What you need to know
- Microsoft is working on new flyouts for Windows Spotlight.
- Windows Spotlight allows you to have a new image appear as your desktop wallpaper each day.
- The new flyouts provide a wider variety of options for finding out more about images or expanding the flyouts.
- To see the new options, you have to be a Beta Channel Insider and enable the feature through Vivetool.
Windows Spotlight is a handy way to get new images as your PC's background. The feature rotates a new wallpaper each day based on topics of your choosing. It helps keep the desktop fresh and is a simple way to break up some monotony. The feature also includes a flyout to learn more about the image that's been set as your background. To see that flyout, you need to right-click on the "learn more" icon.
The icon that's part of Windows Spotlight has received hate over the years. There are even tools dedicated to removing it. But for those that like learning more about the images that appear on their screen, an upcoming change to Windows 11 will be a welcome addition. As spotted by X (formerly Twitter) user Phantomofearth, the Desktop Spotlight hotspots experience is about to have a few flyout options that appear after right-clicking to learn more.
The new feature requires some tinkering to enable. First, you have to be on Windows 11 Build 226353.4145, which is available to Beta Channel Insiders at the moment. You then have to enable the feature using Vivetool. A different X user noted that the ID is also available in the latest Canary build of Windows 11, but they were unable to enable it while running that build.
To try this out: vivetool /enable /id:52793632 /variant:X (replacing X with 1, 2 or 3).If the above command doesn't work, enable 48433719 and reboot.Variants 2 and 3 below. pic.twitter.com/Hk8XENToZCAugust 30, 2024
It's probably not worth going through that hassle on your system, since the options should make their way to general availability in the future, assuming there aren't any issues with it. But if you absolutely need to try different flyouts for Windows Spotlight, Phantomofearth shared the required details on X.
Since this feature is in such early and limited testing, there's a good chance that it will change before it rolls out to everyone. Microsoft may be testing several options with the intention of just picking one. Phantomofearth noted to me that Microsoft has only documented two of the three variants shown on X.
The three options are rather straightforward. You can choose between a smaller flyout menu that doesn't have any search links and lacks the option to minimize the flyout. There's also a minimized flyout that lacks an option to expand. As you'd expect, the is also the option to continue to use the current flyout available for Windows Spotlight.
I personally prefer a spotlight image without any prompts, but I appreciate many like to learn about the source of images and how the photos were captured.
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