targeting and will provide more information in the future. Meanwhile, users can bypass the problem using the official workaround:

To mitigate the safeguard and allow your Windows device to upgrade to Windows 11, version 22H2, you can remove any printers using Microsoft IPP Class Driver or Universal Print Class Driver which you have installed. Once you have removed any affected installed printers, you should be able to upgrade to Windows 11, version 22H2. Please note, if there are no other safeguards that affect your device, it can take up to 48 hours before the upgrade to Windows 11 is offered. Restarting your device and checking for updates might help it to offer sooner.

If you have an installed printer which only allows default settings, you can mitigate this issue by removing and reinstalling the printer. For instructions, please see Download printer drivers in Windows.

The bug affects only client versions of Windows 11 2022 Update (2022), so users of the initial release or Windows 10 should not worry about this problem.

Microsoft confirms even more printing issues, blocks update to Windows 11 22H2

Basically, the Dev Channel build comes with a new version of Snipping Tool, namely version 11.2209.2.0. It allows the application to automatically save any screenshots you take. Prior to this release, each time you took a screenshot, you would have to click the floppy disk "save" icon in the app and then select the path and name for the file.

It seems that this interrupted the workflow of people who take a lot of screenshots so Microsoft is making their lives easier by allowing Snipping Tool to automatically save content. Screenshots can now be found in the Pictures > Screenshots directory of your Windows 11 installation.

It's interesting to see that this is now the default behavior of the app. That said, you can change the settings to revert to the previous process of manually saving screenshots.

Furthermore, Microsoft has highlighted again that Office Insiders can now try out the new Outlook for Windows experience. In the coming weeks, this will also become available to Windows Insiders using the Mail app, even if they are not Office Insiders.

It's important to remember that there is no guarantee that Dev Channel features will make their way to the general release version of Windows 11. There's no word yet on whether the auto-save capability will also be made available to the legacy app on Windows 10 eventually either, but it seems unlikely.

Windows 11 Dev Channel build 25211 lets Snipping Tool automatically save screenshots

The new Windows Insider build makes it impossible to uninstall some Steam games

Canary is one of the three testing channels Microsoft uses to preview early updates and new features before shipping them to the general public. It is the fastest and the least stable channel where major bugs or instabilities are nothing unusual. The latest change makes Edge Canary even faster (and probably more prone to bugs).

Microsoft now ships two updates per day in the Canary channel. The company says this will allow it to take advantage of "the great rapid feedback" it gets from Edge Insiders and deliver new code faster. Increasing the number of updates means users will have to restart the browser more frequently. Still, Microsoft says users can use Edge Canary without restarts as long as they wish. Also, some days will have only one or even no updates at all.

Changes in the Canary channel currently apply just to Windows. Edge Canary on Linux, macOS, and Android will continue receiving daily releases.

You can get started with the Edge Insider program on the official website. Note that using Edge Canary as your primary browser is not the best idea due to instabilities, raw features, and bugs. Fortunately, Microsoft allows using preview builds side-by-side with the stable release to test early updates without risks.

Edge Canary on Windows is now getting two updates per day

Right-clicking on an ISO file will give you the option to verify its integrity. The verification tool will pop up and if it’s a Linux Mint or Ubuntu file, the URLs to the SHA256sum and GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) files will automatically be filled in to be checked against – all you’ve to do is hit the Verify button. Provided the ISO is OK, you will see a message pop-up in the program saying that everything looks good, and that the ISO is an official image.

Aside from verifying ISOs, the team has also been working on the USB Image Writer tool. It now features a Verify button which opens the verification tool and if you’re trying to write a Windows ISO, it detects this and provides a link to writing a Windows image as more steps are needed.

The Linux Mint team also announced that the upcoming version, and versions after that, would start shipping with the Computer, Home, Trash, and Network desktop icons hidden by default. They’re being hidden because they’re easy to get to by other means and will provide a cleaner desktop. While these shortcuts are being hidden, you will still be able to place items on the desktop and access your mounted drives from here. If you want to restore any of the hidden icons, you will be able to do so.

The Linux Mint team confirmed that it's aiming to get Linux Mint 21.1 'Vera' out to the public by Christmas, it will likely be preceded with a beta release.

Linux Mint 21.1 ‘Vera' will drastically improve ISO verification

For those unaware, your audio content in a Teams call is sent through what are essentially "packets" of data. And these packets can get lost due to poor internet connectivity, resulting in the audio being distorted.

While Microsoft can't really fix your internet connectivity problems, what it does in Teams instead is leverage a technique called Packet Loss Concealment (PLC) to artificially make your voice sound better in challenging network environments. At a very high level, PLC uses an AI model to identify the missing packets in your audio transmission and then fill any voids through predictions.

Microsoft has outlined an example of this and while the difference is quite subtle, it's certainly there. Check out the company's sample audio without PLC applied:

And this is what the same audio sounds like after PLC is applied:

Microsoft says that it used deep learning techniques to accomplish this improvement. It claims that while traditional models can fill gaps of 20-40 milliseconds, its PLC model for Teams is significantly better because it can fill audio voids of up to 80 milliseconds.

Although Microsoft trained its PLC model on 600 hours of open-source data, what's fascinating is that it also collected "millions of anonymous network samples", or what it refers to as "traces" from real Teams calls to test its model. Following the release of the PLC model, participants with poor network conditions reported about a 15% improvement.

Microsoft has emphasized that its Teams PLC model runs completely locally, and only when there is poor network quality. It has recently become available for Windows customers, testing is currently ongoing on Mac, and it's coming to mobile pretty soon too.

Microsoft makes Teams calls on Windows sound better, testing on Mac ongoing

The developer notes that the new version will roll out via automatic updates starting next week. Waterfox users who want to upgrade right away may download the latest version from the official project website to install it over the existing copy of the browser.

Waterfox users may check the installed version by selecting Menu > Help > About Waterfox in the menu.

Waterfox G5.0

The official release notes list all major changes of the new release. Most changes are made to the underlying platform. Waterfox G5.0 is based on Firefox ESR 102, which means that it supports the features of that release next to Waterfox-specific features.

The release notes group most platform changes in the three groups security, media and operating systems.

Security

Waterfox G5.0 includes improved referrer tracking protection in Strict tracking protection mode and in private browsing mode. Developers have improved web compatibilities as well. Next to that, Waterfox's sandbox on Linux prevents access to the X Window System on Linux for web content.

Additionally, "less restricted referrer policies" are now ignored to prevent privacy leaks, and the browser now supports the automatic updating "to HTTPS using HTTPS RR as Alt-Svc headers".

Media

Lots of media related changes. Waterfox supports the AVIF format and hardware accelerated AV1 video decoding, the latter only on certain Windows systems with supported graphics processing units.

The browser's built-in PDF viewer supports form filling in the new version, and Picture-in-Picture mode supports video captions and subtitles now for select sites.

On Mac devices, support for images containing ICC v4 profiles is now enabled. Share options are now found under the file menu in the browser, and HDR video is also supported on Macs. For now, support is limited to YouTube on macOS 11 and newer with HGR compatible screens.

Waterfox will crash less often due to low-memory on the system, thanks to improvements integrated in to the Firefox code by Mozilla. Noise suppression and auto-gain have improved significantly as well in the release.

Operating System Specific

Waterfox supports the Snap Layout and new scrollbar styles features of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system. Scrollbars do not take up space on Linux and Windows anymore by default. The browser follows the system settings on Windows 11, which are found under Settings > Accessibility > Visual Effects > Always show scrollbars. On Linux, users may change the behavior in the browser's settings.

Waterfox has the video overlay feature enabled for Intel GPUs on Windows to reduce power usage during video playback.

Linux users benefit from improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption.

Waterfox for macOS uses the low power mode for fullscreen videos on YouTube, Twitch and other sites, which reduces power consumption. Users may also notice reduced CPU utilization when software decoding is used.

Closing Words

Waterfox G5.0 is a major new release of the Firefox-based browser that introduces several new features and improvements.

Now You: do you use Waterfox?

Waterfox G5.0 out with lots of changes

Frontpaged:   Waterfox G5.0

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621.601 and Build 22623.730 (KB5017385) to the Beta Channel.

• Build 22623.730 = New features rolling out.
• Build 22621.730 = New features off by default.

You may notice that the 22622 build has been changed to 22623. Microsoft elaborated on the change, below:

Insiders who were previously on Build 22622 will automatically get moved to Build 22623 via an enablement package. The enablement package artificially increments the build number for the update with new features getting rolled out and turned on to make it easier to differentiate from devices with the update with features off by default. This approach is being used for the Beta Channel only and is not indicative of any changes or plans for final feature rollouts.

and without further ado, here's What’s new in Build 22623.730

Tablet-optimized taskbar

We’re re-introducing the touch-optimized taskbar that’s designed to make you feel more confident and comfortable using your device as a tablet. Your taskbar will automatically transition to this optimized version when you disconnect or fold back the keyboard on your 2-in-1 device. This feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets. It does not work on laptops or desktop PCs.

As a reminder, there are two states of this taskbar: collapsed and expanded. In the collapsed state, the taskbar gets out your way, gives you more screen space, and prevents you from accidentally invoking the taskbar when you’re holding your tablet. In the expanded state, the taskbar is optimized to be easier to use with touch. You can easily switch between the two states by swiping up and down on the bottom of your device.

If this feature is available, you will see a new setting at Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors called “Optimize taskbar for touch interactions when this device is used as a tablet” that will be set to on by default.

System Tray Updates

This update introduces updates to the System Tray that affect all device types — not just 2-in-1 devices. With this change, users will see a rounded focus and hover treatment on all icons in the lower right due to the continued modernization of this experience.

You may also notice that it is not possible to drag and drop or rearrange your system tray icons with this change. We heard your feedback on this change earlier this year and are working to address this in a future Insider Preview build.

Microsoft notes that these features are still rolling out, so even if you are on the features-enabled 22623.730 build, you might not see them right away. The company says that it plans to monitor feedback and see how both features land before pushing them out to everyone. Microsoft requests that Insiders file feedback in the Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Taskbar and Desktop Environment > System Tray respectively.

Changes and Improvements in Build 22623.730

[File Explorer]

• Home now searches more recently opened Microsoft 365 cloud files for users who are signed with their Microsoft account or have their Microsoft account connected to the profile via Settings. Home search now shows recent file activity for cloud files when in details view. Microsoft 365 cloud files can now be searched using additional file properties such as file location, extension, and activity.
• File Explorer search will now show results as you type. The full search results page will update live without needing to press enter.

Here are the fixes in Build 22623.730

[System Tray Updates]

NOTE: These fixes will only show if tablet-optimized taskbar with System Tray updates is enabled on your device. Please see above for details on the tablet-optimized taskbar and System Tray updates, which is beginning to roll out to Windows Insiders and not yet available for everyone.

• The taskbar should no longer flash because of changes in the system tray in non-tablet-optimized scenarios.
• Fixed an issue that was causing parts of the taskbar or its icons like search to get stuck in the wrong theme’s colors when switching between light and dark themes.
• Date and time should no longer get stuck cutting off on the side of the screen from system tray changes.

[Start menu]

• Fixed an issue which was causing Start menu crashes for some Insiders.
• Fixed an issue where the Start menu recommended section might unexpectedly show one column instead of two.
• If you change the app associated with a particular file type, the icon for any of those file type displayed should now update in the recommended section.

