Microsoft makes it easy to upgrade your Office subscription by letting you manage your account right in the Windows 11 Settings app.
The new feature is coming to Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25126 (Opens in a new tab), which can be found on the Dev Channel. You will be able to verify all supported Microsoft 365 Office applications that are licensed for your account by navigating to the Accounts tab in the Settings menu. There you can read the product details by clicking view details and even buy them if you want a subscription.
The revamped Accounts tab also has links to the Microsoft Rewards page (opens in a new tab) and your personal OneDrive storage. Build 25126 is rolling out slowly to Insiders, so you may not know you have it. Make sure you have the latest version installed on your computer if you are part of the Insider program.
You can join the Windows 11 Insider Program by first signing up on the Microsoft website and then signing up on your PC. Open the Settings menu and go to Windows Update. You will see a tab that says Windows Insider Program; Click on this tab and follow the instructions given.
The new Office 365 feature may not be available for non-preview builds. It all depends on the feedback received by Microsoft, which you can add by opening the Feedback Hub in Settings. The hub is located in User Profile Account Settings.
patch up
The rest of Preview Build 25126 is a set of fixes. According to the blog post, Microsoft fixed a customization issue that caused inverted preview images to appear when using Arabic or Hebrew as the display language. They also fixed the randomly crashing search bar and made sure that open context menus kept the same visual style as the task manager.
Microsoft said it's aware of issues affecting video games and live subtitles in some apps. Apparently some games will crash if you use Easy Ant-Cheat (Opens in a new tab). Some video players, Microsoft hasn't specified which ones, sometimes don't show live captions or start the captions app at the top of the screen.
Ups and downs
Microsoft's Windows Updates can be something of a roller coaster ride. It fixes bugs with some versions and introduces new ones with others.
There have been reports, for example, of a recent update to Windows 11 (Standard, not Insider) breaking parts of Trend Micro antivirus. Apparently, the update introduced an antivirus compatibility issue, causing some features to not work. Trend Micro is working on a fix, while Microsoft has kept quiet. Hopefully this bug will be recognized and fixed quickly.