On September 21, 2023, at a special event in New York, Microsoft announced that it would release a large feature update for Windows 11 on September 26. That day has arrived, which means users on the stable version of Windows 11 can download and install the Windows 11 Moment 4 update.
The Moment 4 update contains a number of important, long-awaited changes. Microsoft's latest artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot, is now out of preview and has a brand new icon added to the taskbar. The taskbar finally lets users ungroup icons and display labels, and it also includes a redesigned volume mixer with per-app sliders and the ability to switch output devices more easily. The File Explorer also has many improvements, such as support for various archive formats (RAR, TAR, 7Z, etc.), better tags, modern UI elements, etc. Finally, there are new features for the Paint, Photos apps, and Crop Tools.
Windows 11 Moment 4 is now available as an optional update through Windows Update. You can ignore it for now, but Microsoft will force an update to it in next month's Patch Tuesday update (scheduled for release on October 10, 2023).
It should be reminded that the Moment4 update is not Windows 11 version 23H2. The latter will be released later this year, bringing users some remaining features not included in today's release.
If you're ready for the latest Windows 11 innovations, you can check for system updates now. You can also download the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog and install it manually:
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB5030310
On September 21, 2023, in addition to releasing the Windows 11 Moment 4 update, Microsoft also released four new Surface devices: Surface Laptop Studio 2, Surface Laptop Go 3, Surface Go 4 and Surface Hub 3.