Revamped Features: The Future of Windows 11 Widget Interface Looks Bright

Windows 11 marked the return of widgets, and Microsoft is still slowly but surely making improvements. And now, in the latest Windows 11 Insider Build 26058, we see some big changes to the Widgets board, weather lock screen options, a new cursor, and more.

While the Windows 11 Widgets board is great, many users weren’t happy about the News feed showing up in the same space. With this latest release, users now have the option to hide the news feed from their board.

This week, Windows 11 build 26058 arrived, which is the second “24H2” build to ship on both the Dev and Canary channels, and it has a lot of changes you might appreciate. The star of the show is a change to the Widgets board, where you can now switch from the traditional dashboard to a “My Widgets View” that hides the news and fills the entire board with widgets of your choosing.

Microsoft

Then, there are new Widget notification badges (think the red circle notifications on iPhone) that’ll notify you of important notifications and other things. Then, those on the Canary channel will see the improved lock screen weather experience we detailed earlier this year. This includes dynamic, interactive weather updates, full forecasts, and more.

Another big addition is a new accessibility setting for the cursor, making it easier for low-vision users to find and use the pointer. It’s similar to the Mouse Crosshairs in Microsoft PowerToys suite, which puts red lines on the screen and makes the cursor easier to spot and control. This feature can be enabled in Settings > Accessibility > Mouse pointer and touch. Then, quickly toggle it on/off with the keyboard shortcut Win + Ctrl + X.

Other Insider Build 26058 changes include text labels to the File Explorer menu buttons, command prompt improvements, WIN + CTRL + S will now open voice access instead of Windows Speech Recognition, and several fixes for known issues.

Microsoft did mention users may experience a green screen bug when trying to launch games on this latest Insider Build. It also noted known issues like weird rollback attempts and the new widgets-only dashboard appearing empty. Expect all these changes and new features during the second half of the year with the next major Windows 11 update, whatever it’ll be called.

Source: Windows Insider Blog