Microsoft released new Windows 11 preview builds for Beta and Experimental channels on September 18. The Experimental channel received builds 26340.9502, 28120.3032, and 29671.1000. Updates include a new mouse indicator animation and an option to keep the indicator active until the Esc key is pressed.
The Magnifier tool now features a contrast theme toggle to reduce glare without affecting overall screen colors. Cloud Recovery options were expanded, allowing drive cleaning during reset and remote configuration via CSP for IT administrators. Users can now initiate cloud resets directly from WinRE using wired or wireless connections.
Live captions now include a setting to exclude screen reader audio, focusing only on microphone and system sounds. Hyper-V received a fix for Plan9 folder sharing issues with Linux virtual machines. Additionally, the Future Platforms build addresses system lag during UAC prompts and introduces a redesigned Start menu with customizable sections.
Microsoft acknowledged known issues in the latest builds, including potential performance degradation over time and display errors in VMware Workstation Pro 17.6.4. A previously reported Easy Anti-Cheat startup error, identified by code 0xc000007b, has been resolved in the 26H1 Experimental build.
