Windows 11 KB5095093 Lands With Point-in-Time Restore and 35-Day Pause

Microsoft released Windows 11 KB5095093 on June 23, 2026, and it lands as the optional non-security preview cumulative for both 24H2 and 25H2. The headline addition is Point-in-Time restore, a system that captures local snapshots of the OS, apps, settings, and personal files every 24 hours so users can roll the PC back within a 72-hour window. The same update ships a 35-day Windows Update pause calendar, a quieter Widgets experience, a new Screen Tint accessibility overlay, and a long list of Bluetooth and File Explorer fixes.

The optional release follows the heavier June 2026 Patch Tuesday, which brought Low Latency Profile, Shared Audio over Bluetooth LE, and a wider Secure Boot certificate push, as covered in what shipped in the earlier June Patch Tuesday. KB5095093 layers smaller changes on top, and most are rolling out gradually through Microsoft’s standard controlled feature rollout.

How to Get KB5095093 and What It Does

KB5095093 reaches builds 26200.8737 and 26100.8737, and the package arrives through Windows Update rather than as an automatic install. The optional download is delivered only when a user opens Settings, clicks Windows Update, then chooses Download and Install, or when the Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available toggle is on. Optional Windows updates have a history of install errors, and some users may run into failures on the first try.

• Release date: June 23, 2026
• Builds: 26200.8737 (25H2), 26100.8737 (24H2)
• Package size: 5423.6 MB (25H2 x64 and arm64), 4835.9 MB (24H2 x64 and arm64)
• Install time: approximately ten minutes

For users managing several devices, offline .msu installers live on the Microsoft Update Catalog, and the catalog route remains the reliable fallback for shops that image updates across fleets. The 25H2 package weighs 5423.6 MB on both x64 and arm64 hardware, while the 24H2 package weighs 4835.9 MB on x64 and arm64. Microsoft attributes the size to how Windows updates are now delivered and the bundling of AI models. The full install runs about ten minutes on a clean system.

The full KB5095093 changelog runs to several hundred lines, but the items users will notice break into four buckets: a new recovery system, a calendar-style update pause, a quieter Widgets experience plus accessibility additions, and a stack of Bluetooth and File Explorer fixes. The official KB5095093 release notes list every change Microsoft shipped.

Point-in-Time Restore Builds a 72-Hour Safety Net

The new recovery system stores restore points locally on the device and captures them through the Volume Shadow Copy Service. Per the point-in-time restore documentation, each restore point covers the operating system, apps, settings, and local files, and any one can put a PC back to its exact state at a specific date and time. Microsoft frames the feature as a faster path back to a working system when something breaks, whether the cause is a bad update, a buggy driver, or an app that destabilized the OS.

On Home and Pro editions, snapshots are created approximately every 24 hours and kept for up to 72 hours by default. The feature is on by default on devices not under enterprise management, though only on systems with an OS volume of 200 GB or larger. Smaller drives can still turn it on manually. Microsoft also sets a default storage budget of 2 percent of disk, configurable from 2 GB up to a 50 GB equivalent, and restore points are evicted from oldest to newest if free disk space falls below 20 GB.

Enterprise administrators can tighten or loosen the cadence. Restore point frequency can drop to 4, 6, 12, or 16 hours, and retention can be cut to the same intervals. Both settings are configurable through the Recovery CSP, and IT shops can manage the feature remotely. The trade-off is permanent: restoring a point reverts user files, applications, settings, passwords, certificates, and keys created after the snapshot. Microsoft warns that BitLocker recovery keys are required on encrypted volumes and that the restore must be launched from Windows Recovery Environment.

A hands-on test from the hands-on KB5095093 walkthrough found the recovery process usable. A restore on a freshly built test machine took 40 minutes to bring the desktop back, longer than the minutes-long promise in the documentation, and the reviewer reported the feature worked as advertised across several rounds of testing.

Microsoft’s own comparison table makes the positioning explicit. Point-in-Time restore is the modern replacement for the Control Panel-era System Restore, tuned for scheduled, automatic recovery rather than ad hoc rollback. The feature lands with the remote management hooks that System Restore never had.

Windows Update Pauses Move to a Calendar

The pause experience gets a small but tangible upgrade. Instead of choosing a four-week block with no end date control, users now open a calendar view under Settings > Windows Update and pick a specific day to pause until. The cap stays at 35 days, and Microsoft says users can re-pause as many times as they want after the period elapses. The change closes a quiet complaint from people who wanted a clean weekend of uptime or a work sprint without the OS nagging to install.

Microsoft has not announced a path to pause beyond 35 days from the consumer surface. The 35-day window remains a hard ceiling for non-managed PCs even after the calendar arrives.

Group Policy remains the option for IT shops that need to hold updates longer. Admins can also keep using the existing pause policy for indefinite blocks, which Microsoft has not deprecated for managed devices. The change is rolling out gradually and may not appear on every PC on day one.

Widgets Stop Opening on Hover, and Screen Tint Adds Color

The Widgets board, which opens by default when the cursor hovers over the taskbar’s weather icon, no longer pops up that way after the update. Hover-to-open is gone, and the default landing is the basic widgets dashboard rather than MSN content. Users can still customize the experience from a Settings link in the navigation bar and tune how many alerts or badges appear at once. Microsoft also says the dashboard is faster and more reliable under the new defaults, and the badge counter clears automatically when a user leaves the board. The shift, Microsoft says, is part of the company’s effort to revive the Windows 11 experience.

Accessibility gains a separate, more visible addition. Screen Tint applies a full-screen color overlay with six presets designed for different uses: a calm amber for long sessions, a cool blue for glare sensitivity, a rose tint aimed at users with severe headaches, and a custom mode for users who want to pick their own shade. Intensity is adjustable in steps, similar to Night Light, which remains a separate feature, and Screen Tint lives under Settings > Accessibility. A new Magnifier update lets users enter a precise zoom percentage and change it in increments from the magnifier bar.

Bluetooth Mute State Now Persists Between Devices

The update targets a long-running sore spot for Windows users: Bluetooth reliability. The headline change is that Windows now keeps the microphone mute state in sync between the audio mixer and the Hands-Free Profile, so a tap on a headphone mute button sticks when the headset reconnects.

Around that, Microsoft is rolling a stack of compatibility workarounds. AirPods appear faster in pairing mode, Beats Studio Pro headphones get better microphone reliability, classic Bluetooth audio devices reconnect faster after hibernation, and LE Audio accessories get more stable streaming after a lost connection. A driver error 0x9F, a class of bug check tied to certain OEM Bluetooth stacks, gets its own fix. Bluetooth call quality on Classic Audio devices with the Hands-Free Profile is also flagged as improved, and the Settings page for Bluetooth and devices gets general stability work.

Phone Link also gets a quiet adjustment. When a paired phone places an outgoing call, audio stays on the phone while ringing and only transfers to the PC once the call is answered there, and Do Not Disturb on Windows mutes incoming call audio on the PC side. The changes ship in the same optional preview and should land on most consumer PCs in the next few weeks.

File Explorer, Magnifier, and the Smaller Fixes

File Explorer gets a sweep of reliability fixes. The address bar now handles paths with double backslashes and quotation marks, the suggestion dropdown closes reliably after a selection, and the OneDrive shortcut no longer breaks when File Explorer runs as administrator. Mounting disk images is faster, and the Home tab surfaces an Ask Copilot quick action for Entra ID work and school accounts. Several Rename bugs are also addressed, including repeated text selection and case-only name changes that did not update immediately.

A wider set of smaller fixes ships in the same package.

• Magnifier: enter a custom zoom percentage and change it from the magnifier bar.
• Printers: new installations use Windows Ready Print and IPP by default.
• WSL: better behavior in mirrored networking mode with VPNs.
• Touchpad: choose default, small, medium, or large for the single-finger right-click zone.
• General reliability: explorer.exe fixes for blank gray taskbar icons and acrylic blur hiccups in the Start menu.
• Memory management: PCs with more than 32 GB of RAM can run larger local AI models.
• Bluetooth LE: faster time to first audio when using the microphone.

Microsoft is still tracking the Office app crash that surfaced with the June 2026 Patch Tuesday, and the company says it is investigating. The update also widens the rollout of new Secure Boot certificates, which begin expiring in June 2026 across the Windows ecosystem, and turns on the redesigned Start menu as the default on commercial PCs, both of which carry over from earlier June drops. The Secure Boot expansion reaches more PCs through Windows quality updates with additional high-confidence device targeting data, and devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals.

One date worth marking: starting June 30, 2026, the Emoji panel switches from Google’s Tenor API to GIPHY for GIF content. PCs that have not installed the latest Windows update will see a ‘GIF service is not available’ error in the panel when triggered with the Windows key and period. Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro editions reach end of updates on October 13, 2026, and Microsoft recommends upgrading to the latest version of Windows 11 to stay protected.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I install Windows 11 KB5095093?

Open Settings > Windows Update, select Check for updates, and click Download and install. The update will not download automatically unless the Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available toggle is on. Offline .msu installers are on the Microsoft Update Catalog for users managing several devices.

What’s the difference between Point-in-Time restore and System Restore?

Both use the Volume Shadow Copy Service to revert a device, but Point-in-Time restore is scheduled and automatic, captures the full system state, and keeps each snapshot for up to 72 hours. System Restore is event-triggered or manual, covers system files and settings with variable app and user data, and retains restore points indefinitely subject to disk space.

How do I turn on Point-in-Time restore?

On Home and Pro editions with at least 200 GB of OS volume space, the feature is on by default. To confirm or toggle it manually, go to Settings > System > Recovery and select Point-in-Time restore. Enterprise-managed PCs default to off until Windows 11 version 26H2, and IT admins control the feature through the Recovery CSP.

Is KB5095093 a security update?

No. KB5095093 is a non-security preview cumulative, and the monthly security fixes shipped separately in the June 2026 Patch Tuesday under KB5094126. Installing the optional preview does not replace the security update and does not require a reboot unless the install path triggers one.

What changes on June 30, 2026?

The Windows Emoji panel switches its GIF content source from Google’s Tenor API to GIPHY. Devices that have not updated to a build with this change will see a ‘GIF service is not available’ error in the panel until they install the latest update.