KB5089417

Microsoft has released cumulative update KB5089417 (Build 26220.8370) for Windows 11, version 25H2, for insiders on the Beta channel. This update includes several new features and improvements aimed at educational institutions, as well as fixes that enhance system reliability.

• Free way to upgrade to Windows 11 Pro Education for K–12 schools. Windows Insider Program participants in K–12 school institutions receive the ability to upgrade for free from Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro Education. This allows educational institutions to purchase devices with Windows 11 Home, upgrade them to Pro Education, and connect them to school management.
• Administrator Protection improvement. The reliability of the Japanese IME editor has been improved when the Administrator Protection feature is enabled.
• Fix for WPN service freezing. Resolved an issue where the Windows Push Notifications service would freeze, leading to notification problems and some apps hanging on startup in previous builds.
• Improvement in loading shortcut icons. Improved the reliability of loading application shortcut icons on the desktop.

Known issues: the update only works one way. Reverting to Windows 11 Home is only possible through a clean reinstallation of the system. Also, the presence of a watermark in the lower-right corner of the desktop is normal for Windows Insider preview builds. Features and capabilities included in these builds may never be released in the final release — Microsoft tries out different concepts and gathers feedback. Features may change, be removed, or be replaced and may not leave the Windows Insider program.

Procedure for updating to Pro Education: log in to the device using a local account, run the command prompt as an administrator, and execute the command Clipupgrade.exe, then log in with a K–12 school organization account to verify the upgrade entitlement. The device will prepare the update and complete the installation after reboot.

Updates are based on Windows 11 version 25H2 through a feature enablement package (build 26220.8340). Many features are rolled out using Controlled Feature Rollout technology. They first become available to a small group of insiders, and then their availability expands as feedback is received and analyzed.

Windows Insider Program participants who want to be the first to receive features that are gradually rolling out can enable the Get the latest updates as soon as they are available toggle in Settings > Windows Update.

Over time, feature rollout will cover all participants who have the toggle enabled. If the toggle remains off, new features will arrive gradually as they become ready.

To install the build, go to Settings > Windows Update and click Check for updates. A computer restart will be required to complete the installation.

How the new features work:

Free way to upgrade to Windows 11 Pro Education for K–12 schools. This feature uses digital license verification via the Windows Activation service. When detecting a matching SKU (Home) and the device being joined to an educational domain (via KMS or Azure AD), the system automatically initiates an upgrade to Pro Education, adding Group Policy and remote management capabilities without requiring a clean install.

Administrator Protection improvement. The fix addresses the privilege isolation mechanism: when Administrator Protection was enabled, memory access to the Japanese IME process and its hooks was overly restricted. This caused input stream interruption. Now the access filter uses a whitelist for imejpmgr.dll, maintaining security.

Fix for WPN service freezing. Windows Push Notifications (WPN) operates through the WpnService channel and a COM call queue. When the connection handler thread from Windows.Shell.PushNotificationPlatform froze, synchronization with WNS servers blocked. The fix modifies timeout mechanisms at the transport layer and removes a deadlock during broker replication.

Improvement in loading shortcut icons. Shortcut icon loading (.lnk) is managed by the SHGetFileInfo system cache and the IShellFolder COM object. The issue where recursive calls occurred when many asynchronous requests queried the registry for DefaultIcon has been resolved. Now a priority thread is introduced for desktop redrawing.

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