Hands on with Windows 11 Build 27686: 2TB FAT32, better Sandbox and more

Windows 11 Build 27686 is now available for the Canary Channel of the Insider Program, and it has several interesting stuff. This release confirms Microsoft plans to change the FAT32 size restrictions and has increased its size limit to 2TB from 32GB. Along with that, there are improvements to Sandbox. Let’s take a closer look at the update.

FAT32 size limit increase

Windows 11 can read FAT32 drives of more than 32GB capacity. But it didn’t offer any option to create one using the Disk Management tool. The only option was to use PowerShell but you can now do so with Command Prompt as well. So, creating a FAT32 drive up to 2TB is possible.

Veteran Microsoft developer Dave W Plummer said that Windows 11 needed this change for years.

He coded the “Format’ dialog box that you use to format disk drives in File Explorer and tweeted that the “32GB limit was an arbitrary choice.”

Sandbox improvements

Windows Sandbox failed to work in previous preview builds, but now it works fine. You can now share a folder with the host, which means that you can pick a folder on your PC, and its contents will be available in the Sandbox as well.

We use it regularly in VMware virtual machines, and it is a feature that every virtualization software must have.

In addition, Sandbox can also access your clipboard history, making it easier to paste the copied text. It can also access audio and video inputs from the host PC.

Dev Drive and other minor tweaks

You can now detach a virtual hard disk using the Settings app. Until now, you could only do so using the Disk Management utility, but now that option is available in the Disk & volumes section. Just open the Properties of the virtual disk, and you’ll find the option there.

This is one of the many attempts by Microsoft to migrate all the features of a utility to the Settings app.

The HDR section also has a new option in this build. Until now, you have been able to enable/disable HDR system-wide. But now, you can enable it for video playback, even when you disable it system-wide. You can do this using the “Allow HDR video streaming even when HDR is off” option on the HDR settings page.

Windows Latest previously covered the hidden Power settings in the July 2024 Canary build which would help you adjust the Power mode for different scenarios. These are now available with this Canary build. You’ll find these settings on the Power page of the Settings app.

Starting from this Canary build, your PC will periodically collect diagnostic data to improve network performance. Microsoft clarifies that it would consume “a small amount of data (up to 10MB/day)” on devices with unmetered connections.

Apart from all these new features, this build fixes a lot of UI inconsistencies in the Settings app, Lock screen, and the Windows Security app. This build has unmitigated issues, including emoji panel crashes and Windows Hello bugs on Copilot+ PCs.