Two months later, work on Windows 11 is still ongoing

When we reviewed Windows 11 almost two months ago, it was obvious that some areas of the operating system were still under development. Many of the built-in apps still needed updates, and some features that were promised when Windows 11 was unveiled in June were still either in preview or missing entirely.

Windows 11 now has two months of updates. Many of them focused on fixing the OS’s early problems, but others gradually added features to bring it closer to what Microsoft originally announced. We have reviewed many of these updates as they are released. But if you’re still unsure about the update and aren’t keeping an eye out, we’ve put together a short list of bug fixes and features that have arrived since the launch of Windows 11, something that Microsoft has been testing since the beginning. October and something we haven’t seen yet.

Available to the public

The initial release of Windows 11 had a build number of 22000.194 (you can see this number by running “winver”in the Run box or the Start menu search bar). As of the November 2021 Update, build number 22000.348, the following things have been added, changed, or fixed:

• Ryzen Performance Issues: Microsoft and AMD have released software fixes for issues affecting new AMD Ryzen processors, especially those with higher core counts. Independent testing confirms that the fixes mostly bring Ryzen for Windows 11 performance in line with Windows 10, though there may still be room for improvement.
• Many, many more bug fixes: It’s too long to list the full list of bugs Microsoft fixed in the first few Windows 11 updates (although Microsoft has exhaustive lists here and here), but the fixes address everything from taskbar display issues. virtualization issues, printing errors, and quite a few crashes. Any software as big and complex as Windows always has something to fix, but rolling out the operating system to a wider public has given Microsoft a lot of data to use to fix bugs.
• Cosmetic gimmicks: Is it a big deal that the new Windows 11 updates brought back the blue screen of death, or that they added bright, sparkling new emojis from Microsoft? Not really. But small changes like this, weeks or months after the official public release of a new operating system, really reinforce the notion that Windows 11 was a plane that took off while it was still being built.

Currently testing

These apps and features are available for testing in some form, usually through beta or Windows Insider channels, but have not yet been released to the public.