All Windows 11 PCs will soon support this AI feature once exclusive to Surface, no NPU required
Voice Clarity is about to make its way from Surface devices to all PCs.
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What you need to know
Microsoft and the Windows Insider team decided to close the weak with a bang.Windows 11 Build 26040just shipped to Insiders in the Canary Channel, and it’s a big one. If it were most other weeks, I’d focus on changes like the new Task Manager icon, but we have bigger fish to fry (though the icon is cool).
The biggest change is that Voice Clarity will work on PCs without Neural Processing Units. The feature used to be exclusive to select Surface hardware, but that’s no longer the case.
While AI-powered Voice Clarity is the most notable change, it’s far from the only change. Microsoft updated the Windows Setup experience in this build, added support for USB 80Gbps (also known as USB 4 Version 2), improved screen casting discoverability, and even rolled out a new Task Manager icon.
New Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) features also ship with the build.
With the change log this long, it’s easy to miss warnings from Microsoft, even though the company’s blog post on the build has the warning in bold and all caps.Gamers should not install this Insider build. Games may not work properly and cause a bug check, also known as the green screen of death. There are also some other known issues that affect multi-monitor setups and streaming video in apps from the Microsoft Store.
Known issues are common in Insider builds, so this isn’t a cause for alarm. But this particular build is worth skipping if the known issues affect your workflow.
AI without an NPU
Neural Processing Units, or NPUs, are optimized chips designed with artificial intelligence in mind. They handle repetitive tasks efficiently and deal with the repetitive nature of AI better than a CPU or GPU. But the fact that an NPU is built for AI doesn’t mean you have to have an NPU to use AI features. Plenty of features that utilize artificial intelligence rely on a CPU or GPU. With that in mind, Microsoft’s latest change to Voice Clarity makes sense.
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Up to this point, Voice Clarity has been limited to select Surface devices that had NPUs. Microsoft announced that will no longer be the case starting with Windows 11 Build 26040.
Voice Clarity works with apps that use Communications Signal Processing Mode, including WhatsApp and Microsoft’s Phone Link. The feature reduces background noise, cancels echoes, and minimizes reverberation. Soon, Windows 11 PCs will be able to use Voice Clarity even if they do not have NPUs.
Since Voice Clarity is supported on both x64 and Arm64 CPUs, millions of Windows 11 users will gain access to the feature that was once exclusive to a subset of Surface devices.
Below is the full change log from Microsoft:
Windows 11 Build 26040: What’s new
Instantly access new photos and screenshots from your mobile device
We are also beginning to gradually roll out a new feature for Windows that introduces the ability to effortlessly access and edit your most recent photos and screenshots from your Android mobile device in Snipping Tool on your PC. With this feature, you’ll receive instant notifications on your PC whenever a new photo or screenshot is captured on your Android device.
To enable this experience, go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Mobile devices (this settings was updated withBuild 26016in the Canary Channel) and choose “Manage devices” and allow your PC to access your Android phone. Your PC will get a Cross Device Experience Host update in the Microsoft Store that is required for this experience to work.
Experience crystal clear online communication with Voice Clarity
We are expanding Voice Clarity which has beenavailable on Surface devicesand making it available to more people. Voice Clarity is a feature that enhances your audio experience on Windows with state-of-the-art AI technology. Powered by low complexity AI models, Voice Clarity cancels echo, suppresses background noise, and reduces reverberation in real-time. This feature is enabled by default and can be utilized by applications usingCommunications Signal Processing Mode, such asPhone Linkand WhatsApp. No additional hardware is required, as Voice Clarity is supported on x64 and Arm64 CPUs. Apps which use Communications Signal Processing Mode do not need any additional modifications and Voice Clarity will work for them automatically when the OEM device does not offer Communications Mode processing. Similarly, PC games that use Communications Signal Processing Mode for their online communications will also benefit from Voice Clarity. Applications canprovide a togglefor the Deep Noise Suppression stream effect to switch between AI models for voice only communications (Deep Noise Suppression enabled, the default setting) and generic audio content (Deep Noise Suppression disabled). With Voice Clarity, you can have confidence that your voice will be clearly heard during online meetings and enjoy smoother and more effective online communications.
