- Microsoft just rolled out two new preview builds for Windows 11
- One of them improves File Explorer in dark mode, and another increases its performance
- There’s also a useful change to some taskbar steering panels, but it’s not the big taskbar movement that some people have been calling for
Microsoft is working to improve both the appearance and performance of File Explorer in the most recent preview builds of Windows 11, as well as introducing a highly sought-after feature for Task Stealing Panels.
In the new preview build posted to the Dev Channel, Microsoft notes that it’s made Windows 11’s Dark Mode more consistent, so it applies to more parts of File Explorer (the app that powers the folders you use on the desktop).
This means that now (in testing) dark mode is applied to panels that appear in File Explorer when you copy, move, or delete files, as well as in dialog boxes for confirmations (like granting a deletion or skipping a file copy because the item already exists in the destination folder).
Error pop-ups also appear in dark mode, and progress bars (percentage complete) do as well. All of these in File Explorer are currently jarring because they always have white backgrounds, even with dark mode enabled. If this all sounds rather familiar, it’s because these changes were previously spotted hidden in test builds.
Elsewhere in another new release in the Canary channel (the first testing platform for Windows 11), Microsoft explains that it has: “made underlying changes to improve the performance of launching cloud files from File Explorer and loading context menus.”
Context menus are the ones that appear when you right-click a file, and they can be slow to load per some reports from frustrated Windows 11 users, who rightly complain about File Explorer’s performance in general.
Also in this Canary build, Microsoft reveals that: “We’re excited to introduce a highly requested setting, the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen.”
So this is a taskbar-related adjustment in that it applies to the panels (hardware indicators) for settings accessible in that bar (mainly from the system tray, on the far right of the taskbar).
What Microsoft allows you to do here is change where these control panels appear. By default in Windows 11, they are summoned to the bottom center of the desktop, but new options allow you to adjust the placement to the top center, or top left, if you prefer.
Analysis: And while you’re at it, Microsoft…
I don’t want to be too critical of Microsoft, but I have a slight slight regarding this latest change, albeit a rather tangential one.
Okay, so there’s no doubt that this is a great feature to add, especially repositioning the volume bar so that it doesn’t obscure the captions or subtitles at the bottom of the screen in movies or games when you change the volume. Better customization choices for the desktop are definitely a boon.
However, if you’re going to talk about “highly requested” features for the taskbar and its related flights, the main bugbear for some is the inability to move the bar itself. In Windows 10, it’s possible to move the taskbar away from the bottom of the screen to locate it on the sides, or at the top – but you’re stuck with the bar at the bottom of the desktop in Windows 11.
Will Microsoft ever implement this frequently requested change that some people have been asking for since wraps were removed from Windows 11? It’s starting to feel like it’s not going to happen, frankly, and it’s confusing that this feature wasn’t ported to the new OS in the first place (presumably for technical and under-the-hood reasons).
Don’t get me wrong, I very much welcome the customization of the taskbar mills, although I wonder why the volume bar was placed at the foot of the screen anyway, given that that’s inevitably where captions or subtitles are positioned. (In Windows 10, you can’t move these slider panels either – but the volume appears at the top left by default, not at the foot of the screen).
As for File Explorer performance, the work seen here is part of an ongoing drive by Microsoft to improve the responsiveness of this area of the Windows 11 interface. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as well as faster right-click menu performance, tweaks to overlay “cloud file launch” could help File Explorer’s overall speed, as some have theorized that file sync cloud is one of the biggest factors slowing things down for some Windows 11 users. (And Microsoft even admitted there were issues here, without reporting them specifically to File Explorer).
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