Here are the bug fixes for both Build 22621.730 and Build 22623.730:

• We fixed an issue that affects some processors. This issue occurs when you turn on Hyper-V and kernel Direct Memory Access (DMA) protections.
• We fixed an issue that affects the Microsoft Japanese input method editor (IME). Text reconversion fails when you use some third-party virtual desktops.
• We fixed an issue that might cause an application to stop responding. This might occur when the input queue overflows.
• We fixed an issue that stops you from signing in to various Microsoft Office 365 apps. This affects Outlook, Word, Teams, and so on.
• We fixed an issue that affects graphics drivers that use d3d9on12.dll.
• We fixed issues that cause updates to the Microsoft Store to fail.
• We fixed an issue that affects the LanmanWorkstation service. It leaks memory when you mount a network drive.
• We fixed an issue that affects the Miracast UI. Sometimes it closes too soon when you cast to devices that use the DeviceObjectType:Aep.
• We fixed an issue that affects Task Manager. It stops working when you switch between light and dark mode or change the accent color.
• We fixed an issue that affects the font of three Chinese characters. When you format these characters as bold, the width size is wrong.
• We fixed an issue that affects input method editors (IME) from Microsoft and third parties. They stop working when you close the IME window. This occurs if the IME uses Windows Text Services Framework (TSF) 1.0.
• We fixed an issue that affects Microsoft Edge IE mode. It stops you from opening webpages. This occurs when you enable Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) and you do not configure Network Isolation policies.
• We fixed an issue that affects Microsoft Edge when it is in IE Mode. The titles of pop-up windows and tabs are wrong.
• We fixed an issue that stops the credential UI from displaying in IE mode.
• We fixed an issue that affects certificate mapping. When it fails, lsass.exe might stop working in schannel.dll.

And finally, here are the known issues:

[General]

• We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders in recent Beta Channel builds.

[Tablet-optimized taskbar]

• The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
• When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
• When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.

You can find the official blog post here.

Windows 11 Beta Build 22623.730 (KB5017385) comes with Tablet-optimized taskbar

Here is the full changelog for Build 25211:

What’s new

Widgets settings

In this update, we have separated the widget picker and Widgets settings to make it easier for you to find and interact with each view. Now, the widget picker is opened by the “+” button and Widgets settings is opened by the “Me” button. We re-used the space the picker used to take in Widget settings to cover the highly requested taskbar settings based on Insider feedback to give you control over how the Widgets entry works on your taskbar.

The button that shows at the top right of the board to launch Widgets settings.

When you open Widgets settings by clicking on the “Me” button shown above, you will see three taskbar behaviors that you can toggle on or off.

The Widgets settings page.

Please note the wording for the toggles in Widget settings is slightly different in this build over what’s shown in the above screenshot. In a future update, the text for the toggles in Widget settings will be updated to reflect what is in the (above) screenshot.

With the toggles in Widget settings, you can:

• Control whether the Widgets board opens when you hover over the taskbar icon.
• Control whether Widgets will show notification badging on the taskbar.
• Control whether live Widget content on the taskbar shows more than weather.

[We are beginning to roll this out, so the experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback and see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone.]

FEEDBACK: Please file feedback in Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Desktop Environment > Widgets.

Here are the changes and Improvements:

[Taskbar]

• Based on your feedback, we’ve added a link to Task Manager when right-clicking on the taskbar. Let us know what you think!

Context menu when right-clicking on the taskbar shows link to Task Manager.

[System Tray]

• This build includes preliminary support to rearrange system tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with Build 25197. Further improvements for this experience are coming soon. As a reminder, these System Tray updates are still rolling out and are not available to all Insiders just yet. If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed an issue where the top part of File Explorer (with the search and address box) couldn’t be interacted with when File Explorer was in full screen mode (F11).

[Settings]

• For the time being, you will no longer be able to uninstall apps with inter-dependencies (e.g., Steam and gaming apps running on Steam) or repair Win32 apps under Settings > Apps > Installed apps. You will still be able to modify and uninstall Win32 apps without inter-dependencies.

Here are the bug fixes:

[General]

• We are beginning to roll out a server-side fix for the issue causing a “date, time and time zone settings are incorrect” message to be improperly displayed, which was also preventing the installation of the latest Insider Preview builds from proceeding.

[File Explorer]

• Fixed the issue where the command bar items like copy, paste, and empty recycle bin were unexpectedly not be enabled sometimes when they have been.
• Fixed an issue which was causing unexpected black bars on the sides of horizontal scrollbars when using dark mode.

[Start]

• When you have Start set to show more pinned items, the animation for opening folders lower on the page will now appear from the right place.

[Taskbar]

• Fixed a high hitting Shell Experience Host crash in recent Dev Channel builds, impacting Quick Settings launch reliability.

[Input]

• The gripper for moving the emoji panel and touch keyboard should now update color correctly when you switch between dark and light mode.
• Fixed a memory leak when repeatedly invoking the input switcher.

[Settings]

• Fixed a Settings crash which could happen when changing your mobile hotspot name.
• Updated the examples used in the Short time selection under Time & Language > Language & Region > Regional Format, to make the 12 hour options (vs 24 hour) a little more obvious by showing morning and afternoon times.

[Task Manager]

• Tweaked the graphs in the Performance page to use a bit more transparency so it’s easier to see the grid lines underneath.
• Made another fix to improve Task Manager reliability.
• Fixed a black flash while might be seen when launching Task Manager in light mode.
• Fixed a few issues where the font color of certain elements wasn’t correct / readable when using a contrast theme.

[Other]

• Fixed an issue where Narrator would read out the details of the calendar that opens from selecting the date and time from the taskbar when it was collapsed.
• Fixed an issue where explorer.exe was crashing repeatedly in Windows Sandbox for Insiders with the tablet optimized taskbar and updated system tray.
• Fixed an issue which could lead to hangs in certain apps when opening the Open File Dialog.
• Fixed an issue which was making the screen go black for some Insiders when enabling HDR recently.
• Fixed an issue where after using the Open With dialog, the process might stay running even if it wasn’t in use anymore.
• Fixed an issue which was leading to increased CPU usage for WSL2 users on ARM64 PCs even when WSL was idle.
• Fixed an issue where closing the print dialog could lead to an app crash in the last couple flights.

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

Finally we have the known issues:

[General]

• We’re looking into reports that audio stopped working for some Insiders after upgrading to the latest flights.
• We’re investigating reports of a few different apps having started crashing in recent builds.
• [NEW] We’re investigating reports that various UI elements in apps appear to be disappearing and reappearing sometimes in recent builds.

[Tablet-optimized taskbar]

• The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
• Using the left or right edge gestures can result in the Widgets or Notification Center (respectively) to overlap with or look truncated by the taskbar.
• When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to collapsed state.
• When there are no running windows on the desktop, the taskbar can sometimes collapse, when it should be expanded.

[Widgets]

• In right-to-left display languages like Arabic, content animates out of view before the widgets board resizes when clicking to expanded view of the widgets board.
• Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar.

