KB5089499

Microsoft has released cumulative update KB5089499 (26300.8493) for Windows 11, version 25H2 for insiders on the Dev channel. The Experimental channel includes the latest preview builds of Windows 11 with new features.

• Movable Taskbar. After five years of absence, the ability to place the taskbar at the top, left, or right of the desktop has returned. In Windows 11 this was removed, and users used third-party programs. In build 26300.8493, Microsoft officially adds the option to choose the screen side in Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behavior: bottom, top, left, right. In alternative positions, tooltips, windows, animations, and most appearance settings (small icons, never combine icons mode, and others) work correctly. However, touch gestures, the search box, and the Ask Copilot button are still being refined; auto-hide and touch mode are only supported in the bottom position.
• Reduced Taskbar. A compact mode with smaller icons and reduced height, useful on laptops and tablets. Enabled separately: Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behavior > Show small icons on the taskbar, value Always. At the same time, both icons and taskbar height are reduced; the Start button, search box, and system tray scale consistently.
• Widgets Indicator Color. The indicator on the taskbar now matches the Windows accent color instead of being constantly red, reducing the sense of urgency and intrusiveness.
• Automatic De-emphasis of Widgets. Microsoft is testing disabling the indicator for users who hardly use widgets — it hides just as it does for new users by default.
• Windows Search Box Relevance. Work has begun to make files and apps appear before web suggestions if they better match the query. Additional relevance improvements are promised in future builds.
• Fluid Dictation. Automatic correction of grammar, punctuation, and removal of filler words in real time has become available to insiders in Spanish and French. Processing is done locally on small language models (SLMs) for speed and privacy. You can try it in Windows Voice Access and voice input via Win + H.
• Uniform Loading Indicators. The system interface is introducing solid ring (donut) indicators that replace old animations during system startup, account sign-in, reboot, shutdown, and update installation. Each state is accompanied by a caption: Restarting, Updating, Welcome, and others.
• Fixes in File Explorer, Run dialog, and system optimizations. Fixed a bug from the previous build where the Properties item would incorrectly trigger for the Recycle Bin and in other scenarios. In the updated Run dialog, history navigation with up/down arrow keys on first launch has been restored. Also added are the first set of login speed optimizations, improved reliability of switching between virtual desktops, the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), the dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command, and preserving sleep mode after installing an update.

One documented issue remains in this build: the Reset this PC feature may hang. Microsoft recommends using the Cloud download (Cloud PBR) option instead of a local reinstall.

Installation via Windows Update: Go to Settings > Windows Update and click Check for updates. A computer restart is required to complete the installation.

How the new features work:

Movable Taskbar. The Explorer shell subsystem now stores the taskbar docking parameter not as a fixed Bottom value, but as an enumeration in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3. When a side is selected in Settings, the binary value Settings is modified, after which explorer.exe recalculates the desktop coordinates, triggering a redraw of all panels. In non-standard positions, tooltips and animations work via WinUI, but touch gestures and auto-hide are disabled because their hit-testing is tied to the bottom screen edge.

Reduced Taskbar. The compact taskbar mode is activated by the TaskbarSmallIcons parameter in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. When the user sets the value to Always in Settings, the shell reduces the panel height and scales system icons to 16x16 pixels, updating the layout for the Start button and system tray. The mechanism affects XAML containers, recalculating the Height and Width of elements in the visual tree, preserving icon grouping while saving vertical space.

Widgets Indicator Color. This build introduces binding of the widget panel indicator color to the system accent color from the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationColor. Instead of a static red #FF0000 signal, the shell calls the UISettings.GetColorValue API to obtain the current AccentColor, visually reducing alarm by integrating the notification into the personalized color scheme without changing the notification logic.

Automatic De-emphasis of Widgets. The telemetry system tracks the frequency of opening the widget panel via WidgetsEngagementService. If the user interaction counter remains below a threshold value over a period, the trigger for automatically hiding the indicator sets the WidgetsTaskbarIconVisibility flag to the hidden state, similar to a new user profile. This reduces cognitive load by removing an unused interface element without manual intervention.

Windows Search Box Relevance. The search ranking component modifies the indexer algorithm, adjusting weight coefficients in the relevance model. Now, local filename or application matches via IFileSystemCatalog receive a boost over web suggestions from Bing if the Relevance Score for the local entity is higher. This is achieved by reordering priorities in the query processing pipeline, where local results are checked before sending a query to the cloud API.

Fluid Dictation. The feature uses compact Small Language Models (SLMs) deployed locally in an isolated execution environment. Voice input via Win+H is captured by SpeechRecognizer, after which the audio stream is transcribed and the result is passed through a grammar correction post-processor. The model removes filler words and corrects punctuation for Spanish and French in real time without sending data to the cloud, accelerating processing through inferencing on the client's NPU or CPU.

Uniform Loading Indicators. Instead of outdated animations during boot, sign-in, and update installation, a unified ProgressRing control from the WinUI library is used. States such as restarting or installing updates are accompanied by text labels beneath the ring indicator. The system calls UpdateBootScreen to render graphics during the WINLOGON phase, ensuring a stylistically consistent experience across all stages of the system lifecycle.

Fixes in File Explorer, Run dialog, and system optimizations. In the Run dialog, navigation is fixed: the WM_KEYDOWN input handler for arrow keys at first launch restores command history from the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU hive. The bug of false Properties triggering for the Recycle Bin in File Explorer is fixed. For DISM, the /restorehealth command correctly completes the component store repair cycle, while login optimizations speed up session initialization through parallel loading of SSDP services and improved sleep state handling after updates.

The last 10 Windows updates: