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Flash! A-ah!
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- Windows 11 has a new preview update
- It carries improvements for dark mode, but also introduced a bug
- The glitch causes a white flash every time a folder is opened, and when various other actions are carried out with File Explorer
Windows 11's latest preview update has an unfortunate side-effect in that it causes a nasty visual glitch with File Explorer when using dark mode.
The Verge noticed that the optional update for November (KB5070311, which actually arrived at the start of December, unusually) has a known issue with File Explorer – in other words, the folders on your desktop.
Microsoft informs us that: "After installing KB5070311, you might experience issues when opening File Explorer in dark mode. The window might briefly display a blank white screen before loading files and folders."
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What this means is that when you open any folder, you may be treated to a brief white flash on the screen. As Microsoft makes clear, this can also happen not just when File Explorer is invoked, but also when you open a new tab in Explorer, or navigate to the Home or Gallery panels (or away from them), turn the Details pane on or off, or select 'More details' when copying a file.
The latter two are rarer actions, granted. But you'll still get white flashes with every folder or tab opening, or when going to, or leaving, the Home or Gallery in File Explorer, which may be reasonably frequent steps you take on your Windows 11 PC.
Microsoft says it's "working to resolve this issue" and will give us more details when they're available.
Analysis: argh, my eyes...
For now, affected users will just have to put up with this; and remember, it's happening when using dark mode, which people will likely have turned on in low-light environments, maybe late in the evening or night, and a bright white flash of the screen is going to be quite jarring in such lighting conditions.
Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inboxContact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Okay, so this is a preview build, and most folks don't download these optional updates for Windows 11, so the majority are not going to experience this problem thankfully.
However, the end-of-month (well, start of month in this case) preview release becomes the next full update, and so Microsoft better get this fixed swiftly, otherwise it will be an issue for a lot of people. Indeed, the full cumulative update for December arrives in Windows 11 next week (Tuesday December 9), so that doesn't give Microsoft a lot of time.
The kicker here is that this preview update brought dark mode to more parts of the File Explorer interface – dialog boxes for moving, copying or deleting files, and other such operations (as seen in testing already) – so it was supposed to be an improvement in the overall consistency of applying this mode (on top of a lot of other recent work on dark mode). Previously, these dialog boxes were still white, not dark, which was jarring in itself – but not as irritating as white flashes assaulting your eyeballs in a dimly lit room.
As is too often the case these days, Microsoft's patches give with one hand, and take with the other.
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TOPICS Windows 11 Darren AllanDarren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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