If you think you understand Microsoft's strategy for Windows feature updates, it's time for a reset. With Windows 10, Microsoft experimented with feature updates during the chaotic first year or two, even assigning marketing names to each big feature release: Anniversary Update, Creators Update, and so on. Eventually, they settled on a predictable schedule for feature updates, with major releases every six months, typically in March/April and September/October.

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Those feature updates were designed to be delivered through Windows Update and are, for all intents and purposes, full Windows version upgrades.

Microsoft dialed back that schedule with the launch of Windows 11, committing to delivering these sometimes-disruptive feature updates only once each year, in the second half of the year. (That decision was also applied retroactively to Windows 10.)

Reasonable people might have assumed that the schedule change meant Microsoft was thereby committing to not delivering any new features outside of those annual end-of-year feature updates. LOL, as the kids like to say.

Windows boss Panos Panay rattled off a laundry list of "new experiences" (that's Microsoft-speak for features) at the end of February in a lengthy blog post.

Many of those changes will arrive this week as part of the March Patch Tuesday update. That's right on schedule for what would previously have been a semi-annual feature update. It also raises a bunch of questions, starting with the obvious one.

Is this a Windows feature update?

Well, no.

The new features rolling out in the March updates were previewed in the February 2022 non-security update (the 2022-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems [KB5010414]). Other new features will arrive as app updates from the Microsoft Store and through what Microsoft refers to as "servicing."

That might seem like enough to qualify as a feature update, but there's a crucial difference. This update checks in at a relatively lightweight 230MB on x64 systems. That's about one-tenth of the size of what a Windows 10 feature update used to clock in at.

The first official Windows 11 feature update is due in late 2022.

There's now a Weather icon at the far left side of the taskbar (where the Start button used to be), which shows the current temperature and a brief forecast.

What are these new Windows 11 features?

The new feature Microsoft has chosen to highlight is the Windows Subsystem for Android, which allows Windows 11 users to download and install a "curated" (that means small) selection of Android apps from the Amazon Appstore. This feature isn't installed automatically, and it doesn't require the latest Windows 11 cumulative updates -- more on that in a minute.

Another group of new features are focused on the Windows 11 taskbar. There's now a Weather icon at the far left side of the taskbar (where the Windows 10 Start button used to be), which shows the current temperature and a brief forecast. Clicking that icon opens the Widgets pane. If you don't want either one, you can hide the Weather icon by turning off the Widgets option in Taskbar Settings.

Windows 11 now displays a clock on the second display on multi-monitor setups. Some Windows watchers might argue that this is not a new feature but a bug fix, and it's hard to argue with that.

For audio calls using Microsoft Teams with a work or school account, the microphone button on the taskbar now allows you to mute and unmute your audio with a single click. Likewise, buttons at the bottom of every app window allow you to share that window (and only that window) with the current Teams call.

Two "redesigned" apps with very familiar names, Media Player and Notepad, are also available.

What does the new Media Player app do?

Microsoft has a rich history of attaching confusing names to new products, but they've really outdone themselves this time.

If you're running Windows 11, at some point soon, you will find that the Microsoft Store has automatically installed a new app called Media Player on your PC. This app is, in fact, the replacement to the ill-fated Groove Music, which in turn had followed the even more ill-fated Zune Music, which