windows 11 25h2

New Windows 11 build adds self-healing “quick machine recovery” feature

Preview build 27898 also includes a features that will shrink Taskbar items if you’ve got too many pins or running apps for everything to fit at once, changes the pop-up that apps use to ask for access to things like the system webcam or microphone, and allows you to add words to the dictionary used for the speech-to-text voice access features, among a handful of other changes.

It’s hard to predict when any given Windows Insider feature will roll out to the regular non-preview versions of Windows, but we’re likely just a few months out from the launch of Windows 11 25H2, this year’s “annual feature update.” Some of these updates, like last year’s 24H2, are fairly major overhauls that make lots of under-the-hood changes. Others, like 2023’s 23H2, mostly exist to change the version number and reset Microsoft’s security update clock, as each yearly update is only promised new security updates for two years after release.

The 25H2 update looks like one of the relatively minor ones. Microsoft says that the two versions “use a shared servicing branch,” and that 25H2 features will be “staged” on PCs running Windows 11 24H2, meaning that the code will be installed on systems via Windows Update but that they’ll be disabled initially. Installing the 25H2 “update” when it’s available will merely enable features that were installed but dormant.

New Windows 11 build makes mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in even more mandatory

Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2, windows 11 25h2 / Shannon Garcia / March 29, 2025

Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build of Windows 11 to its experimental Dev Channel today, with a fairly extensive batch of new features and tweaks. But the most important one for enthusiasts and PC administrators is buried halfway down the list: This build removes a command prompt script called bypassnro, which up until now has been a relatively easy and reliable way to circumvent the otherwise mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in requirement on new Windows 11 PCs and fresh installs of Windows 11 on existing PCs.

Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program lead Amanda Langowski and Principal Product Manager Brandon LeBlanc were clear that this change is considered a feature and not a bug.

“We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11,” Langowski and LeBlanc write in the post. “This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.”

Of course, the removal of bypassnro makes life harder for people who want to exit Windows setup without Internet connectivity or a Microsoft Account. You might be setting up a computer in a place with no Internet connection, or you might simply prefer a local user account like the ones that all past Windows versions allowed you to use.

There are benefits to a Microsoft Account—easy access to any existing Microsoft 365 or OneDrive subscriptions, automated encryption for your local disk and backup of your drive’s encryption key for recovery purposes, and syncing of certain settings between PCs. But using a local account reduces the number of notifications and other upsells that Windows 11 will bother you with. Whatever your reasoning, you’ll need to find a different workaround for future Windows versions.

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