Windows 11 build 22494 outs with mute button and changes

• Microsoft releases Windows 11 build 22494 in the Dev Channel.
• This flight brings a new mic mute and unmute button in the Taskbar.
• It also brings snap groups to Task View, improvements for Settings, and various fixes.

As part of the active development branch, Microsoft is now rolling out Windows 11 build 22494 for computers enrolled in the Dev Channel of the Windows Insider Program. This is yet another minor update with various improvements and new features.

According to the official notes, build 22494 for Windows 11 introduces the ability to mute or unmute the microphone from the Taskbar when using Microsoft Teams.

The button will appear automatically in the system tray, at the bottom-right side of the Taskbar, when you are in a call. You can see the call audio status, what app is accessing the mic, and quickly mute and unmute the call.

The company says that this new feature is not limited to Microsoft Teams. Developers will also be able to integrate this feature directly into their applications. Also, we won’t have to wait until the next version of Windows since it’ll be available in a future servicing update.

New improvements

As for the new changes, on Windows 11 build 22494, Microsoft is testing showing snap groups like in the Taskbar when opening Task View (Alt + Tab keyboard shortcut) to allow users to switch to different snap groups quickly.

In the Settings app, more specifically in the Default apps page, when searching, Windows 11 will now show a dropdown of options containing your current query without having to press the Enter key first.

Also, it’s now possible to launch the apps settings page using the ms-settings:installed-apps Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Furthermore, on the Installed apps page, the sort by menu has been updated with an option to sort from smallest to largest files options, and the options now have clearer descriptions.

Build 22489 fixes

Windows 11 build 22494 also ships with a bunch of fixes for various parts of the OS.

For Taskbar 

• Tooltips should no longer appear in random places on the Taskbar after sliding your mouse over volume, battery, network, or other icons in the Taskbar corner.
• Addressed an underlying issue that was leading to come unexpected duplication of certain icons in the Taskbar corner.

For File Explorer

• Addressed an issue that was causing the context menu to crash for some people if you tried to scroll it.
• Did some work to help address an issue wherein certain areas of the screen the context menu submenus would draw on top of the context menu instead of beside it (for example, if you hovered over New).
• The context menu icons should be less blurry on systems with multiple monitors with mixed DPI now.
• Addressed an issue that could cause selecting Open Within the context menu to unexpectedly just open the file in certain cases rather than actually opening the Open With dialog.
• Renaming files on the desktop is back up and running in this flight.
• Made another adjustment to the command bar underlying logic to help improve the performance of command actions in File Explorer.

For Search

• Fixed a recent issue that was causing the indexer database to become too fragmented, leading to the indexer unexpectedly consuming a large amount of memory and CPU for a prolonged period of time. 

For Input

• Mitigated an issue that was causing certain apps to hang when trying to drag something with the Shift or Ctrl key held down.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the touch keyboard to not appear on tablets when tapping the text field if you were to try to reset your PIN from the login screen.
• Improved reliability of the Pen menu.

For Windowing

• Fixed a few explorer.exe crashes related to using windowing features (snap, ALT + Tab, and Desktops).
• If you open Task View on a system with multiple monitors, the background should now be acrylic on both monitors.
• Addressed a couple of UI issues with the window thumbnails in Task View and ALT + Tab, notably that the close button might get cut off if the app window was too thin.

For Settings

• Addressed an issue where Facial Recognition (Windows Hello) might be unexpectedly greyed out in Sign-in Settings in certain cases until closing and opening Settings.
• Fixed an issue where Storage Sense wasn’t cleaning up C:\Windows\SystemTemp.
• Standard users (aka non-admins) should now be able to change the time zone in Settings if Location access is not granted, rather than the dropdown going blank.

General fixes 

• Fixed an issue causing links to Windows Update, Recovery, and For developers to show under the main Windows Update Settings page.
• Fixed a bug where images had a yellow tonality in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Lightroom Classic when in HDR mode.
• Mitigated an issue related to DHCP that was causing unexpected power usage while the screen was off in recent builds for some Insiders.
• Did some work to help address an issue where Service Host: WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service would unexpectedly utilize a lot of CPU.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some devices to have a black screen when coming out of sleep (where the lock screen wouldn’t display).
• Addressed an underlying issue that was causing some users with ARM64 PCs to experience an increase in Microsoft Teams crashes in the last few Dev Channel builds.
• We have increased the padding for selected items as seen by clicking Show More Options in the File Explorer context menu, or the menu options in Task Manager.
• WSL: Fixed error 0x8007010b when accessing Linux distributions via \\wsl.localhost or \\wsl$.

Finally, this flight also ships with various known issues related to the Start menu, Taskbar, Input, Search, and Quick Settings. You can find out more at the Windows Blog.

Install Windows 11 build 22494

If you want to download and install the Windows 11 build 22494, you need to enroll your device in the Dev Channel using the “Windows Insider Program” settings from the “Update & Security” section.

Once you enroll the computer in the program, you can download build 22494 from the “Windows Update” settings by clicking the Check for Updates button. However, you will need a device that meets the minimum system requirements to receive the update if you are new to the Windows Insider Program.

You can also read this guide with all the new features available with the official release of Windows 11.