Microsoft's Windows 11 Dev Preview Update Adds New Multi-app Camera Feature

TapTechNews August 21st news, Microsoft yesterday pushed the latest Windows 11 Dev preview version to internal test users, with the version number 26120.1542. In addition to the officially announced updates, users also found some hidden new features. The most notable one is that the new version will allow users to use the same camera in multiple applications simultaneously.

Previously, Windows 11 only supported a single application to use the camera, for example, opening the camera application during a Zoom call would cause the latter to prompt to close other applications. In the new version, Microsoft is changing this limitation. By enabling a hidden feature Multi-app Camera, users can simultaneously stream video to multiple applications.

Microsoft said that this feature was initially designed for the deaf and hard of hearing to allow multiple video applications to use the same camera simultaneously. After enabling this feature, camera brightness and other settings can only be adjusted on a specific page. Users can enable the Multi-app Camera feature by going to Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Camera, selecting the camera to be used, and then clicking Advanced Camera Settings.

TapTechNews noticed that in addition to the multi-app camera feature, the new version also includes a camera troubleshooting feature called Basic Mode for solving serious camera problems.

Microsoft has not mentioned these two features in the official update note, and the specific details remain to be announced. Before that, users can use the Vivetool tool and ID numbers 49575624, 50292326, and 48433719 to enable and test these two features.