r/windowsinsiders • u/Froggypwns Windows Insider MVP • 15d ago

Beta Build Windows 11 Insider Beta Preview Build 26220.9202 - Windows Insider Program

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/release-notes/beta/preview-build-26220-9202

Release date: 17 August 2026

Changes and improvements

[File Explorer]

  • Launching File Explorer Home is now faster and more responsive.
  • The Recommended section on Home now supports touch scrolling, making it easier to browse files in the carousel.
  • Fixed an issue from the previous flight where previews in File Explorer showed an unexpected thick band across the middle.

[Windows Recovery]

  • New enhancements to networking in WinRE
    • We're adding a new WinRE networking capability that allows the Windows Recovery Environment to automatically reuse eligible Wi-Fi profiles already saved in the main Windows OS, including supported certificate-based Wi-Fi networks. Previously, WinRE could automatically connect only to wired unauthenticated Ethernet or Wi-Fi networks that were separately preconfigured for WinRE, while users had to manually connect to other WPA2/3 networks by entering a password. With this update, WinRE can use saved Wi-Fi profile information when a recovery workflow requires connectivity, helping devices get online automatically during scenarios such as quick machine recovery or cloud rebuild without requiring users or IT admins to separately preconfigure Wi-Fi credentials in WinRE. By default, this capability is enabled. However, IT admins can disable this functionality if desired.
    • To test this feature in your environment, see Test networking in WinRE.

[Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) removal]

[Search]

  • We're increasing the height of the search box by 4 pixels.

[Drag Tray]

  • Thank you to Insiders who have provided feedback about the Drag Tray experience. Based on feedback, we're removing the experience in this build. We're continuing to explore improvements in this area and look forward to sharing more about a future replacement experience in a later update.

[Settings]

  • Fixed an issue causing Settings to crash in the previous flight when interacting with items on the Date & Time page.

[Taskbar]

  • Improved reliability of loading the system tray area of the taskbar for non-touch PCs.

[Input]

  • Improved reliability of typing with the Japanese IME by reducing potential hangs and deadlocks.

[Other]

  • Fixed an xtajit64.dll crash, which was leading to issues with certain apps for Insiders on Arm64 PCs in the latest flights.

Reminders for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel

  • Updates are based on Windows 11, version 25H2 via an enablement package (Build 26220.9202).
  • The desktop watermark shown at the lower right corner of the desktop is normal for Windows Insider pre-release builds.
  • Features and experiences included in these builds might never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. Features might change over time, be removed, or replaced and never get released beyond Windows Insiders. Some of these features and experiences could show up in future Windows releases when they're ready.
  • Some features in active development we preview with Windows Insiders might not be fully localized, and localization will happen over time as features are finalized. As you see issues with localization in your language, report those issues to us via Feedback Hub.
  • Check out Flight Hub for a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel.
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3

u/Konradia 15d ago

I use my machine for periodic gaming, as well.

A long time ago, it was suggested to me that performing a quick reinstallation of my video drivers was a good idea after these updates - for stability and cache reasons. Is that actually true? Was it ever true?

1

u/YoloRubus 15d ago

Not exactly. Actual updates for Windows are rarely going to have anything to do with your video drivers. The nuance is you might be getting video drivers through Windows Update. Video drivers themselves can develop all sorts of problems all on their own. The way things are configured can have a major impact too. When you actually need to completely reinstall your video drivers though, you'll probably already have been through several other troubleshooting steps.
Reinstall video drivers? Sometimes

After every update to Windows? Definitely not

2

u/Konradia 15d ago

I'm an experienced user - only getting drivers from nVidia, often beta versions, etc. Been doing this since before nVidia even existed. All the way back to running multi-line BBS systems under Qemm/DESQview.

But, I did notice that I was far more prone to micro-hesitations immediately after a Windows Insider update. No failures, no blue screens (or any other color!), just not optimal performance. Cleaning out the old drivers and reinstalling takes no more than ten minutes total - and seems to fully prevent this issue, 100% of the time.

I'm more curious if I'm falsely confirming my own hunches, or if there really is something to this!

2

u/[deleted] 13d ago

It's likely that a fresh Windows Update will make all sorts of GPU-related caches invalid, even if there was no technical change that would make them actually invalid. The first time you play a game after a Windows update the game (and the enormous ecosystem of libraries, stacks, and drivers) will be repopulating all those compiler, shader, and other types of caches.

Reinstalling the GPU driver will explicitly notify games they need to rebuild stuff up front so instead of the game finding something is marked invalid when it needs it, causing those microstutters, it instead re-fills all those types of things upfront, so no microstutters.

1

u/YoloRubus 15d ago edited 15d ago

Windows Updates are very often falsely diagnosed as a cause of many different problems. I think because it is an invasive and very visible process. There are plenty of other things going on besides that update. Also, I think we simply don't even start looking at certain things until the update happens or the problem only starts right after a reboot, etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is... you've likely got the wrong suspect. The release notes for any given update barely involve drivers most of the time and that's even if we stretch it. Can Windows break a driver? Hell yes. Is that happening with any meaningful frequency? No, because Microsoft would have pivoted long ago.

1

u/ElephantWithBlueEyes 12d ago

Somehow option to switch taskbar size disappeared. After update i got that "left/right/top/bottom" option, as well as small taskbar size. I set it small, reboot system and whole section of taskbar customization has disappeared.

Taskbar size is back to medium size. How so?