You can find the official blog post here.

Windows 11 Dev build 25211 finally brings Task Manager with a right click, and more

Printing issues on Windows 11, and sometimes also in Windows 10, haven't stopped there as there have been bugs outside of the PrintNightmare flaw too. And it looks like reports of first such issues have started coming in. Twitter user and IT engineer Thomas Førde found out their network printers had gone missing after updating to the Windows 11 22H2 feature update. When they tried to manually add back the printers, they were greeted with a "0x00000bc4" error code which typically signifies an "operation could not be completed" message.

After digging around the issue, Førde discovered the problem that was preventing Windows 11 22H2 from identifying their network printers. Apparently, the printer policy in the 2022 feature update was set wrong by default. The Remote Procedure Call (RPC) connection settings need to be set to "RPC over named pipes" transport protocol for the printers to be identified.

While the workaround works in this case, Microsoft cautions against allowing a large number of idle pending calls on the server while using this protocol. By doing so it can create a high demand for kernel memory.

Printer issues are back at it on Windows 11 22H2 as well

According to user reports, Spotify is installed automatically and run on system start, prompting users to sign-in to accounts or sign-up for new accounts.

Windows Latest and Dr. Windows mentioned some incidents already. According to user reports on Twitter, Reddit and other sites, the Spotify app appeared on Windows devices without any user interaction.

Many reported that the app appeared installed after installation of a recent update for the operating system. Some have left negative reviews on the Microsoft Store, stating that they did not want the application to be installed.

A quick check of several Windows 10 and 11 test systems returned no hits for the Spotify application. The actual trigger for the installation is unknown, and neither Microsoft nor Spotify have responded to the reported issue yet.

It remains to be seen whether this is an intentional move or a bug of sorts. Windows includes no options to prevent the automatic installation of Apps pushed by Microsoft.

How to uninstall Spotify on Windows

Affected users may remove the Spotify application again from their devices. Here is how the application may be uninstalled:

1. Open the Settings application with a click on Start > Settings, or by using the keyboard shortcut Windows-I.
2. Switch to Apps > Apps & Features.
3. Search for Spotify in the "apps list" or browse the listing to find the installed application.
4. Activate the menu (three-dots) next to it and select the uninstall option.
5. Confirm the uninstall prompt to initiate the removal of the app from the system.

The Spotify autostart entry is removed automatically during the process.

Another option is provided by the free application O&O AppBuster, which can uninstall Spotify and many other applications installed on Windows 10 and 11 machines.

Now You: is Spotify installed on your devices?

Spotify is getting installed on some Windows PCs automatically

This feature has been a popular entry on the list of user requests since Windows 11 was released almost one year ago, on October 4, 2021.

Redmond also confirmed it made the change based on customer feedback and that it's enabled starting with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 released to the Dev Channel today.

"Based on your feedback, we've added a link to Task Manager when right-clicking on the taskbar," Microsoft's Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc said.

Support for rearranging System Tray icons is also rolling out to Insiders who have the System Tray updates from Build 25197.

"If your PC does not have these changes, your System Tray experience will remain the same as before," they added.

With today's Dev channel preview build, Microsoft also started rolling out a new settings experience for Widgets allowing users to set the widgets board open on a mouse hover over the taskbar icon.

They'll also see toggles for showing notification badges and showing announcements as rotating updates from widgets on the taskbar.

In a separate Insider release to the Beta channel (Build 22623.730), the company also re-introduced the touch-optimized taskbar that should make it more comfortable to use Windows 11 devices as a tablet.

"Your taskbar will automatically transition to this optimized version when you disconnect or fold back the keyboard on your 2-in-1 device," Langowski and LeBlanc said.

"This feature only works on devices that can be used as tablets. It does not work on laptops or desktop PCs."

In February, Microsoft also brought back taskbar drag and drop support with the release of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22557 to the Dev Channel.

With that change, Windows 11 allowed users once again to drag and drop files between apps by hovering the mouse over their taskbar icons.

Microsoft finally adds a Task Manager link to the Windows 11 taskbar

File Locksmith will add a new context menu entry (currently named "What's using this file?") responsible for showing what processes "hold" a file or directory, thus preventing it from being deleted or renamed.

A "rough mockup" reveals what File Locksmith might look like, showing processes, their IDs, blocked files or directories, and the button to end listed processes. The concept looks on par with what PowerToys currently offers, although it is worth mentioning that Microsoft will most likely reposition the arrow-down button responsible for revealing more details to prevent users from accidentally killing the task instead of getting more information about it.

PowerToys File Locksmith is a work in progress, so do not expect Microsoft to release it tomorrow. While the company is busy preparing the new toy for the next releases, check out the latest PowerToys update that has introduced Screen Ruler, Quick Accent, and Text Extractor tools. You can also follow the development process on GitHub.

PowerToys will soon show what processes prevent you from deleting files

Window Controls Overlay is a new Progressive Web App (PWA) feature that Microsoft initially talked about in January 2020. The company then started working on an early implementation in March 2021 through the Chromium project followed by an Origin trial, with Chrome actually adopting it with version 102 in May 2022. It has now become the default experience on Edge 105 too with a formal specification being published too.

There has been much effort on this front because it makes PWAs feel more native. And it does not accomplish this by making them more performant, rather, it does this by making a seemingly minor UX enhancement. Instead of making the title bar of an app follow the operating system defaults, it returns around 30px of height back to the PWA by giving it almost full control over the title bar.

While 30px sounds small, it would give a PWA the autonomy to display custom titles, menu bars, navigation tabs, and more in this area. To give you a more visual representation, the white area in the diagram below would be controlled by the PWA:

Microsoft has emphasized that this adapts to different operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux. A graphic to show how the utilization of this 30px of height may differ across operating systems can be seen below:

Microsoft says that:

We believe PWAs are a great fit for making desktop web applications. Turning your website into an app that really feels like it belongs on desktop has never been so easy and using the Window Controls Overlay feature will help you create desktop apps that look much more modern and engaging to your users.

If you're a PWA developer interested in checking out some code snippets to figure out how you can tweak the title bar to your liking, view Microsoft's examples here.

