This week, Microsoft launched a brand new Home windows 11 preview construct within the Beta Channel underneath quantity 22635.4870 or KB5050087. Some of the notable adjustments it launched is the power to customise lock display screen widgets and specify what widgets seem while you lock your PC.

Lock display screen widgets in Home windows 11 are usually not new (they’re additionally obtainable on Home windows 10). Microsoft launched them in 2024, and they’re a reasonably neat function to get fast, helpful info at a look. Nonetheless, when initially reporting about them, Neowin and lots of different customers observed the dearth of personalization—you may both have all widgets on or off, with nothing in between. Now, nonetheless, Microsoft permits choosing the widgets you need in your lock display screen. The primary traces of this function have been noticed in November 2024.

The flexibility to select what widgets seem while you lock your PC is step by step rolling out to Home windows Insiders in construct 22635.4870 (Beta Channel). If you don’t want to attend for Microsoft to ship the function organically, right here is methods to force-enable it:

1. Obtain ViVeTool from GitHub and unpack the information in a handy and easy-to-find folder.
2. Run Command Immediate as Administrator and navigate to the folder containing the ViVeTool information with the CD command. For instance, if in case you have positioned ViveTool in C:Vive, kind CD C:Vive.
3. Sort vivetool /allow /id:50179255,53672489 and press Enter.
4. Restart your laptop.

Now, you may go to Settings > Personalization > Lock display screen and click on Your Widgets > Add Widget. If you don’t want lock display screen widgets in any respect, toggle off the Your Widgets possibility.

Notice that altering these settings requires an activated Home windows set up, so if you’re testing Home windows 11 preview builds on a digital machine, you’ll have to activate it with a real Home windows key beforehand. Some former Microsoft workers have very fascinating ideas about that.

Credit score for the function IDs goes to @phantomofearth.