
It is time for Canary users to download and install a big new update with quite a lot of new features and improvements, such as small taskbar icons, Quick Machine Recovery, changes to the context menus, link previews in the share dialog, and more. Here is what is new.
The biggest change in build 27898 is the ability to set small taskbar icons. This long-requested feature has finally made its way to the Canary Channel, allowing Windows 11 users to have more space for apps. You can have smaller icons always, when the taskbar is full, or never (adjustable in Settings).

The next is Quick Machine Recovery, a feature that was announced at Ignite 2025. It allows applying critical fixes and patches within Windows Recovery to restore systems that cannot boot. Quick Machine Recovery is now available in the Canary Channel, and you can configure the feature in Settings > System > Recovery.
Build 27898 also packs some accessibility improvements. You can now teach Windows 11's Voice Access hard-to-pronounce words to increase the probability of the system recognizing them. This feature is currently available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Chinese. Those who use Narrator can also benefit from the Screen Curtain feature, which blacks out the screen to prevent others from looking at it. You can turn Screen Curtain on with Caps + Ctrl + C when Narrator is running. Finally, the accessibility flyout in the tray area now has descriptions for each assistive technology.
Other changes in Windows 11 build 27898 include a small update for the context menus, which now have dividers for common file actions, improved privacy dialogs for app permissions (they now dim the app when appearing on the screen), link preview in the Share experience, some updates for the default browser settings, and a new adaptive power saver. The latter automatically enables or disables energy saver, without changing screen brightness, based on the power state of the device and the current system load.

Here is what else was fixed in build 27898:
- [File Explorer]
- We’ve done some more work to improve the performance of extracting archive files – this will particularly help in the case of copy-pasting large numbers of files out of large 7z or .rar archives.
- [Input]
- Fixed an issue where typing Japanese with the touch keyboard might stop working after switching to typing with an English keyboard and back.
- [Settings]
- Fixed an issue that could cause Settings to crash when changing the mouse cursor.
- Fixed an underlying issue that could lead to the Settings window hanging and no longer responding to input or resizing unless you closed and reopened it.
- [Other]
- Fixed an underlying issue in the previous flight, which could lead to Math.Pow() not outputting the correct result, which could lead to unexpected behavior in apps and games.
- Adjusted the error text if a Windows Update fails due to the system reserved partition not having enough free space, to make it clearer that that’s the issue.
Here is the list of known issues:
- [General]
- [IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COPILOT+ PCs] If you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Beta Channel, Release Preview Channel or retail, you will lose Windows Hello pin and biometrics to sign into your PC with error 0xd0000225 and error message “Something went wrong, and your PIN isn’t available”. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking “Set up my PIN”.
- [File Explorer]
- [NEW] There’s an issue in this build where File Explorer may fail to persist any view changes. This also impacts desktop icons, which may unexpectedly move or change size back to the default.
- [Settings]
- We’re investigating an issue in this build that could cause Settings to crash when interacting with the options under Settings > System > Power & Battery.
- [Remote Desktop]
- You may see extreme graphical distortion and rendering issues using remote desktop on Arm64 PCs in this build.
You can find full release notes here.
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