Gamepad keyboard input comes to Windows 11 Release Preview, aimed at handheld users and sofa surfers Hallie Frederick | usagoldmines.com

In the end, Windows 11 is lastly receiving up-to-date help for gamepad customers, notably handheld PC customers, as of Windows 11 Preview Build 22631, which is including a brand new Gamepad keyboard performance to Home windows 11. This Gamepad keyboard offers a brand new format for Home windows 11’s on-screen keyboard, making it simpler to sort with sticks and buttons, alongside supplemental contact controls and a vertically-aligned design that takes up a few fifth of the display actual property. This function is in “Gradual rollout”, which suggests it will not be obtainable to all customers. Hopefully, it will likely be uncovered for any gamepad and particularly any handheld PC customers, because it’s most clearly focused them.

Different main options being added or tweaked with this Home windows 11 Preview Construct embody an overhaul to Notification Ideas permitting them to be disabled, extra superior Telephone Hyperlink entry straight from the Begin Menu, and most curiously the power to totally rebind the Copilot key to different functionalities in your system. This might imply opening different apps so long as they’re in signed MSIX packages, or simply repurposing the Copilot key as a Search key as a substitute.

All the opposite modifications on this replace are pretty small, normally minor bug fixes or UI changes to shine up the Home windows 11 utilization expertise. The Gamepad keyboard performance is certainly essentially the most attention-grabbing addition to this replace, although, and follows the early September beta updates which initially added the function to Home windows 11.

The addition of the gamepad keyboard function will, after all, most closely impression customers who’re shopping for Home windows-based PC gaming handhelds just like the Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally, or Ally X. Steam Deck customers who for some purpose really feel like utilizing Home windows as a substitute of the better-performing (for that {hardware}) SteamOS also needs to profit from these updates, notably when the Gamepad keyboard is rolled right into a mainline Home windows 11 launch and never relegated to Preview and Beta builds.

Fortuitously, most customers of PC gaming handhelds are savvy sufficient to make do with out this function whereas it is nonetheless being rolled out, notably due to Home windows already being so pleasant to the touch performance. However hopefully, Microsoft will end sprucing the Gamepad keyboard up right into a mainline release-ready state pretty quickly, minimizing the quantity that handheld PC players must interface with touchscreens as a substitute of a extra tactile enter technique.