Microsoft recaps new features shipped on Windows 11 in 2025 | Windows Central

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Microsoft has published a new blog post that details a number of new features that are already available or are beginning to roll out on Windows 11 in 2025. The blog post details everything from improvements to Windows Recall to quality-of-life updates relating to UI consistency and ease of use.

"We are currently rolling out new features and improvements that make Windows 11 more intuitive, more secure, more accessible and more reliable for everyone" says the Windows team, who are operating under a strategy dubbed 'continuous innovation' which sees new features shipped to Windows 11 on a monthly cadence.

The blog post starts with highlighting new features and improvements that have been built for File Explorer, including the new AI Actions menu which appears when you right-click on files on a Copilot+ PC. The File Explorer home page is also now capable of showing activity from people that you've shared files with.

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AI actions appear in the context menu in File Explorer. (Image credit: Microsoft)

The Widgets board has also been given a major makeover, now powered by Copilot Discover and featuring an updated interface that places widgets in a separate dashboard. The new news feed will include stories curated by Copilot, based on your interests and conversations.

Widgets are now also available on the lock screen and are much more customizable than before. You can add and remove whichever widgets you want, including third-party ones, and change their position on the lock screen too.

Microsoft also highlights improvements to the "craft" on Windows 11, which refers to quality of life improvements and interface consistency updates. The company launched a visual refresh of Windows Hello this year, which updated the design of login methods on the lock screen and when Windows Hello pops up in Windows.

Other craft improvements include dividers added to the top-level icons in context menus to make them more pronounced, the ability to move hardware indicators like brightness and volume to the top left or top center of your screen, updated dialogs in the Windows Settings app that are aligned with Windows 11, Taskbar improvements for multi-monitors, and more.

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The new Recall app includes an overview homepage. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Of course, Microsoft has also taken the opportunity to highlight new features and improvements for Copilot+ PCs. Windows Recall received a major update this summer that added a new homepage interface, which curates recent snapshots and highlights apps you might want to jump into based on snapshot activity.

There's also a new AI agent for Windows Settings, which makes finding settings to configure easy using natural language, including the ability for the Settings app itself to toggle to setting for you just by asking for it.

Microsoft has highlighted even more features that have rolled out or are rolling out to Windows 11 users this year in its blog post, and there's promise of even more to come. We're still waiting for Microsoft to begin rolling out the new Windows 11 Start menu, for example, which is more customizable and a big improvement over the current one.

The new Start menu is expected to debut before the end of this year. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Overall, although it seems like 2025 has been a quiet year for Windows 11, it has received a lot of attention from Microsoft. Everything from new AI experiences to quality-of-life improvements designed to make the OS more stable and secure have debuted on Windows 11 this year, putting the OS on a strong position as Windows 10 support finally ends.

For 2026 and beyond, we're expecting to see the debut of a more consistent dark mode theme, as well as new agentic AI capabilities that were recently announced by Microsoft. All of these new features have debuted or will debut on both Windows 11 version 25H2 and Windows 11 version 24H2.