Updated Windows Setup Experience
We are refreshing Windows OS Media Setup with a much cleaner and more modern design. All of the same features will continue to be supported in the bare-metal (clean) OS Iinstallation experience, includingunattended support, but will now be consistent with the current upgrade and installation experience available for the devices already running the Windows OS.
Windows Insiders who want to try out this refreshed Windows Setup experiencecan download the ISOs for Build 26040 hereand either do a clean install on their PC or do a clean install in a Virtual Machine (VM).
While this change does not affect theDISM OS deployment, it may affect some of your workflow. Please take the time to test these changes on your given scenarios and provide any feedback.
USB 80Gbps
We are excited to announce support for the latest generation USB standard, USB 80Gbps, in this build of Windows. USB 80Gbps support will initially launch on select devices based on the Intel Core 14th Gen HX-series mobile processors, such as the newRazer Blade 18.
This is the first major version update of the USB4®standard and increases performance to 80Gbps from 40Gbps. It enables the next generation of high-performance displays, storage, and connectivity. It is fully backwards compatible with peripherals built for older generations of USB and Thunderbolt™ and works alongside all other USB Type-C features.
Enhanced image consumption experience in Narrator
We are improving the image consumption experience with Narrator. There are two major changes:
Improving discoverability of screen casting in Windows 11
Casting from your Windows PC allows you to wirelessly extend your display to another nearby PC, TV, or other external displays. We are introducing improvements that focus on educating users about the Cast feature and improving its discoverability in Windows 11. Those improvements include:
Windows LAPS: New automatic account management feature
Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)has been improved with a new automatic account management feature. Using this feature, IT admins can now configure Windows LAPS to automatically create the managed local account. You can also configure the name of the account, enable, or disable the account, and optionally randomize the account name for improved security. Improved integration with existing Microsoft local account management policies has also been added.
The Windows LAPS CSP offers full support for managing these settings. The Windows LAPS CSP documentation will be updated at a later date to reflect the new settings.You can learn more about these features here.
Windows LAPS: improved readability password dictionary (and improved password font)
Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)has been improved with a new PasswordComplexity setting. Using this feature, IT admins can now configure Windows LAPS to generate less confusing passwords. The new setting is similar to the existing complexity setting 4 in that all four character categories are used (upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters). However when PasswordComplexity is configured with the new setting of 5, the most confusing characters are omitted to improve password readability and reduce confusion and wasted time. For example, the number “1” and the letter “I” are never used with the new setting.
When PasswordComplexity is configured to 5, the following changes are made to the default password dictionary character set:
The Windows LAPS tab in the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in (via Microsoft Management Console) has also been improved. When the Windows LAPS password is displayed in the clear, the password now uses a new font for improving readability.
The Windows LAPS CSP also offers full support for configuring the new PasswordComplexity setting (5). The Windows LAPS documentation will be updated at a later date with additional information on this new setting.
Windows LAPS: New passphrase feature
Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)has been improved with a new passphrase feature. Using this feature, IT admins can now configure Windows LAPS to generate passphrases, for example: “EatsVeganYummyTasty”. Compare this to a more traditional style password like “q6Rgag667Pu23qA886?n:K” – the passphrase is clearly much easier to read, repeat, and type.
With this new feature, the existing PasswordComplexity policy setting can now be configured to select one of three different passphrase word lists. All three passphrase word lists are included as part of Windows, so no additional download is required. A new policy setting “PassphraseLength” is used to control the number of words in a new passphrase.
Construction of a passphrase is simple: the configured number of words are randomly selected from the configured word list and appended together. The first letter of each word is capitalized for easier readability.
The new passphrase feature is fully supported when backing passwords up to either Windows Server Active Directory or Microsoft Entra ID.
The passphrase word lists are taken fromDeep Dive: EFF’s New Wordlists for Random PassphrasesbyElectronic Frontier Foundation, and are used under a CC-BY-3.0 Attribution license. You can download the word lists fromhttps://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2255471.
The three new PasswordComplexity passphrase settings each correspond to one of the original Electronic Fronter Foundation passphrase word lists.
Windows LAPS does not support either customer-configured word lists or customization of the built-in word lists.
The Windows LAPS CSP offers full support for managing these settings. The Windows LAPS CSP documentation will be updated at a later date to reflect the new settings.
You can learn more about the new Windows LAPS passphrase feature here.
Windows LAPS: New image rollback detection feature
Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)has been improved with a new image rollback detection feature. Using this feature, Windows LAPS will now detect when an image rollback has occurred. When a live OS image is rolled back (regardless of mechanism, for example Hyper-V snapshot reversion, or via image re-deployment products) the result is often a “torn state” situation where the password stored in Active Directory no longer matches the password (hash) stored locally on the device. When this happens the IT admin will be unable to sign into the device using the persisted Windows LAPS password. The problem is not resolved until Windows LAPS rotates the password per the normal password expiration timestamp, which might not happen for days or weeks.
The new feature adds an Active Directory attribute “msLAPS-CurrentPasswordVersion” to the Windows LAPS schema. This attribute contains a random GUID which is written by Windows LAPS every time a new password is persisted in Active Directory, followed by saving a local copy. During every processing cycle, the GUID stored in msLAPS-CurrentPasswordVersion will be queried and compared to the locally persisted copy; if they are different, the password will be immediately rotated.
To enable this feature, you must first run the latest version of the Update-LapsADSchema PowerShell cmdlet. Windows LAPS will note the presence of the new attribute and start using it.
If you do not run the updated version of the Update-LapsADSchema PowerShell cmdlet Windows LAPS will log a 10108 warning event in the event log, but will continue to function normally in all other respects.
Note that no policy settings are used to enable or configure this feature. The feature is always enabled once the new schema attribute has been added. The Windows LAPS documentation will be updated at a later date with additional information on this new feature.
Windows 11 Build 26040: Changes and Improvements
General
As we mentioned withBuild 26020, WordPad is removed when doing a clean install and now is also removed on upgrade starting with this build.
Copilot in Windows
We are making a change where the Copilot icon is shown on the right side of the system tray on the taskbar to make the entry point to Copilot more clear and easily accessible by being closer to where the Copilot pane opens. As part of this change, we have defaulted the “show the desktop” behavior for the far-right corner of the taskbar to off and this can be re-enabled in the taskbar behaviors section under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar (you can simply right-click on the taskbar to get to this). This is just beginning to roll out to Insiders in the Canary Channel so not every will see this change right away.
Taskbar & System Tray
When you hover over the date and time in the system tray, the tooltip will now always show a clock even when you only have a single clock added.
File Explorer
In addition tothe new “Compress To” formats for 7Z and tar, we are adding a new compression wizard that lets you choose even more formats and specify even more details. You can compress individual files with gzip/bzip2 (and more,) or add multiple files to archives in different tar formats with different types of compression. You can also change the compression level and what types of data are stored in each archive.
Windows Share
Task Manager
We have updated the Task Manager icon to match the design of other icons in Windows 11.
Narrator
Input
Magnifier
Fixed an issue in Magnifier settings page where the text below “voice speed” slider was not following the color contrast guidelines.
Windows 11 Build 26040: Fixes for known issues
Windows 11 Build 26040: Known issues
General
Widgets
Keyboard navigation from settings subpages back to the top-level Settings page is broken.
Sean Endicott is a tech journalist at Windows Central, specializing in Windows, Microsoft software, AI, and PCs. He’s covered major launches, from Windows 10 and 11 to the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. Sean’s journey began with the Lumia 740, leading to strong ties with app developers. Outside writing, he coaches American football, utilizing Microsoft services to manage his team. He studied broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University and is active on X @SeanEndicott_ and Threads @sean_endicott_.