Interestingly, Microsoft has noted that Window Controls Overlay is now enabled by default in Edge 105, but none of its changelogs for the major or minor releases of this version highlight this. We have to assume that if you're on the latest Edge build, the API should be enabled by default for you.

Microsoft Edge can now make desktop web apps feel more native

WindowBlinds 11 allows for unique customization of the Windows Start menu, taskbar, window frames, control buttons, and more using desktop interface themes called skins. WindowBlinds 11 comes equipped with many default skins, but thousands more are available on WinCustomize.com. Users can modify any skin by adjusting the colors, fonts, transparency, and more.

“This app has been a cornerstone in our suite of desktop enhancements,” said Brad Sams, Vice President of Stardock Software. “We are thrilled to be releasing the newest version with several highly requested updates, including a new automatic dark mode and improved high DPI support for new skins.”

WindowBlinds 11 comes equipped with an in-app browser to make it even easier to find new skins to download and the user interface has been refreshed, too. In addition to being designed to work with all announced versions of Windows 11, support for widgets on the taskbar and for tabs in File Explorer is also included in this release. “Windows 11 introduced a new design language for the OS but we know it’s not for everyone,” Sams said. “With WindowBlinds 11, you can enjoy the benefits of a modern OS, but also the flexibility to customize the interface to fit your own personal theme.”

The WindowBlinds 11 beta is available for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users as part of Stardock's Object Desktop suite or individually for $14.99 during the beta period. An upgrade option is available for WindowBlinds 10 owners for $9.99. For more information, visit www.stardock.com or the WindowBlinds 11 website here.

Object Desktop includes programs such as Fences, Start10, Groupy, SoundPackager, DeskScapes, and Multiplicity.

Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock

Stardock announces WindowBlinds 11 public beta with automatic dark mode

Another noteworthy announcement regarding the new Outlook experience is that it will be available for the inbox Mail app on Windows 10 and 11 for Windows Insiders in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Office Insiders can now use the updated Outlook app by sliding the Try the New Outlook toggle located in the upper-right corner of their classic Outlook apps for Windows. Microsoft will show highlights of specific features to help you out with the new interface.

As you may already know, the updated Outlook app for Windows has several exciting new features. One of the noteworthy changes is the support for personal Outlook.com, Hotmail, or Windows Live email accounts. Microsoft is also working on adding support for email accounts from other services such as Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and more.

The new Outlook also has the Quick Steps feature, allowing you to keep your inbox clean and organized. This will save you a lot of time, as it filters out for you what’s important. Aside from that, it features simplified Ribbon options, making it look and feel sleeker and easier to navigate. Other noteworthy features include the ability to adjust the width of columns in your calendar. It allows you to customize how much space to give each day as you view the details of your weekly schedule.

These new functionalities are available on top of what’s already been rolled out in the preview version of the Outlook app in May. You can learn more about those capabilities here. To make the overall experience even better, Microsoft promised to add many new features to the new Outlook in the future, including offline support, the ability to search for folders, native ICS file type support, and so much more.

Microsoft’s new unified Outlook app for Windows is now available to all Office Insiders

Microsoft Outlook for the web has been available in Edge Sidebar for quite some time now, but it was not well optimized to fit into the sidebar pane. Up until now, users had to scroll horizontally and vertically to see the entire page, making it super inconvenient to use the email service. As spotted by a Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2, Microsoft has started testing an optimized version of Outlook web for launching in the Edge Sidebar.

Microsoft Outlook in the Edge Sidebar is similar to the Outlook.com experience, except that you can not add multiple accounts if you are using the optimized version of Microsoft’s email client in the sidebar pane. But it is never too late to add something useful to make a service more usable, so we hope the software giant will bring multiple Outlook accounts support to the sidebar pane in the coming days.

It is worth remembering that the Sidebar feature is available only for the latest version of Edge users. And if you are using the latest stable Edge, all of this might not sound very new to you. Either way, you can check out some of the screenshots below to understand how users can use Outlook and other apps in the sidebar pane.

If you are using Edge, do you like the sidebar pane feature? If yes, do you use it to launch useful apps like Outlook to avoid switching to other tabs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Microsoft Outlook for the web is now optimized to fit into the Edge sidebar

In May 2021, this became a widespread issue across Outlook users using the app’s desktop version globally. The root cause of the problem originated from a faulty update (Outlook version 2104 build 13929.20372) that introduced a bug to the desktop client that later caused users to be unable to view or compose (as pressing enter would hide the texts) emails. According to Microsoft, “a recent change to systems that facilitate text display management for content within the Outlook client” started it but immediately addressed it hours after tons of reports.

Experiencing the same situation today is possible, especially if you hear complaints from others around the globe. In that case, it’s probably a bug on Microsoft’s end. If it happens after an update, just like the situation stated above, rolling back to the previous Microsoft Outlook version using the command prompt can do the trick. Before doing so, however, it is important first to check if it is really being experienced by many users due to a bug. If not, it is probably caused by a different issue, thus rolling back to the previous version of Outlook will be pointless.

After that incident in 2021, there are still reports from different Outlook users experiencing the same problem. If you were one of those who experienced that last year and are now experiencing it again, you should now try a different kind of solution. The first thing to do is to check if the problem is occurring just on Outlook for PC or even on the iOS, Android, or web version of Outlook. If you can see the texts on other platforms, you can use them as a workaround to keep your productivity going, and it will also allow you to identify which platforms are just facing such an issue. And if it is happening on the desktop version of Outlook, you can start with a simple relaunch. You can also try ending any Outlook-related tasks on the Tasks Manager. Also, try to check if the font color of the plain text on Outlook is not set to white. In the Outlook app, go to File > Options menu > Mail tab > Stationery and Fonts > Personal Stationery tab. Find the “Composing and reading plain text messages” and select the Font button under it. In the dialog box that will open, check if the font is set in Automatic, which should give you the black font color.

If these simple solutions don’t work, here are more advanced suggestions.

