Windows 10 lock screen is ruined? Not for everyone, but rolling out new features is a love or hate affair
Windows 10 is getting a new feature for the lock screen, providing it with a number of extras that you’ll either approve or loathe, if the reaction online so far is anything to go by.
PhantomOfEarth, the ever-present leaker who loves to delve into the hidden depths of Windows 11 preview builds, posted a screenshot of the new lockscreen cards on X (formerly Twitter).
Additional lock screen cards like finance and sports are rolling out for Windows 10 in KB5035941 (19045.4235), the feature can be enabled by running:vivetool /enable /id:48801541 pic.twitter.com/yNamIO4ZE5March 19, 2024
As the leaker explains, this is a feature rolling out in Windows 10 in the Release Preview channel, with build 19045.4235, so not everyone will have it. But if it hasn’t reached them yet, testers can force the functionality to work using ViVeTool (a Windows configuration program).
These lock screen maps show the current weather and other bits and pieces such as sports results, stock market events, local traffic, and so on. In other words, information that you may or may not find useful.
As PhantomOfEarth notes, the weather map has been tweaked to make it look better, although there’s a catch here: you can show all of these maps, or none of them. There is no option to choose if you don’t want the financial card, for example.
Analysis: Bloat on the landscape
For those thinking – wait a minute, Microsoft hasn’t stopped adding features to Windows 10, and there’s a comment to that effect on thought.
In short, new features for Windows 10 are still being developed, such as this particular addition – but don’t expect a huge amount to be funneled into the next year and a half of Windows 10’s remaining shelf life.
Some cynical soul replying to the above tweet suggests that the work being done is just to get you to upgrade to Windows 11, which is clearly very harsh, but the point being made is that there are people who support this change Do not like. They view these cards as a rather pointless bloat that might just slow down your PC a bit.
Please note, the information cards are not mandatory; you can disable them if you don’t like them. Although, as PhantomOfEarth says, it would be nice if you could disable selected maps, rather than just disabling the whole bunch – choice is always good – but perhaps Microsoft will make it work this way in the future. After all, we are still in the testing phase, although this change will soon also come to Windows 10.