Microsoft has pushed Edge 157 to the Stable channel, and the headline change for Windows 11 users is a faster, steadier browser launch. Microsoft’s release notes list the build as 157.0.4341.42, dated November 5, 2026.
Anyone who has clicked the Edge icon on a busy PC and watched the window hang for a few seconds is the person this is aimed at. The catch is that the speedup is gated to specific Windows versions.
TL;DR: Edge 157 adds Accelerated App Launch, which Microsoft says makes Edge open faster and more consistently, especially when the PC is under load. It only works on Windows 11 25H2, 26H1 and 26H2. The release also retires the old Windows sign-in path, adds Apple account sign-in and refreshes the Copilot new tab page.
How Accelerated App Launch works in Edge 157
Microsoft says Edge 157 “now opens faster and more consistently on Windows, with the biggest improvements when your device is busy or under load.” The company does not publish a launch time in seconds, so there is no number to hold it to.
The feature is enabled on Windows 11 versions 25H2, 26H1 and 26H2, and it requires Edge version 150 or later. If you are still on 24H2, the notes give no sign you will see it, which is the kind of detail that is easy to miss in a changelog.
The busy-PC wording matters. A launch that is quick on a clean boot but stalls while a sync client and a game updater fight for the disk is the version of the problem most people actually live with.
Sign-in, Copilot and tab changes in this release
Edge 157 completes the move to OneAuth on Windows by retiring its legacy direct-WAM sign-in. Microsoft notes that OneAuth still uses Windows Web Account Manager internally, so WAM itself is not going away. Administrators are told to check edge://signin-internals for managed profiles still showing WAM.
Users can now sign in to Edge with an Apple account as well as a Microsoft account, and admins can control that with the NonMicrosoftAccountSignInEnabled policy. The Copilot new tab page is also upgraded, with one search box for searching, chatting and exploring, plus updated Copilot Voice and Vision in the side pane.
Copilot’s growing presence fits a wider pattern, since Microsoft has also said Copilot will be an opt-in part of the rebuilt Windows search box, covered in our Windows 11 Search Copilot story.
Two smaller changes show up in daily use. The fading tabs experience is removed, and tab hover cards now give clearer information about memory usage and the savings from discarded inactive tabs. Microsoft also lists a fix for a prolonged browser freeze that could hit some users with accessibility features turned on.
What Edge 157 means for older web content
The notes put Edge 157 as the point where browser-native XSLT is turned off by default in the Canary, Dev and Beta channels. Stable follows in Edge 159, and both mitigations are planned to stop working in Edge 176. Anyone running internal pages that still lean on XSLT stylesheets has a couple of releases to move.
On security, Microsoft says the build incorporates the latest Chromium security updates and lists no Edge-specific fixes yet. Its security release notes add that CVEs will be added as soon as they are available, so the full list is not final.
Who will actually notice the faster launch
Most people on a recent Windows 11 build will not need to do anything, because Edge updates itself. If it has not arrived, open Edge settings and check the About page.
Machines with plenty of headroom will probably see little, and a speedup measured only under load is easy to overstate. The people most likely to feel it are on older or crowded PCs, including the 8GB Windows 11 PCs Microsoft has been talking up, where launch time was the complaint in the first place. Microsoft has not shared benchmarks, so treat the gain as a claim until independent timing shows up.
