Windows 11 Insider Preview build 28020.1371 is a focused maintenance release for the Canary Channel, aimed at tightening up core shell behavior rather than introducing new features. It targets visual glitches in the Start menu and File Explorer, corrects a miswired keyboard setting, and resolves a freeze when launching Windows Terminal with elevated rights from a standard account. It also carries one known cosmetic issue with the desktop watermark.
Where this build fits in the Windows 11 roadmap
Build 28020.1371 is part of the Windows 11 “26H1” development line and is currently available to devices enrolled in the Canary Channel through Windows Update. Canary builds sit at the front of the development pipeline, so they pick up platform changes before Dev and Beta — and they are explicitly not tied to a specific public release. Features may change, disappear, or never ship beyond Insiders.
The build is delivered as KB5073097 on top of earlier 28000-series Canary releases. It is available for both AMD64 and ARM64 architectures and carries the usual time-limited evaluation period on Insider installs.
Start menu fix: pinned folders no longer vanish
The most visible issue addressed here lives in the Start menu. If you use folders to group pinned apps, selecting an item inside one of those folders could cause the entire folder to disappear from the grid. For anyone who relies on grouped pins to keep a busy Start surface manageable, that behavior made the feature feel unreliable.
Build 28020.1371 corrects the way the Start menu tracks folder state after launching an app from inside it. The folder should now remain present and intact after you click through to a pinned shortcut.
File Explorer fix: reducing white flash when navigating
Another change targets a flicker issue in File Explorer. Some Canary testers saw a brief white flash while moving between pages or views in Explorer after the previous build. That kind of single-frame flash is more than a cosmetic annoyance; on OLED and HDR panels it is very noticeable and can be fatiguing.
The new build refines the navigation and repaint path inside File Explorer to avoid that flash in the scenarios that were identified. Community feedback shows the fix does not eliminate every possible flash on every system, but it addresses the primary cases Microsoft was able to reproduce, such as navigating between content views where a full-window redraw was previously triggered.
Note: Some testers still report flashes when repeatedly opening new tabs on “This PC” or when switching between dark and light themes with Explorer open to “Home”. Those edge cases are not yet fully resolved.
Keyboard input: character repeat delay mapped correctly
Under Settings → Bluetooth & Devices → Keyboard, Windows exposes controls for character repeat behavior. In earlier Canary builds, the slider for character repeat delay did not match the underlying configuration: moving the control in one direction produced the opposite effect of what the UI suggested.
Build 28020.1371 corrects that mapping so that what you see in the Keyboard settings now lines up with the actual delay applied at the OS level. If you previously worked around this by “mentally inverting” the slider, you can now treat the UI as authoritative.
Terminal and elevation: fixing a freeze from standard accounts
A more serious issue involved Windows Terminal. When a user on a non-admin account tried to start Windows Terminal with elevated rights, the system could freeze. On a development or test box, that kind of hang is disruptive; on a primary machine, it can lead to forced power cycles and potential data loss.
This build fixes the underlying problem in the interaction between elevation, process creation, and Terminal’s startup path. Elevating Terminal from a standard account should no longer lock the system. If you rely on that pattern to run administrative command-line tasks from a limited account, this update is worth installing on a dedicated test machine first before rolling it out more broadly in a lab or fleet.
Share dialog: removing stray Shell Experience Host option
The Share dialog also gets a small cleanup. Some users saw an unexpected option to share content to “Shell Experience Host” alongside normal targets like apps and nearby devices. That target is an internal component, not something a person can meaningfully share content to, so its appearance in a user-facing list was confusing and functionally useless.
Build 28020.1371 adjusts the Share picker’s logic so that Shell Experience Host is no longer presented as a share target in normal use.
Known issue: incorrect desktop watermark build number
The only listed known issue for this build is cosmetic. The desktop watermark — the text in the lower-right corner of the desktop that identifies pre-release builds — currently shows the wrong build number. This does not affect the underlying version you are actually running, but it can make screenshot-based bug reports ambiguous.
If you submit feedback through Feedback Hub, it helps to include the full output of winver in your description so engineers can correlate reports to the correct build regardless of what the watermark says.
Reported problems that are not fully resolved
Although the official notes call out the File Explorer flash as fixed, some Insiders still see two classes of issues after updating:
- Explorer flash in specific views. Opening Explorer directly to “This PC” and rapidly adding new tabs can still produce noticeable white or black flashes on some systems. Switching themes with Explorer open to “Home” can cause similar behavior.
- Temporary files cleanup stalling. On some machines, the scan under Settings → System → Storage → Temporary files gets stuck and never surfaces removable items, even though a component store analysis shows reclaimable packages.
For the Temporary files issue, some testers report success using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) from an elevated Command Prompt instead of the Settings UI.
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanupThose commands analyze and then clean up the component store directly. On affected Canary systems, running the cleanup has freed space in cases where the Storage UI would not complete its scan. As always with Insider builds, run low-level maintenance like DISM only on machines where you are comfortable troubleshooting failures, and keep a recent backup image.
How to get build 28020.1371 in the Canary Channel
Devices already on a Canary build of Windows 11 should see this update through Windows Update, labeled with the KB5073097 identifier. The delivery is a typical cumulative-style Insider flight, so it installs on top of your existing Canary installation.
Step 1: On a device you are comfortable using for pre-release software, open the Settings app and go to Windows Update. Confirm that you are enrolled in the Windows Insider Program with the Canary Channel selected. If not, use the Windows Insider settings to join or change channels. Enrollment begins at the official Windows Insider site at microsoft.com/windowsinsider.
Step 2: In Windows Update, click “Check for updates.” When build 28020.1371 appears, start the download and installation process and allow it to complete. On some systems, the “Installing” phase may appear to stall for an extended period at a percentage such as 42 percent before progressing.
Step 3: When prompted, restart the device. After reboot, confirm the build number with winver or by checking the build string in Settings → System → About.
For clean installs or advanced scenarios, Insiders often generate ISOs from Unified Update Platform (UUP) packages, but those flows are best reserved for experienced testers who already understand the risks involved. Even within the Insider community, there are reports of in-place upgrades from some UUP-built images failing and requiring full image restores.
Canary Channel expectations and exit strategy
Running Canary builds means accepting instability. Microsoft explicitly flags these builds as early in the development cycle and not tied to a committed release. Features can appear without full localization, arrive partially implemented, or be removed later. Documentation is often minimal at the time of rollout, and some bugs will be severe.
Many features in Canary are delivered via Control Feature Rollout technology, which means not every device sees them at the same time even on the same build. Two machines on 28020.1371 may therefore have slightly different feature sets, especially around newer experiments.
Dropping back to a more stable channel with lower build numbers is not supported with an in-place downgrade. Moving off the Canary Channel requires a clean installation of Windows 11 from media that carries a lower build. Anyone enrolling a primary machine into Canary should plan for that eventuality and maintain frequent, full-system backups.
Build 28020.1371 is not a headline-grabbing release, but it does address issues that make daily use of Windows 11 feel rough: disappearing Start folders, visual flashes in Explorer, misaligned keyboard behavior, and a freeze when elevating Terminal. For Canary testers, installing it on a non-critical device and validating those paths — while keeping an eye on lingering Explorer and cleanup quirks — is the right way to pressure-test the fixes before they filter further down the channel stack.
