The August 2024 Patch Tuesday for Windows 11 has just been released, with some useful new features and a welcome addition to the release notes.
Like every second Tuesday of each month, Microsoft releases its monthly cumulative update for the Windows 11 operating system. Numbered KB5041585, the August 2024 Patch Tuesday fixes various bugs and brings several very practical functional improvements for the taskbar and file explorer. In addition, Microsoft had the good idea to add a little well-thought-out new feature in its release note.
The August 2024 Patch Tuesday will be offered to you automatically by the Windows Update Manager, under the name “2024-08 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 23H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5041585)”. You can also download and install manually update KB5041585 from the Microsoft Update Catalogby clicking on the link corresponding to your version of Windows 11 (22H2 or 23H2) and your system (x64 or arm64).
Windows 11 KB5041585: New functions for the taskbar and file explorer
In addition to the usual bug and security fixes, the August 2024 Patch Tuesday brings three notable new features to Windows 11. These changes were gradually introduced in previous optional updates, which you receive if you have enabled the option Get the latest updates as soon as they are available in Windows Update. With cumulative update KB5041585, these new features are now available by default for all Windows 11 users.
First, it is now possible to directly pin an application to the taskbar by dragging its icon from the Start menu. Until now, you had to first launch an application to make its icon appear in the taskbar, then right-click on it with the mouse and finally click on Pin to taskbarThe new method proposed is therefore faster, more intuitive and allows the same result to be achieved with fewer manipulations.
Still on the taskbar side, keyboard navigation between different open and pinned applications has been greatly improved. With the keyboard shortcut Windows + Tyou can now move between the icons on the taskbar using not only the arrow keys, as before, but also jump directly to a particular application by pressing the keyboard key corresponding to the first letter of its name. And when different programs start with the same letter, such as Calendar and Calculator, you just need to press the “C” key several times to switch from one to the other.
Finally, Windows 11 File Explorer now allows you to duplicate an open tab by right-clicking on it. This feature is useful when you are in a subfolder located far down the file system tree and want to open a new tab starting from the same location, without having to manually navigate all the way back to the current directory. It should also be noted that the update fixes several bugs affecting File Explorer and improves its overall performance.
Windows 11 KB5041585: a welcome little novelty from Microsoft
One last interesting point is worth noting, although it is not directly related to new Windows functions. In August 2024 Patch Tuesday Release NoteMicrosoft had the good idea to include a short presentation video that summarizes the highlights of the KB5041585 update, and which revisits a previous improvement that went relatively unnoticed, namely the new volume mixer in Windows 11.
This little novelty, which may seem anecdotal at first glance, is actually particularly well-felt. If you are used to browsing the release notes of Windows updates, you certainly know that they are difficult to read, with changes indicated in various drop-down sections that refer to each other.
Microsoft’s rolling update system is already relatively opaque, so it’s often difficult to know exactly what each update contains and brings from its release note alone. The addition of a summary presentation video therefore makes things clearer and the new features more obvious to users. We hope that this new practice will not be just an isolated initiative and that it will become the norm for future Windows updates.