Windows 11 will soon bring better widgets to your PC's lock screen

What you need to know

• Microsoft just shipped Windows 11 Build 26252 to Insiders in the Canary Channel.
• The update rolls out "Weather and more" on the lock screen, which shows widgets with information on the lock screen of your PC.
• A new option to pin apps to the taskbar by dragging an item from the Start menu is also available.

Windows Insiders in the Canary Channel have some new features to play with and test out. Microsoft just shipped Windows 11 build 26252, which includes a few new features and a bunch of fixes and improvements.

The highlight feature of the update is "Weather and more," which places widgets on your lock screen with information about the weather, finance, traffic, and sports. The design of the cards has been improved, including its blur effect, the size of cards, and its spacing. Fonts should be better optimized within the cards as well.

The taskbar also has a new feature that lets you pin apps to it by dragging those apps from the Start menu. At the moment, trying to drag an app from the Start menu to the taskbar shows a circle with a line through it.

Microsoft outlines the changes below and a full list of fixes in a blog post :

Windows 11 Build 26252: Changes and improvements

Lock screen

• We’re beginning to roll out Weather and more to your lock screen starting with this build in the Canary Channel. Stay informed and efficient with dynamic updates that bring finance, traffic, and sports to your Lock screen, alongside weather. The card design has been improved with acrylic blur, card size, spacing, and font optimizations. To turn on this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen . To learn more, see Personalize your lock screen .

Start menu

• You can now also pin apps from the Start menu to the taskbar by dragging and dropping items directly to taskbar from the pinned section in the Start menu.

Settings

• Evaluation copy expiry date information is now visible under Settings > System > About .
• We are beginning to roll out a new energy recommendation for turning off HDR to conserve energy on PCs with HDR displays under Settings > Power & battery > Energy recommendations.

Windows 11 Build 26252: Fixes

Input

• Fixed an issue causing Insiders to see errors when attempting to use Voice Typing with certain languages such as Chinese.
• Fixed an issue where if you went through Windows Setup (OOBE), pinyin would be unexpectedly displayed twice in the list of available input methods.

Task Manager

• Fixed an issue causing colors in the Performance section to not display correctly in dark mode.

Settings

• Fixed an issue causing the icons in Settings > Apps > Startup too be way too large for the available space for some users, causing them to be cut off.
• Fixed an issue where Settings > System > Power & Battery unexpectedly had duplicate text when showing a warning about a slow charger.
• Fixed an issue where the Windows Update page in Settings was not displayed correctly for some Insiders after the previous flight (no text shows). If you are impacted by this, the update to this build with the fix should still happen on its own, however you may need to wait a little bit.