Windows 11 might soon let you customize lock screen widgets

If you do not mess with your Windows Update settings, your probably know that recent Windows 10 and 11 versions have lock screen widgets that display weather, traffic, sports, and other useful information. While Microsoft lets you turn off widgets on the lock screen, there is no way to make the operating system display, say, just the weather widget—you can either have all of them or none. That, perhaps, may change soon.

The latest Language Experience Pack for Windows 11 build 27747, which was released earlier this week for testing in the Canary Channel, spilled some beans at the upcoming lock screen widget improvements for Windows 11. As discovered by @xenopanther on X, Microsoft wants to let users add or remove separate lock screen widgets:

It is worth noting that Microsoft might also be planning to let users add third-party widgets to the lock screen. As of right now, there are a bunch of third-party widgets that you can place in the Widget Board (there is still no way to place them on the desktop despite earlier rumors), so making them accessible on the lock screen can make widgets so much more useful, especially for customers with laptops and tablets.

Sadly, like it usually goes with context-less discoveries like this, we can only guess what is the grand plan here. Either way, it is good to see Microsoft implementing improvements to the widget area, which, frankly, has potential, but feels quite neglected these days.

As a reminder, you can turn off lock screen widgets in Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen > Lock Screen Status > None.