Just when you thought that earlier builds of Chicago couldn't exist, in comes another one!
It's questionable how related this is to the Chicago project. The build, from July 1992, predates the Chicago Feature Specification, and is compiled similar to earlier Windows For Workgroups builds; originally this was leaked as a mislabeled Windows 3.1 build as a result.
Everything here is entirely 16-bit as this build predates even the earliest form of Win32s. But several things depend on what was then known as Cougar, the 32-bit DOS kernel project, so they don't work quite right.
Most of the updates with this build revolve around the UI, but there are a few new programs included as well as some updated programs.

Here is the about screen.
The build number for this release is different from the usual build numbers. The first four digits correspond to the date of compilation, in this case July 20th. There is question whether the last four digits correspond to a time (00:22 in this case, which matches the files in the build), or if this is the traditional consecutive build number (thereby making this build 22).

The Program Manager has remained unchanged, but you can see that the 3D appearance of all the buttons has been increased significantly. It's also worth noting that the fonts are no longer bolded like they were in Windows 3.1, but this de-bolding didn't take place everywhere.

This build includes both the original Windows 3.1 File Manager, and this new updated File Manager.
Holy crap, right-click context menus in Windows 3.1! Imagine that! The new File Manager also writes a slightly different boot sector to floppy disks when formatting.

It is also possible to associate files with programs with the new File Manager, as shown here. |