Windows 11 Update: Exciting Taskbar Tweaks and New AI Icon Revealed!

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This month’s Windows 11 Patch Tuesday updates primarily focus on security enhancements, yet they don’t offer any significant new features that would be considered thrilling. However, there are some improvements included in the update that are more prominent, though I wouldn’t go so far as to describe them as exciting.

After the February Patch Tuesday update, an icon will appear in the system tray on Windows 11 when you open an application that is compatible with Windows Studio Effects. Additionally, the taskbar now offers enhanced animations and previews for applications. Other useful features added to Windows 11 in this update include the ability to adjust time zones via the Date & Time section of the Settings app.

For this month’s Patch Tuesday release, multiple repairs and security enhancements have been included. Although these security improvements are crucial, they aren’t described in great detail in Microsoft’s support documentation.

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Microsoft’s latest update enhances various aspects of its operating system’s security, focusing on internal functions. They haven’t reported any new problems associated with this version. For a comprehensive understanding of the security upgrades, you can visit the Microsoft Security Response Center website for further information.

The update should roll out to eligible systems through Windows Update automatically.

This month’s Patch Tuesday update includes additional enhancements, as detailed by Microsoft. However, the system tray icon for Windows Studio Effects, which was previously mentioned in Microsoft’s documentation, cannot be found now when checking the support document. It remains uncertain whether the feature failed to launch or if the documentation requires revision.

Improvements

  • [Taskbar] New! This update improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. The update also improves their animations.
  • [Windows Studio Effects] New! An icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings. To view the app that is using the camera, hover over the icon for a tooltip.
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​[Fonts] New! This update adds Simsun-ExtG, a new simplified Chinese font. It includes the Biangbiang noodles character. Some apps might not be able to display these new extension characters yet. The font has 9,753 ideographs that support Unicode Extensions G, H, and I. See the list below.
    • Unicode range G 30000-3134A (4,939 chars)
    • Unicode range H 31350-323AF (4,192 chars)
    • Unicode range I 2EBF0-2EE5D (622 chars)
  • [File Explorer]
    • ​​​​​​​New! When you right-click items in the left pane, the “New Folder” command appears on the context menu.
    • New! Windows restores all the previously open tabs in each File Explorer window. This occurs when you enable “Restore previous folder windows at logon.”
    • New! Windows turns on specific File Explorer settings for you. This occurs when you enable “Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in.” Go to Settings > Accounts > Sign in options.
    • Fixed: After you do a search, that search might repeat when you don’t want it to.
    • Fixed: The date and time properties of a file might update after you copy it.
    • Fixed: Icons on the details pane might not update as you expect when you change a theme. This makes it hard to view the change when you switch between dark and light themes.
    • Fixed: The search box might lose input focus as you type.
  • [Settings] New! You can change time zones in Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time. You don’t have to be an admin to make this change.
  • ​​​​​​​[Mouse]
    • Fixed: The mouse cursor might disappear. This occurs when you hover over text fields in certain applications.
    • Fixed: If you turn on pointer trails, the mouse cursor becomes transparent, and a black box appears behind it.
    • Fixed: The mouse cursor might stutter when it moves across the screen. This occurs even when the system is not using a lot of resources.
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​[Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME)] Fixed: When you switch app windows, the IME language might change from Chinese to English.
  • [Snipping Tool] Fixed: Snipping Tool screenshots might be distorted. This occurs when you use two or more monitors that have different display scaling.
  • [Microsoft Excel 2016] Fixed: When you open certain files, Excel opens, but the screen might remain on the loading screen.
  • ​​​​​​​[Game bar] Fixed: Game bar recording fails with error 0x82323673.

Fixes

  • [High dynamic range (HDR)] Fixed: The display of some games appears oversaturated. This occurs when you use Auto HDR.
  • [Digital/Analog converter (DAC) (known issue)] Fixed: You might experience issues with USB audio devices. This is more likely when you use a DAC audio driver based on USB 1.0. USB audio devices might stop working, which stops playback.
  • [USB audio device drivers] Fixed: The code 10 error message, “This device cannot start” appears. This occurs when you connect to certain external audio management devices.
  • [Chinese Pinyin input method editor (IME)] Bing will stop giving automatic suggestions in the search box for search engine sites, like Baidu. To get manual suggestions, use Ctrl+Tab or the chevron button (>).​​​​​​​
  • [USB cameras] Fixed: Your device does not recognize the camera is on. This issue occurs after you install the January 2025 security update.
  • [Passkey] Fixed: This update removes the one-minute timeout when you use a passkey on a phone.
  • [Power] Fixed: Shutdown might be slower on some devices when a controller is connected.
  • ​​​​​​​[Wi-Fi] Fixed: The Windows Security dialog stops responding. This occurs when you sign in to certain Wi-Fi networks. The same issue might occur for some other options in Settings.

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2025-02-12 17:10