The newest preview construct for Home windows 11 reveals off a brand new Settings homepage, full with contemporary backup capabilities for the OS.
That is construct 22631 within the Beta channel, and the Settings homepage is a significant transfer that’s been within the works for some time (it was previously seen in earlier test channels).
The homepage reveals some standing particulars alongside the highest – the identify of the PC, web connection standing, and when Home windows Replace final checked for updates – and a bunch of panels with varied bits of information beneath.
These panels (Microsoft calls them ‘playing cards’) embrace cloud storage particulars (OneDrive) – and the way full it’s – and a personalization panel that provides the power to shortly change the Home windows theme or colour mode.
One other vital card gives up really useful settings, offering entry to just lately used settings, or ones that you just use loads primarily based in your previous historical past of tweaking Windows 11.
Microsoft has additionally applied panels for Xbox (with particulars like your Recreation Cross subscription, in case you have one), and a card for Bluetooth units to offer you fast entry to all of the peripherals you may hook up wirelessly with.
The opposite large introduction here’s a revamped backup system for restoring your Home windows 11 setting to a brand new PC (or your present one, ought to the OS someway crash and burn irrevocably).
The Home windows Backup app is readily available for beta testers to again up their PC. When restoring Home windows 11, the app will pull in all of your settings and customization, in addition to your pins on the taskbar and Begin menu, and Microsoft Retailer apps. (Third-party apps from elsewhere will nonetheless get their pins stored on, however you’ll be directed to obtain the related installer from the net once you first hearth them up).
Elsewhere in construct 22631, there’s been a change to Dynamic Lighting whereby the Home windows 11 accent colour could be synced together with your RGB peripherals, a neat little contact.
As anticipated, there are a bunch of bug fixes and different minor options, all of that are summarized in Microsoft’s blog post concerning the preview construct.
Evaluation: Time is of the essence
The theme right here is timesaving. The brand new Settings homepage enables you to simply alter customization components, and alter generally used settings in a single click on, multi function place (somewhat than having to hunt in several Settings submenus, and let’s face it, these could be a little bit of a maze to navigate at instances, maybe requiring Googling to seek out issues).
One other main timesaver is the power to have all of your bits and items the place you left them when restoring your PC from the Backup app. Having to redo all of your customization and pinned components is an actual drag – a probably prolonged course of, and you might even overlook stuff – so that is very useful.
With these options progressing to the Beta channel, they’re coming near arrival now. The following step is the Launch Preview channel, and from there, it’s a brief hop to what’ll certainly be inclusion within the Windows 11 23H2 update due later this yr.
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