• Disable or remove add-ins. Ad-ins can sometimes affect the performance of Outlook, so it is a good idea to disable them to see if they are really the cause of the problem. One of the most prominent ad-ins that could cause it is the Avgoutlook.Addin as well as other antivirus ad-ins. To disable or remove them, open the Outlook application and go to the File menu > Options > Add-ins tab. In the tab, click the Go button at the bottom, and you’ll see all the available ad-ins with checkmarks. Uncheck the ones related to Outlook and click the OK button to disable them. To completely remove them, uncheck the ones you want to keep and check the ones you need to remove. Restart your PC.
• Restart Outlook in Safe Mode. Another way to use your Outlook with all the ad-ins disabled is through Safe Mode. It can also be a good alternative in cases where you don’t want to roll back to a previous version of Microsoft Office to fix some bugs while waiting for Microsoft to resolve the issue. To do this, press and hold the Ctrl key and launch Outlook. Confirm by clicking Yes in the dialog box that will appear. The Outlook will then open in Safe Mode. Once you are done using it, you can simply close it, but you need to open the app in this way to keep it under Safe Mode. Another simple way to open Outlook in Safe Mode is by simultaneously pressing Windows and R hotkey and typing outlook.exe/safe.
• Repair corrupted Outlook .pst files. Microsoft has the Inbox Repair tool (Scanpst.exe) that you can use to repair your Outlook personal folder files when you can’t access them. Start it and select Open or Run in the File Download dialog box. If you can’t find it, Microsoft provides a list of locations where you can find it depending on your Outlook version. Once launched, type the path and the file name of your .pst file in the Inbox Repair tool. You can also select Browse to locate the file using the Windows file system. To see the paths of data folders, open Outlook and go to File > Account Information > Account Settings > Data files tab. Put the path to the Inbox Repair tool. Click on the Repair button to start the repairing process. However, note that you might need to run Inbox Repair Tool several times to fully repair a .pst file. Also, the tool might not always work for all problems, especially for those files permanently deleted or corrupted beyond repair. After repairing, proceed to recover repaired items. To do that, you first need to create a new Personal Folders (.pst) file entry in your profile so you can move the recovered items. Start Outlook, select the profile containing the repaired .pst file, press Ctrl+6 to turn on the Folder List view, and create a new .pst file in your profile. The process depends on the version of Outlook you are using, but Microsoft has a detailed document for it, from Outlook 2002 to Outlook 2010 and later. After that, drag the recovered items from the Lost and Found folder (which contains folders and items that the Inbox Repair Tool recovered) to your new Personal Folders (.pst) file.
• Update Outlook. One of the best things to do is to update your Outlook app to see if there are essential updates that could fix the problem. Just go to File > Office Account > Update Options >Update Now button. This is applicable, especially if an earlier update is faulty and Microsoft is releasing a new one to resolve it. On the other hand, you probably also want not to get automatic updates to prevent the installation of such buggy updates. In that case, disable Microsoft Office updates. Open your Outlook and go to File menu > Office Account > Update options > select Disable Updates. Click the Yes button on the prompt that will appear to confirm the action.

How to fix Outlook not showing content or text

The new 31.0.101.3430 WHQL driver brings XeSS improvements as well as a crashfix for Red Dead Redemption 2. Find the full changelog below:

NOTES:

• Intel® Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) stability improvements for Intel® Iris™ Xe Graphics.

FIXED ISSUES:

• Red Dead Redemption 2* (Vulkan) may experience an application crash when performing an ALT+TAB to desktop.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive* (DX9) may experience a game crash when changing shadow quality settings in game.
• Destiny 2* may exhibit display signal loss or display flashing during gameplay when HDR is enabled.
• Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin* may experience an application crash during gameplay.
• An “Update driver” pop-up error message may be observed when launching Battlefield 1* after upgrading from 30.0.100.9955 or older drivers.
• [12th Generation Intel Core Processors]:
  • Lighting corruption may be observed in the Halo Infinite* (DX12) multiplayer menus.
  • Grid Legends* (DX12) may experience lighting corruption when lighting quality is set to high in the games settings.
  • CrossFire HD* (DX9) may experience an application crash when task switching during gameplay.
  • Chorus* may experience an application crash in some interior areas of the game such as the ship hangar.
  • Minor graphical anomalies may be seen in Destiny 2* (DX11), CrossFire HD* (DX9), GRID Legends* (DX12) (on changing lighting quality to high) and F1 2020* (DX12) when HDR is enabled.
  • Sniper Elite 5* (DX12) may experience a game crash or TDR with an error dialog pop-up message.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2* (DX12) may experience lower than expected performance when the game API is set to DirectX®12 with VSync enabled.
• [11th and 12th Generation Intel Core Processors]:
  • Minor graphical anomalies may be seen in Gears 5* (DX12).
  • A game crash or hang may occur when changing resolution in NBA 2K21* (DX12).
• [11th Generation Intel Core Processors with Intel Iris Xe graphics]:
  • Minor graphical anomalies may be seen in Elex* (DX11), MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries* (DX12), Strange Brigade* (DX12) and The Ascent* (DX12).

To download this combined 31.0.101.2111 and 31.0.101.3430 driver package, head over to Intel's official website at this link. Like mentioned above, the release is compatible with all Intel integrated graphics from the 6th Gen all the way up to the latest 12th Gen.

Intel 31.0.101.3430 driver brings XeSS improvements, RDR 2 crashfix

Frontpaged:   Intel Graphics Driver 31.0.101.3430 | 101.2111

Sadly however, Intel's latest 31.0.101.3430 Arc WHQL driver does not support the new A770. The card is set to be available on a later date so we will probably see a driver supporting it closer to that.

In terms of what the driver brings, there is a new Arc Control with version 4765, XeSS improvements, and a ton of bug fixes. Find the full changelog below:

NOTES:

• The Intel® Arc™ 101.3430 BETA [sic] driver is bundled with the latest version of Intel® Arc™ Control 4765 to streamline installation experience, resulting in a larger driver package file size.
• Intel® Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) stability improvements for Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics and Intel® Iris™ Xe Graphics.

