Microsoft rolled out new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds across the Beta and Experimental channels on September 25 2026, with practical upgrades focused on mobile phone continuity, accessibility, and power management. Experimental Build 26340.9577 and Beta Build 26220.9568 lead the release, with the Start menu's Phone Companion panel receiving the most significant attention.

Phone Companion Gets a Proper Upgrade

The headline addition is a substantially reworked Phone Companion panel anchored to the right side of the Windows 11 Start menu. It was previously a fairly limited static card showing basic battery status and a small handful of recent items. The updated version replaces that with a dedicated scrollable side pane showing an expanded feed of recent smartphone activity, including recent camera photos, incoming SMS and messaging alerts, and recent calls.

Beta Build 26220.9568 adds hover-based message previews on top of that. Hovering over an incoming text snippet in the Phone Companion flyout expands the full message in a lightweight tooltip, letting you read two-factor authentication codes or conversational replies without leaving whatever you are working on. The pane synchronises automatically with paired Android devices linked through Microsoft's Link to Windows service, and also surfaces quick media transfer tools and instant cellular tethering controls alongside your pinned apps.

Crosshair Pointer and Magnifier Contrast

Build 26220.9568 also introduces an enhanced Pointer Indicator tool found under Settings, Accessibility, and then Mouse pointer and touch. When enabled, prominent crosshair lines render around the cursor, making it immediately locatable across busy multi-monitor setups and high-DPI displays. The overlay can be toggled on and off at any time using Win + Ctrl + X.

A complementary addition lands in Magnifier, where a new contrast mode intelligently dims stark white backgrounds in native application windows without distorting the colour grading of embedded media like photos or video. It is a more considered approach than standard system-wide colour inversion, which tends to break the visual experience in browsers and media apps.

Energy Recommendations in Quick Settings

Experimental Build 26340.9577 surfaces Energy Recommendations directly in the Quick Settings flyout from the taskbar system tray, which is a sensible quality-of-life improvement. Previously finding these options required navigating to System and then Power and battery in the full Settings app. The Quick Settings toggle now puts one-click optimisations including display sleep intervals, dynamic refresh rate adjustments, and dark mode within easy reach, particularly useful on portable laptops and handheld PCs where battery endurance matters.

When It Reaches Everyone

These features are live now for enrolled Windows Insider participants in the Beta and Experimental rings. Following feedback collection and telemetry review, the Phone Companion enhancements and accessibility additions are expected to graduate to general Windows 11 production releases in cumulative updates later this autumn.

Microsoft is preparing a new Windows recovery feature that could save PC users from one of Windows Update’s most frustrating problems.

The company has introduced Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, a system designed to automatically roll back problematic drivers and restore working versions through Windows Update.

What Is Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery?

The feature is designed to help Windows recover from bad driver installations that can cause:

• System instability
• Crashes
• Boot problems
• Hardware failures

Instead of forcing users to manually troubleshoot issues, Windows Update could automatically detect the problem and restore a working driver configuration.

A Major Quality-of-Life Upgrade

Faulty driver updates have frustrated Windows users for years, especially after major feature updates.

Microsoft’s new recovery system aims to make Windows more resilient and reduce situations where users are locked out of their PCs after an update.

The system is reportedly being tested with hardware partners ahead of a broader rollout.

When Will It Launch?

Microsoft is expected to gradually roll out the feature later this year.

The company has not yet confirmed exactly which Windows versions or hardware configurations will support the new recovery system first.

Still, the feature could become one of the most useful behind-the-scenes Windows improvements in years.