- Home windows 11 has a brand new replace, though it’s optionally available (in preview) for now
- It brings in some actually helpful options, together with an vital accessibility tweak for a core a part of the Home windows 11 interface
- New PC spec playing cards within the Settings app are a shock addition, coming by testing very swiftly – albeit with out the important thing FAQ characteristic
Microsoft simply launched a brand new replace for Home windows 11, albeit an optionally available one (nonetheless in preview), and it delivers some helpful work – to not point out a shock.
Home windows Newest flagged up the modifications which are a part of the March preview replace for Home windows 11 23H2 (referred to as KB5053657). They embody a smoothing over of accessibility wrinkles in File Explorer, and the addition of PC spec data playing cards which have beforehand been seen in testing.
Relating to File Explorer – which is the app that powers the home windows that present your folders, and recordsdata inside them, on the desktop – these of you who use bigger textual content sizes for higher visibility on this a part of the interface have probably observed that textual content scaling isn’t uniform right here.
In different phrases, just some elements of File Explorer have the person’s specified textual content scaling utilized, and a few textual content, or certainly elements of the interface like buttons, stays overly small (with no scaling).
Clearly, that’s awkward and unhelpful, plus it simply appears to be like messy, however fortunately, Microsoft has fastened this so the scaling is accurately utilized throughout all components of File Explorer, as per testing carried out by Home windows Newest.
Shifting onto the brand new spec playing cards, these had been noticed in testing early in 2025, however appear to have been put in place in a short time, shuttling by testing and into this new optionally available replace. That’s a pleasing shock certainly, and these playing cards present at-a-glance data in your CPU, RAM, storage, and graphics card – though it doesn’t appear to be the FAQ ingredient has been carried out but.
One other important change with KB5053657 is the brand new gamepad keyboard structure, which lets you kind utilizing Home windows 11’s digital keyboard with an Xbox controller (together with button shortcuts for spacebar, delete, and so forth).
Lastly, there’s a brand new emoji button on the taskbar, which pulls up the mixed emoji, GIF, and clipboard panel. It’s an optionally available characteristic, so you possibly can flip off the icon in Settings for those who’ll by no means use it. Oh, and the Voice Entry performance in Home windows 11 now has help for the Chinese language language (for each Simplified and Conventional Chinese language).
Bear in mind, that is for Home windows 11 23H2, and we haven’t but seen the discharge of the brand new replace for 24H2 (although it’s possible imminent, and it’ll most likely flip up later at the moment). It ought to carry these identical modifications, and maybe extra in addition to.
Evaluation: Warning > Valor with preview updates, particularly because the look ahead to full launch gained’t be lengthy
This can be a very worthwhile replace, then, given its accessibility enhancements and that gamepad keyboard. The latter goes to be very helpful for these working Home windows 11 on a gaming handheld (and it’s an indication that Microsoft remains to be maybe interested by that full-on handheld mode for Home windows 11, which has been rumored for a while).
It’s additionally good to have the spec playing cards current, and I can’t imagine how shortly these have remodeled from a hidden characteristic not even seen in testing to going by into an optionally available replace. I suppose it’s a comparatively simple piece of labor to implement (it should’ve been), though the FAQ part – offering tailor-made recommendation, which as famous, isn’t current but – goes to be the important thing ingredient (as I not too long ago mentioned). With a bit of luck, that additional characteristic will likely be integrated right here earlier than too lengthy.
If you happen to’re eager to see this shiny new stuff, I ought to warning you that putting in a preview replace isn’t with out potential perils. These options stay in testing, and will nonetheless be wonky, even when it’s the final stage of testing, and nothing’s too more likely to be severely awry (these might be well-known final phrases, after all).
Typically, except you’re super-stoked for one of many above options, I’d wait till subsequent month for the total launch. That’s when this preview replace will turn out to be the April cumulative replace for Home windows 11, and that’s not far off now (it’ll be April 8, so it’s an early debut for the improve subsequent month).
