What you need to know
- Microsoft's second feature drop for Windows 11 in 2023 has just been announced.
- The new update includes an improved Widgets Board, Taskbar updates, and a new Win32 app isolation feature.
- The company says the update will begin rolling out starting May 24.
Microsoft has today announced that the second feature drop for Windows 11 in 2023 will be available to download starting May 24 via Windows Update and will begin rolling out to all users on June 13 as part of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday updates. The latest feature release includes many minor additions and some "preview" features not previously known.
Top billing for this feature drop (also known as Moment 3) are updates to the Widgets Board, which has a new layout that separates the widgets from the MSN feed. Additionally, there's a new "watch" tab for MSN videos and a new widget picker experience that makes adding widgets to the Widgets Board easier.
Additionally, Microsoft is rolling out a new Win32 app isolation feature that will allow users to run legacy programs downloaded from the web in a safe, sandboxed, self-contained environment that can't affect other parts of the system. This feature is marked as a preview, along with Windows 365 Boot which allows enterprises to configure a PC to boot into a Cloud PC environment automatically.
Other new features include Taskbar updates, such as animated weather icons, the ability to show seconds in the system tray clock, and a new icon in the system tray when a VPN is active. There are also new settings, including a privacy page for configuring PCs with presence-sensing hardware and more language support in accessibility features like Voice Access and Live Captions.
The update will be available for manual installation via Windows Update starting on May 24 and will be automatically installed on June 13 as part of the June Patch Tuesday release. Preview features will be optional, but all the other features noted here will be automatically available once the June Patch Tuesday update is installed.
In the meantime, here's a quick rundown of the most notable new changes and features coming in this latest feature drop:
- An updated Widgets Board layout and pinning experience
- New animated Taskbar weather icons
- Bing AI button in the Taskbar search bar
- 2FA code recognition in notifications
- Multi-app kiosk mode
- Show clock seconds in the system tray
- Glanceable VPN status icon in the Taskbar
- Various improvements to Voice Access
- Support for more languages in the live captions feature
- Updated touch keyboard settings
- Cloud suggestions in Simplified Chinese IME
- USB4 settings page
- Search box will be lighter when app mode is set to light
- Access keys in File Explorer
- Create live kernel dumps in Task Manager
- Settings search is faster
- New presence sensing settings
- Win32 app isolation feature (preview)
- Windows 365 boot (preview)
