Microsoft's new system is becoming more and more stable. Microsoft has released the first beta of Windows 11, available to people who are enrolled in its Windows Insider program. Until then, early versions of Windows 11 were only available to "highly technical users" of the Windows Insider Program Dev channel, but Microsoft is now extending availability to the Beta channel. The company believes that the beta version is less volatile, with more secure builds; although this is still something you will probably want to install on a test machine or second partition.
Microsoft launches the first beta of Windows 11
“We are very pleased to announce that we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.100 for Windows Insiders in the beta channel,” the company said in a blog post Thursday. This means that Windows 11 is getting more stable and closer to its release. “If you're in the development channel, now is a good time to consider switching to the beta channel if you want to stay on more stabilized versions of Windows 11,” the Windows Insider team said. Of course, to install the beta you will need a compatible computer.
It's notoriously difficult to determine if your hardware will work with the next version of Windows, but Microsoft's article on Preparing for Insider Builds directs people to its system requirements page. The company said it will pay close attention to how the 7th Generation Intel and AMD Zen 1 CPUs operate during the testing period. It is therefore possible that these systems will be allowed to run the beta version, but not the final version. Usually, moving from Dev to Beta requires a complete reinstallation of the operating system.
But according to the Windows Insider Twitter account, it will be possible to do this directly on site for a "short period." So, it's probably "best" to install it as soon as you can if you don't need to stay on the Dev channel. Those who have already taken the plunge believe that the move to beta only required a quick reboot. Also, for those who are still on Windows 10, but are adventurous enough to join the beta, you can sign up for the beta channel on Microsoft's website for the Windows Insider program.
Of course, even though Microsoft claims that the Beta Channel releases are more stable than the Dev Channel releases, they are still beta releases. There will likely be bugs, crashes, and missing features. Microsoft even has a full list of current issues in its blog post, which also says that the Teams Chat feature that is available to some in the Dev channel is not yet available to beta users. However, if you can't wait to try it out, it's now stable enough that Microsoft considers it ready for early adopters.
Current Windows 11 Beta Problems
According to the Windows Insider team, when upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or installing an update to Windows 11, some features may be deprecated or removed. See details below:
The Start menu
- in some cases, you may not be able to enter text when using the Search function from the Start menu or taskbar. If you have this problem, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, and then close it.
- System and Windows Terminal are missing when you right-click the Start button (WIN + X).
Taskbar
- The taskbar sometimes flickers when changing the input method.
Settings
- links to specific Settings pages do not point to the correct page in the app, unless Settings is already open;
- when launching the Settings application, a brief green flash may appear.
- When you use the Quick Settings app to change accessibility settings, the Settings UI may not save the selected state.
- Settings app crashes when you click "Face Recognition (Windows Hello)" under Login Settings if Windows Hello is already configured.
File Explorer
- Explorer.exe loops for Insiders using Turkish display language when battery charge is 100%.
- the contextual menu is sometimes not displayed completely and is found to be truncated;
- clicking on a desktop icon or context menu entry may result in the wrong item being selected.
Search
- after clicking the search icon on the taskbar, the search panel may not open. If this happens, restart the Windows Explorer process and open the Search panel again.
- when you hover your mouse over the search icon on the taskbar, recent searches may not be displayed. To remedy this problem, restart your PC.
- the search panel may appear in black and not display content below the search box.
Widgets
- the widget table may appear empty. To work around this problem, you can log out and then log back in.
- launching links from the widget table may not invoke foreground apps.
- widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you have this problem, you can launch widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your PC screen and then on your secondary monitors.
Windows Store
- Microsoft believes it is working to improve the relevance of searches in the Windows Store, including resolving an issue where, in some cases, the order of search results is incorrect.
- the install button may not yet be functional in certain limited scenarios.
- ratings and reviews are not available for some applications.
Windows security
- For some Insiders, the text does not display correctly in the UAC dialog box. This issue affects Insiders that are not running EN-US.
- The "automatic sample submission" is unexpectedly disabled when you restart your PC.
- Windows Hello (Face) may display an error stating "Something went wrong" when trying to sign in after the upgrade. To work around this problem, log in with your password or PIN and open Device Manager, then uninstall "Windows Hello Face Software Device" under "Biometric devices".
Location
- There is an issue where some Insiders may have a few missing translations of their user experience for a small subset of languages running the latest Insider Preview builds.
Windows Sandbox