Windows 11 Insider Canary Channel preview 25931 adds even more Dev Channel features

Microsoft has released an update for Windows 11 for members of the Insider program in the Canary channel. The new preview build number is 25931. It includes more new feature from recent Dev Channel builds, along with some other new features, improvements, and bug fixes. You can also download ISO files for the new 25931 release.

Here is the changelog:

What’s new in Build 25931

New features from the Dev Channel

This build includes new features from the Dev Channel such as Unicode Emoji 15 support, voice access is available to use on more areas in Windows such as the Lock screen, and more.

DC location will no longer use NetBIOS\WINS\mailslot-based discovery by default

We have previously announced the deprecation of both Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) and Remote Mailslots (see this blog post here for information on Remote Mailslots). These deprecations are legacy technologies that are no longer secure in today’s environments. As part of these deprecations, DC location in your environment may be affected mainly because many legacy applications still specify short NetBIOS-style domain names when trying to locate a domain controller (DC). To help ease this transition with these deprecations, we are making two improvements to the DC locator algorithm in Windows.

First, we are blocking by default the use of NetBIOS\WINS\mailslot-based methods for DC-discovery. This behavior can be reverted with the use of a new Group Policy setting (BlockNetBIOSDiscovery). In addition to disabling the new BlockNetBIOSDiscovery policy, reversion to default behavior also requires enabling the EnableMailslots SMB configuration option. (You can query and set the EnableMailslots setting using the Get-SmbClientConfiguration and Set-SmbClientConfiguration PowerShell cmdlets.)

PLEASE NOTE: Reversion should be considered only as a temporary measure while more viable, longer-term solutions are explored.

Screenshot of the BlockNetBIOSDiscovery Group Policy setting.

Second, we have added additional client-side logic to aid in the mapping of short NetBIOS-style domain names to DNS domain names. This improvement consists of two parts:

DC locator will now automatically download additional information about the child domains in trusting forests and use that information as part of the discovery algorithm.

As a last-resort fallback, and to accommodate unforeseen situations, forest administrators can manually configure a set of DNS-to-NetBIOS-domain-name mappings (using the Active Directory Domains and Trusts management snap-in) which are also downloaded and used by DC Locator during discovery.

Screenshot of the DC Locator domain name mappings property page in the Active Directory Domains and Trusts snap-in.

Additional information is available here for DC locator changes.

Changes and Improvements

[General]

• Insider Preview Build Expiration: The expiration date for Insider Preview builds flighted to the Canary Channel has been updated to 9/15/2024 starting with Build 25931. Please make sure you are updated to the latest build in the Canary Channel.
• In addition to the Camera app and Cortana, the Photos app, People app, and Remote Desktop (MSTSC) client can be uninstalled.

[File Explorer]

• Added more fields to show in the Details pane, including image dimensions for pictures, number of pages for .docx, space used and free information for drives, and many others.

[Dynamic Lighting]

• You can now instantly sync your Windows accent colour with the devices around you with the “Match my Windows accent colour” toggle under “Effects” for Dynamic Lighting via Settings > Personalization > Dynamic Lighting.

[Windows Spotlight]

• After doing an OS update, in certain cases such as using the default Windows 11 background or a solid colour – Windows Spotlight may be enabled for you. If you decide you don’t want Windows Spotlight enabled, you can turn it off and in future OS updates it should not be enabled for you again unless you choose to re-enable the experience.

Fixes for known issues

• We fixed a major issue where you could no longer connect over SMB to a third-party storage device using guest (no username or password) credentials.

You can check out the full changelog here.

Source