Windows 11 gets improved Start menu Phone Link integration and more in build 27871

Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows 11 Canary Channel build 27871 for Windows Insiders. Today's build contains little, except for Phone Link improvements, energy saver management in Microsoft Intune, and various fixes.

With build 27871, IT administrators can now control the energy savings on PCs in Microsoft Intune. Policies can be managed using the Local Group Policy Editor or the Microsoft Intune Admin Center. When enabled, energy saver limits background activity and reduces screen brightness, ensuring that devices consume less power while maintaining optimal performance.

Phone Link integration in the Start menu received the same changes that Microsoft introduced earlier this week in the Dev and Beta Channels. Notifications are now appearing grouped on the Phone Link pane in the Start menu, Android users can enable screen mirroring with one click, and iPhone photo memories are now supported.

Finally, Microsoft adjusted the "needy state pill" under apps that require your attention. Those pills are now larger and more visible.

Fixes in build 27871 include the following:

[General]

 

• We have mitigated the issue where if Virtualization Based Security is enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, would lose the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component is installed on the system.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• Fixed an issue where if you had disconnected network drives when doing a search from Home it might prevent searches from executing and you’d remain on Home.
• Fixed an issue where tapping the View button in File Explorer with touch would crash File Explorer.

 

[Taskbar]

 

• Fixed an issue where WIN + CTRL + Number wasn’t working anymore for switching windows in the taskbar.
• Fixed an underlying issue which was causing keyboard focus to get set to widgets in the taskbar on login, which could make widgets unexpectedly invoke.
• Fixed an issue when using Tab and Shift + Tab to move keyboard focus around the taskbar, where if keyboard focus went backwards at least once you could get keyboard focus stuck on the taskbar frame, causing some screen readers to just say “pane”.

 

[Settings]

 

• Fixed an issue where hovering over the cards at the top of Settings > System > About wasn’t showing the correct corner radius.
• Fixed an issue where the storage card in Settings > System > About showed a garbage character instead of the proper disk size.

 

[Administrator Protection]

 

• Fixed an issue where when using Administrator Protection, some apps might not follow your preference if it was set to dark mode.

 

[Task Manager]

 

• Fixed the issue causing search and other options such as filtering in Task Manager to not work.

 

[Audio]

 

• Fixed an issue in the last few Canary flights where audio devices with high sampling (like 192Hz) and multiple channels weren’t producing sound.
• Fixed an issue which could cause the startup sound not to play, though it was enabled.

 

[Input]

 

• Fixed an issue where voice typing wouldn’t start from the touch keyboard when using the Chinese (Simplified) narrow layout.
• Fixed an issue where when using the Symbols section of the touch keyboard, pressing the key to change pages might unexpectedly insert a character into password fields.

 

[Graphics]

 

• Fixed an issue which could cause unexpected scaling and window position changes after sleep/resume for some devices.

 

[Voice access]

 

• Fixed an issue which could voice access to freeze with error “working on it” when dictating.

 

[Other]

 

• Fixed an issue causing an Administrative Templates error message when opening Group Policy Editor.
• Fixed an issue where some of the commands when using xml to setup were unexpectedly not being run.
• Fixed an issue when installing Windows from installation media, where if you changed your keyboard layout from the default, it may still use the default when entering the product key.
• Fixed an issue when installing Windows from installation media, where certain partitions may show an extremely large erroneous size.

And here are the known bugs:

[General]

 

• [IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COPILOT+ PCs] If you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel or retail, you will lose Windows Hello pin and biometrics to sign into your PC with error 0xd0000225 and error message “Something went wrong, and your PIN isn’t available”. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking “Set up my PIN”.
• We’re working on the fix for an underlying issue where the taskbar is unexpectedly not showing acrylic material after upgrading to the latest Canary builds. This is impacting a few other scenarios, leading to unexpected black or white in some UI.

You can find the announcement post on the official Windows Blogs website.

Source

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