Windows 11 gets useful new File Explorer features in the latest build

Windows 11 build 26300.8687 adds the ability to open a folder in a new tab with a middle click in the address bar.

Friday Windows 11 preview builds are finally here. After skipping one week, Microsoft is back to releasing preview builds for Windows Insiders to try. This time, Insiders in the Experimental Channel can download build 26300.8687. Its changelog does not contain anything major, but there is still useful new stuff, such as some new conveniences for File Explorer, Windows Update improvements, better Windows Search, a new search provider for the built-in GIF library, and more.

Here is the changelog:

[Windows Update]

• As announced in the Windows Update announcement blog, we are now bringing a new unified update experience to reduce the number of reboots you see per month. We are starting by coordinating driver, .NET, and firmware updates to align with the monthly quality update, reducing the update experience to a single monthly restart. See the blog for more information.

[File Explorer]

• Middle-click to open a folder in a new tab is now supported in the Address Bar and the Home page for a more consistent and efficient tabbed navigation experience across File Explorer.
• Improved screen reader announcements for conflict resolution dialog ("Which files do you want to keep?") when moving/copying files.
• Made some more improvements to how File Explorer responds to increased text scaling.

[Search]

• Finding apps is more forgiving. Search is better at handling typos, dropped letters, extra letters, and partial words for apps. Queries like “utlook” can still find Outlook.
• Settings results are improving. We’ve made ranking improvements to help more relevant settings appear higher in results.

[Taskbar]

• Improved reliability of loading the system tray area of the taskbar.
• Fixed an issue where tooltips might unexpectedly appear on top of the Start menu icon in the taskbar when using the taskbar in an alternate position. Also fixed a few other visual polish issues when using the taskbar with small icons.

[Windows setup]

• The digital safety of users and supporting families is central to how we think about the Windows experience. We're improving information on parental controls and their availability during Windows setup, so families can more easily understand available protections and make informed choices from the very beginning.

[Input]

• Update: The emoji panel (Windows key + period (.)) now uses GIPHY as the GIF provider, delivering a smoother GIF browsing and sharing experience following the deprecation of Tenor.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the mouse cursor to potentially move in the wrong direction in recent Insider builds on secondary monitors when set to portrait mode.

[Remote Recovery Management]

• Adding a recovery remote management plug-in for extending WinRE management capabilities for MDM providers

[Audio]

• Fixed an issue resulting in audio not working for some Insiders after the latest flights.

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue impacting the reliability of Settings > Apps > Installed Apps after the latest flights.

[General Reliability]

• If you were experiencing freezes in the previous flight when interacting with search, Notepad, or certain other scenarios, that should be resolved now.

[Other]

• When using dark mode, if you open "Run new task" from Task Manager, it will now show in dark mode too.

As usual, changes above are rolling out gradually. You can find the release notes here in the official documentation.

Source

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Posted Saturday 13 June 2026 at 7:27 am AEST (my time).

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