You’ll finally be able to manage your Microsoft Office account in Windows 11 – but there’s a catch
Microsoft is making it easier to update your Office subscription by allowing you to manage your account right on the Windows 11 Settings app.
The new feature is coming in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25126 (opens in new tab), which can be found on the Dev Channel. You’ll be able to check all the supported Microsoft 365 Office apps that are licensed to your account by going to the Accounts tab in the Settings menu. There you can read product details by clicking View Details and even purchase them if you’d like a subscription.
The revamped Accounts tab also features links to the Microsoft Rewards page (opens in new tab) and your personal OneDrive storage. Build 25126 is slowly rolling out to Insider participants, so you may not be aware you have it. Make sure you have the latest build installed on your computer if you’re part of the Insider program.
You can join the Windows 11 Insider Program by first registering on Microsoft’s website and then joining on your PC. Open the Settings menu and go to Windows Update. You’ll see a tab that says Windows Insider Program; click on that tab and follow the instructions given.
There is a possibility that the new 365 Office feature won’t make its way to non-preview builds. It all depends on the feedback Microsoft gets, which you can add to by opening the Feedback Hub in Settings. The Hub is under User Profile Accounts Settings.
Patching up
The rest of Preview Build 25126 is a collection of fixes. According to the blog post, Microsoft fixed an issue with Personalization that caused preview images to appear backward when using Arabic or Hebrew as the display language. They also patched the Search bar that would randomly crash and made sure open context menus kept the same visual style as the Task Manager.
Microsoft did state they are aware of problems affecting video games and live captioning on some apps. Apparently, some games will crash if you use Easy Ant-Cheat (opens in new tab). Certain video players, Microsoft didn’t say which ones, will sometimes not show live captions or throw the captioning app to the top of the screen.
Ups and downs
Microsoft’s Windows updates can be a bit of a roller coaster ride. It fixes bugs with some builds and introduces new ones with others.
There have been reports, for instance, of a recent Windows 11 update (standard, not Insider) breaking parts of the Trend Micro antivirus. The update apparently introduced a compatibility issue with the antivirus, resulting in some features not working. Trend Micro is working on a solution whereas Microsoft has stayed silent. Hopefully, this bug is acknowledged and quickly patched.
