Windows 11 Builds 22623.746 & 22621.746 (KB5018490) Allows Custom Arrangement Of System Tray Icons

Another Windows 11 update has been rolled out to the Beta channel for the Insiders. This is KB5018490, installing which will upgrade your operating system’s build to either 22623.746 or 22621.746, depending upon which group your device landed in.

The highlight of this update is that the users can now rearrange the System Tray icons as per their preferences. Moreover, this update also includes several updates for the Windows 11 OS.

The users who landed in the group receiving the update 22623 will have the new features enabled by default, while the features in the 22621 update will be disabled.

Reminder: The users who landed in the group with new features disabled by default (Build 22621) can check for updates manually and choose to install the update that will have the features enabled (Build 22623).

Let us now continue to see the details of this Windows update and how to install it.

Windows 11 KB5018490 (Builds 22623.746 & 22621.746) Summary

Here are some of the important details about this build for Windows 11.

Here is the list of the latest Windows 11 builds and versions for each channel for your information:

Windows 11 Latest Versions Numbers

New in Build 22623.476 Only

Like all recent Beta channel updates, this flight also subcategorizes updates for individual builds. The following fixes and improvements apply to Windows 11 Build 22623.476:

• [System Tray]
  • This flight includes support to rearrange the System Tray icons for Insiders who have the System Tray updates that began rolling out with Build 22623.730. Note that this feature is rolling out gradually, so everyone may not experience this new feature right after installing KB5018490.
  • An issue with the “Automatically hide the taskbar” option enabled, where right-clicking app icons in the System Tray was unexpectedly making the taskbar dismiss, is now fixed.
• [Tablet-Optimized taskbar]
  • An issue where the gesture to slide the Start menu open from the bottom of the screen using touch might stop following your finger has been addressed.

New in Build 22623.476 and 22621.476 Both

The following fixes apply to both the builds in the Beta channel:

• The ms-appinstaller Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) has been enabled to work for the DesktopAppInstaller.
• An issue that affects the Windows Search service is now fixed. Indexing progress is slow when you use the service.

With these new improvements and fixes, there are also a few known issues.

Known Issues

• [General]
  • There are reports that the audio has stopped working for some Insiders in recent Beta Channel builds. This issue has been prolonged for some time now and Microsoft has still not given a workaround.
• [Tablet-Optimized taskbar]
  • The taskbar sometimes flashes when transitioning between desktop posture and tablet posture.
  • The taskbar takes longer than expected to transition to the touch-optimized version when switching between desktop posture and tablet posture.
  • When using the bottom right edge gesture to see Quick Settings, the taskbar sometimes stays stuck in the expanded state, instead of dismissing to the collapsed state.
• [System Tray Updates]
  • Dragging the system tray icons may cause explorer.exe to crash for some Insiders.

After considering the fixes and the issues, if you feel like upgrading to this release, continue to the next section to see how to install it.

How to Install Windows 11 Build 22623.746/ 22621.746

To install this update, you need to be running Windows 11 and subscribed to the Beta channel. If you have enabled Windows updates, you will automatically get a “New features are ready to install” prompt.

If not, follow these steps to install either update:

1. Navigate to the Settings app and then click Windows Update on the left.

2. Here, click Check for updates on the right side of the window.

   

3. Depending on which group you are a part of, you will see either of the following updates downloading automatically:

   Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Insider Preview (10.0.22623.746) (KB5018490)

   Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Insider Preview (10.0.22621.746) (KB5018490)

   Note: At this point, if Build 22621 is downloading, you can click Download and install under Build 22623 to install the update where the features are enabled by default.

   When it downloads, click Install.

   

4. When it installs, click Restart now to finalize it.

   

Once the computer restarts, you can verify that the OS has been updated to the build specified by typing in winver in the Run Command box.

Rollback/Remove Windows 11 Insider Preview Update

If you do not wish to keep the installed preview update for some reason, you can always roll back to the previous build of the OS. However, this can only be performed within the next 10 days after installing the new update.

To roll back after 10 days, you will need to apply this trick.

Cleanup After Installing Windows Updates

If you want to save space after installing Windows updates, you can run the following commands one after the other in Command Prompt with administrative privileges:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup