My 5 favorite Windows Insider features in 2026 so far

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

As a member of Microsoft's Windows Insider Program, I run Windows 11 Insider builds on both my desktop and laptop via virtual machines. With these pre-release editions, I'm able to test and write about changes to Windows before they officially hit the general public.

Sometimes the changes highlight new features that hopefully will improve Windows 11 in small but key ways. Other times, the changes are designed to fix or correct features that don't work right or that Microsoft bungled in some way. One prime example? The company killed the option to move your Windows 11 taskbar to any side of the screen and is now finally restoring that capability through the latest insider builds.

Also: Microsoft's new Windows 11 recovery tool is the ultimate Undo button - how to enable it

Any Windows user can sign up for the Windows 11 Insider Program to try out the builds. Since the builds can be unstable, you should run them on a spare PC or virtual environment. Otherwise, my story on " How to join Microsoft's Windows Insider Program (and why you should) " provides the steps for getting started.