Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494: What's new?

Starting today, a microphone icon will appear on the taskbar when you are actively in a Microsoft Teams call. From here, you can see your call audio status, what app is accessing your microphone, and quickly mute and unmute your call at any time.

Microsoft has released the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494 for Insiders in the Dev Channel. The latest update adds the ability to mute or unmute the microphone directly from the Taskbar starting with Microsoft Teams.

Starting today, a microphone icon will appear on the taskbar when you are actively in a Microsoft Teams call. From here, you can see your call audio status, what app is accessing your microphone, and quickly mute and unmute your call at any time.

"When you join a meeting, you will see the following icon instantly appear in your taskbar. The icon will be present throughout your call, so it is always accessible, no matter how many windows you have open on your screen," the company wrote in a blog post.

The new feature is currently rolling out to a subset of Windows Insiders with Microsoft Teams for work or school installed and will be ramped up over time. Microsoft plans to expand this feature to Chats later.

Apart from this, the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494 includes the following changes and improvements:

• Some Windows Insiders may start seeing snap groups in ALT + TAB and Task View, just like when you hover open apps on the taskbar, and you see them there.
• If you’re searching for file type or link types under Settings > Apps > Default apps, you will now see a dropdown of options containing your current query without having to first press enter.
• If needed, you can now launch the installed apps settings page under Settings > Apps > Installed apps directly via this URI: ms-settings:installed-apps.
• The names of the sort by options under Settings > Apps > Installed apps have been adjusted to help make them clearer and added a new option to sort from smallest to largest size.

The latest build also includes fixes and a few known issues as well.