Microsoft makes Tabbed File Explorer, additional Windows 11 22H2 features available in preview

When Microsoft rolled out Windows 11 22H2 in September, officials said the annual feature update would be coming in two parts. The first set of features began rolling out to mainstream users in September, but a second set of features wouldn't arrive until October/November.

On October 18, Microsoft made this second grouping of Windows 11 22H2 features available via its regularly scheduled non-security, optional preview (aka “Week C”) releases. Officials reiterated that mainstream users would get these missing Windows 11 22H2 features on November 8, as part of Patch Tuesday.

Included in this second batch of features are:

Tabbed File Explorer
Suggested Actions (click to dial or schedule an appointment)
Taskbar Overflow Menu
Right click on Taskbar to jump to Task Manager
Share to more devices
Access to more Android apps in more countries via the Microsoft-Amazon Appstore partnership

The redesigned Photos app for Windows 11 — with the recently announced iCloud photo library integration is coming later. The Photos app will be available at the end of October and iCloud integration in November, officials said.

Officials said that Windows 11 users should expect Microsoft to roll out new features for Windows 11 outside of the annual feature update in the second half of the year. Microsoft plans to handle these feature updates the same way they are doing with this set of additional Windows 11 22H2 features. They will first preview them as part of the monthly non-security optional updates for Windows 11 and then roll out gradually to all in “a subsequently monthly security update” (Patch Tuesdday.

After November 2022, Windows 11 Enterprise and Education customers will have these additional new features set to off by default. Microsoft will allow enterprise customers to turn them on as a set (not individually) using a single Group Policy/MDM. (The set of features going out this week and on November 8 will NOT be off by default.) The new features delivered outisde of the annual feature update will be turned on by default when the next annual feature update is delivered.