FIXED ISSUES:

• Total War: Warhammer III* (DX11) may exhibit color corruption on certain regions of the overworld map.
• Call of Duty: Vanguard* (DX12) may exhibit lower than expected performance in the main menu.
• Marvel’s Guardian of the Galaxy* (DX12) may exhibit flickering texture corruption in certain areas
• Horizon Zero Dawn* (DX12) may exhibit texture and color corruption on some terrain and skyboxes.
• Overwatch* (DX11) may experience lower than expected performance within certain map environments
• Metro Exodus* (DX11) may exhibit a CTD or application hang during gameplay.
• Conqueror’s Blade* (DX11) may exhibit an application crash during game launch.
• League of Legends* (DX11) may experience lower than expected performance when using the DX11 option in on some Intel® Arc™ A730M series graphics products.
• Sniper Elite 5* (DX12) may experience an application crash on some Hybrid Graphics system configurations when Windows® “Graphics Performance Preference” option for the application is not set to “High Performance”.
• Movies and TV* Application may experience a hang during HDR video playback and changing video to Fullscreen.
• Blender* may exhibit OpenGL rendering errors with certain Intel® system configurations.
• Some Intel® Arc™ A380 series graphics cards may intermittently reboot the system when resuming from S3 sleep.

INTEL® ARC™ CONTROL FIXED ISSUES:

• Recording with Arc Control Studio Capture and “In Stream” mode enabled may not save the output video file at the desired length.
• Streaming with Arc Control Studio Capture and “In Stream” mode enabled may cause unexpected connection instability to the desired platform.
• Some image types may not load when using Arc Control Camera “Background Replacement” option.
• Arc Control may incorrectly be invoked during the login screen.
• Arc Control may incorrectly close automatically when Arc Control is invoked, and system is left idle.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Marvel’s Spider-Man* (DX12) may exhibit an application crash when loading into the game with Ray-Traced Reflections enabled.
• Marvel’s Spider-Man* (DX12) may experience shadow corruption when using FSR 2.0 upscaling.
• Marvels’ Spider-Man* (DX12) may exhibit scene corruption when Ambient Occlusion is disabled or set to HBAO+
• Battlefield 2042* (DX12) may exhibit an application crash when entering a multiplayer match.
• Some Intel® Arc™ A380 series graphics product fans may continue running when the graphics card or system is idle.

INTEL® ARC™ CONTROL KNOWN ISSUES:

• Windows UAC Admin is required to install and launch Arc Control.
• Arc Control may fail to correctly update. A workaround is to uninstall Arc Control from Add or Remove programs before updating.
• Some applications may exhibit a transparent or blank window when CMAA is set to “Force ON” globally.
• Some applications may exhibit pixel corruption when Sharpening Filter is enabled globally.
• Opening Arc Control in some game titles with ALT+I during gameplay may not correctly appear.
• Using Arc Control Studio Capture with “In Stream” mode enabled may not correctly record entire clip when under a 1080p resolution setting.
• A 1440p resolution selection in Arc Control Studio Capture may be unavailable when the display native resolution is 4K.
• Arc Control Studio Camera overlay position may not retain desired position and size after a system restart.
• Hot-plugging peripheral devices such as cameras, microphones, or displays while Arc Control is open may cause Arc Control to become unresponsive.
• Arc Control may not scale automatically when changing from a 1080p resolution to a 4K resolution.
• Some Arc Control Telemetry metrics may not align with 3 rd party applications or built-in OS functions.
• The Arc Control Studio Camera tab may take longer than expected responsiveness upon the first navigation.
• Hot-plugging a secondary display with Arc Control invoked may cause Arc Control to be unresponsive.
• Hot-plugging a display with Arc Control Studio Capture audio device set to display audio may cause an error when attempting to capture or broadcast.

Intel® Arc™ Control Performance Tuning (BETA):

• Intel® Arc™ Control Performance Tuning is currently in Beta. As such, performance and features may behave unexpectedly. Intel® will continue to refine the Performance Tuning software in future releases.

The new Arc 31.0.101.3430 driver is compatible with all Xe architecture graphics. This includes Arc GPUs (except the A770, for now), Intel 11th Gen, 12th Gen and Iris Xe discrete graphics (DG1). To download the driver, head over to Intel's official website here.

Intel's latest 31.0.101.3430 Arc driver does not support the new A770

Frontpaged:   Intel Graphics Driver 31.0.101.3430 | 101.2111

Starting off with Excel for the web, we have a very useful capability called "Check Performance". As the name suggests, it automatically identifies problematic formatting inside your workbook that may be causing it to slow down. It can then optimize your workbook based on the recommendations that you apply. You can also start it manually from Review > Check Performance.

Excel for the web users can also share a section of the workbook by highlighting the required cells rather than sharing it in its entirety. Moreover, charts can now respond to dynamic arrays instead of being bound to fixed data points.

Meanwhile, Excel for Windows customers have updated Modern Comments to look forward to. These are now built on the React Native framework for improved consistency and cross-platform compatibility. Furthermore, Insiders on the Beta Channel can also take advantage of the same dynamic arrays charts described above too.

Finally, Excel for macOS Insiders can finally leverage the Power Query Editor directly inside Excel. There's also a new option to manage storage accounts, just like Office for Mobile. It is essentially a revamp of the "Add a Place" menu and allows users to add first- and third-party storage locations like a SharePoint site, a OneDrive or OneDrive for Business account, and Box, among others.

As usual, you can send feedback or feature requests to Microsoft through the dedicated portal here.

Here are all the new features Microsoft added to Excel in September 2022

The release notes for KB5019311 say:

Highlights

• Addresses localization issues for some setup files. These issues might stop you from creating installation media for non-English languages.

Improvements

This non-security update includes quality improvements. Key changes include:

• Addresses localization issues for some setup files. These issues might stop you from creating installation media for non-English languages.

Since it is an OOB update, it can be downloaded manually on Microsoft's Update Catalog website here. Only, go for it though in case you are facing issues with creating installation media for Windows 11 22H2 on non-English languages. For others, it is not essential.

While we are on the topic of Windows 11 22H2 and installation problems, there are also reports of another bug which is interrupting the upgrade process. According to these reports, the 22H2 feature update is failing with an error code "0x800f0806". This is apparently happening when trying to do an in-place upgrade via Windows Update in Settings due to some compatibility issue or something similar. A clean install is seemingly working fine. In case you are facing a similar problem, you can try some of the workarounds outlined in the article.

KB5019311 (build 22621.525) OOB update fixes Windows 11 22H2 installation media issue

Auto Dark Mode X 10.2.0 is now available for download from the app or its GitHub repository. According to developer notes, version 10.2.0 aims to fix Windows 11 2022 Update-related issues by rewriting the entire theme logic. There still might be some problems to resolve, but the overall experience should be much better. In addition, the latest release adds the option to postpone theme switching when the device is in use.

Here is the full changelog:

New Features:

• Postpone theme switch when your computer is in use!

Improvements:

• Windows 11 22H2 compatibility by rewriting the entire theme logic
• Ability to set custom script timeout on a per-script basis. This is a potential breaking change and requires reconfiguration of scripts
• Hotkeys now support using the Windows key
• Unwanted theme changes are now tracked via WMI instead of a timer that only checks every few minutes

You can download Windows Auto Dark Mode X from the Microsoft Store or GitHub, where people with the right skills can contribute to the app's development. Auto Dark Mode is free and has no ads or bloat.

Windows Auto Dark Mode gets fixes for Windows 11 22H2 and other improvements

Here is what is new in MSEdgeRedirect 0.7.0.2:

• Improved IFEO failure messages for easier debugging
• Fixed existing Service Mode options not being detected
• Added not yet active code for a potential WebDriver mode
• Improved Cleanup done by Uninstaller to remove a missed Registry Key
• Fixed Start Menu Shortcuts occasionally not being created when selected
• Added a Delay to Service Mode after redirecting to help prevent redirect loops
• Improved the Update Checker, now loads latest release page instead of all releases page
• Fixed Edge Removal Detection blocking selection of Edge Builds for those who reinstalled Edge
• Added Exception for Redirections of localhost sites, fixes Rog Armoury Crate incompatibility, among others

Known issues include the following:

• Outlook Previews Inop - Will be fixed in 0.7.1.0
• Weird Setup and Setting Menu Edge cases. Will be fixed in 0.8.0.0

You can download MSEdgeRedirect from GitHub via this link. Keep in mind that the app is still in beta, so expect changes and performance improvements in future releases. If you are not familiar with MSEdgeRedirect, our handy guide will help you figure out the basics and learn how to force widgets in Windows 11 or 10 to use the default browser instead of Edge.

MSEdgeRedirect gets several fixes and improvements in latest update

We will start off with deprecations this time, of which there are three. Persistent quota type is being deprecated in the requestFileSystem() method because it adds unnecessary complexity to the code, which is especially undesirable due to its low usage. HTTP/2 push streams will suffer the same fate as Chrome will no longer receive, store in memory, or use streams sent by this configuration. Similarly, Chrome 106 is also dropping support for non-ASCII characters in cookie domain name attributes, in line with the latest standardization in the RFC 6265bis specification.

In terms of new features, one major enhancement is support for Bring Your Own Buffer (BYOB) in SerialPort. Here is how Google describes it:

Developers can detect support for BYOB readers by calling getReader({ mode: 'byob' }) as older implementations will throw a TypeError when the new parameter is passed. BYOB (or, "bring your own buffer") readers allow the developer to specify the buffer into which data is read instead of the stream allocating a new buffer for each chunk. In addition to potentially reducing memory pressure this allows the developer to control how much data is received as the stream cannot return more than there is space for in the provided buffer. The ability to read a particular amount of data from a port makes this API more familiar to developers used to programming against the Windows and POSIX APIs for serial devices, which operate on this same "bring your own buffer" principle.

BYOB readers allow developers to specify the buffer into which data is read instead of the stream allocating a buffer for each chunk. In addition to the potential reduction in memory pressure this allows script to control how much data is received in a chunk as the stream cannot return more than there is space for in the provided buffer. The ability to read a particular amount of data from a port has been a frequently requested feature by developers used to programming against the Windows and POSIX APIs for serial devices, which operate on this same "bring your own buffer" principle. The current API, in contrast, requires developers to code defensively against extra unwanted data instead of reading only what they are ready to process.

Apart from this, unprefixed hyphenate-character property CSS property is now stable and will ship with Chrome 106. The "-webkit-hyphenate-character" property will be deprecated at a later unspecified date.

Another key improvement in Chrome 106 is that it supports v3 of the Intl.NumberFormat API. This version has the following new functionalities:

1. Add 3 new functions to format range of number: formatRange / formatRangeToParts / selectRange
2. Grouping Enum
3. New Rounding/Precision Options
4. Rounding Priority
5. Interpret Strings as Decimals
6. Rounding Modes
7. Sign Display Negative

Additionally, a dequeue callback has been introduced for audio and video interfaces in WebCodecs. It allows developers to find out if the the queue size has decreased in encoding and decoding interfaces instead of setting a timing function to randomly check for the same.

Moreover, the CSS "ic" length unit is now supported. This is used to express length "relative to the advanced measure of the water ideograph" for Japanese and Chinese fonts and is already present in Safari and Firefox. Moving forward, CORS will be enforced in subresource prefetching and loading via Signed HTTP Exchange.

There are a few experimental features in this release of Chrome too. There are two developer trials locked behind flags. The first is updating asynchronous methods in the File System Access API to synchronous methods. This will improve performance and bring consistency to the API. Secondly, Google will be proceeding with Phase 5 of its User-Agent Reduction plan. The idea is to improve privacy while also reducing the chances for errors in parsing a complex User-Agent string.

Similarly, two capabilities have entered Origin trials too. Anonymous iframes offer a way to load documents in external iframes through ephemeral contexts. Since it is a generalization of Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy (COEP), it removes the requirement of third-party iframes supporting COEP as a pre-requisite to be embedded into a COEP page. This trial will continue until Chrome 108.

A Pop-up API is now offered via Origin trials too, it allows developers to display interactive transient UI elements on top of web apps. This is similar to the "dialog" element but has new features like including light-dismiss behavior, pop-up interaction management, animation, event support, and non-modal mode.

Chrome 106 will start rolling out in the later hours of today. If Chrome does not automatically update to version 106 for you throughout the course of the day, head over to Help > About Google Chrome to trigger the update once it becomes available. Next up is Chrome 107 which will hit the Beta channel on September 29, and will land on Stable on October 25.

Chrome 106 is shipping today with a few experimental features and deprecations

Frontpaged:   Google Chrome 106.0.5249.62