Key Points
- Build 28020.2207 released for Experimental (26H1) channel.
- Build 29599.1000 delayed for AMD System Guard machines due to crashes.
- Start menu gets “Recent” label, section toggles, size choices and privacy hide option.
What is changing
Today’s Insider Preview adds two new builds. The Experimental (26H1) channel gets Build 28020.2207, and the Experimental (Future Platforms) channel gets Build 29599.1000. However, the latter will not be offered to AMD PCs that use System Guard because a crash bug was found; Microsoft says it will be fixed before the next flight.
In the same release, the Start menu is refreshed. The “Recommended” section is renamed to “Recent”, you can now turn each section (Pinned, Recent, All) on or off separately, pick a small or large menu size, hide your name and picture, and see a redesigned settings page. Windows Search also learns to match substrings, so typing part of a word like “april” will find files named “MeetingNotesApril”.
Why it matters
These updates matter most to Windows Insiders who are testing new features and to power users who customize their desktop. The new Start menu options give you more control over what appears and how big it is, while substring search makes finding files quicker.
The impact is limited to Insider builds: regular Windows 11 users won’t see these changes until Microsoft rolls them out later. AMD users with System Guard should stay on the current build until the crash issue is fixed.
Try the new Start menu settings and let us know in the comments how the changes affect your workflow.
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