Windows 11 gets improved sound settings, better Task Manager, and more in new builds

This week's Windows 11 Canary builds deliver Xbox mode, sound improvements, Task Manager enhancements, and more.

In addition to new Dev and Beta builds, Microsoft dropped two Canary updates for Windows Insiders to try. In today's releases, Windows 11 gets Xbox mode, sound improvements, Task Manager upgrades, and other enhancements across the operating system.

If you are in the Experimental channel, you can download build 28200.1873 with the following changes:

[Xbox Mode]

• Xbox full screen experience is now Xbox mode
• We’ve added an improved first-run experience when entering Xbox mode

[Touch Keyboard Experience for Voice Typing]

• We’re updating the experience when you use voice typing with the touch keyboard to make it feel more streamlined and intuitive. The new design  removes the previous full‑screen overlay and instead shows voice typing animations directly on the dictation key, helping you stay focused on what  you’re doing without extra visual distractions. 

[Storage]

• Improved the performance when navigating to see storage on large volumes via Settings > System > Storage > Advanced Storage Settings > Disks & Volumes.
• Updated Settings > System > Storage, so rather than seeing a UAC prompt immediately when you go to the page, you’ll only see it when going to view temporary files.

[Network]

• Fixed issue causing Settings > Network & Internet > Data Usage to show large unrealistic values in recent Insider builds.

[Other]

• Improved performance of launching startup apps after boot (apps which display under Settings > Apps > Startup).

As for Windows Insiders in the Experimental (Future Platforms) side of the Canary Channel, Microsoft released build 29576.1000 with the following:

[Sound settings]

We’ve been making some improvements to Settings > System > Sound in the latest Canary builds. This includes:

• We’ve updated the design of the volume slider, so now if there is audio actively playing it will be displayed on the side.

  

   

• If your audio device supports hardware acceleration, an option to allow hardware acceleration has now been added to the Advanced section in Properties for that device.
• Configuring exclusive mode for an audio device is now available in the Advanced section of the Properties for that device, so you don’t have to navigate to Control Panel to do it.
• Configuring adaptive communication sound levels (reducing the volume of other sounds when communication activity is detected) is now available directly in Settings, so you don’t have to navigate to Control Panel to do it.
• The option to set an audio device as the default sound device for communication will now always display in Properties, just greyed out if the device is already the default (rather than the control hiding in this case).

[Point-in-time restore for Windows]

• Point-in-time restore for Windows empowers you to quickly roll your device back to a previous state — helping minimize downtime and simplify troubleshooting when disruptions strike. Whether you’re dealing with a widespread outage or a one-off issue, point-in-time restore helps recover your system (including apps, settings, and user files) to get you back to productivity faster. For more details, check out our documentation.

[Task Manager]

We’re making a few improvements to 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.
• Once these changes are available to you, you can add any of the new columns by right‑clicking a column header in Task Manager and selecting them from the menu.

[Other]

• Fixed an underlying issue causing some rendering issues in certain apps with recent Canary flights.

You can find release notes for build 29576.1000 here and for build 28200.1873 here.

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Posted Saturday 25 April 2026 at 7:58 am AEST (my time).

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