How to change or disable Lock Screen widgets on Windows 11

• On Windows 11, you can now customize the lock-screen widgets by going to Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen, turning on the “Widgets” option, and then adding, removing, or rearranging widgets like Weather, Sports, or Traffic.
• If needed, you can disable the entire widget panel with a single toggle.

UPDATED 10/27/2025: On Windows 11, Microsoft now allows you to personalize the widgets displayed on the Lock Screen. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the steps to configure this new setting.

Microsoft has revamped the Lock Screen experience, introducing a new option to select which widgets appear before signing in. In the past, the system automatically displayed widgets for weather, traffic, sports, and watchlist on the Lock Screen, but there was no way to customize them. This limitation made the feature less useful for those who didn’t want to see this information.

Now, the company has addressed this feedback by replacing the “Lock screen status” setting with a new “Widgets” option. This update gives you full control over which widgets appear on the Lock Screen, and now, you can add, rearrange, or remove widgets as needed. Additionally, the feature now supports all available Windows 11 widgets, further enhancing customization.

In this guide, I’ll outline the steps to change the widgets from the Lock Screen on Windows 11.

• Enable widgets in Lock Screen
• Change widgets in Lock Screen
• Disable widgets in Lock Screen
• Enable widgets settings using ViveTool

Enable widgets in Lock Screen

To enable the widgets experience in the Lock Screen, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings on Windows 11.

2. Click on Personalization.

3. Click the Lock Screen page.

4. Turn on the “Widgets” toggle switch (if applicable).

   

Once you complete the steps, the Lock Screen will display the default widgets, which may include Weather, Sports, Watchlist, and Traffic.

Change widgets in Lock Screen

To customize the widgets in the Lock Screen, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings.

2. Click on Personalization.

3. Click the Lock Screen page.

4. Click the “Widgets” setting.

5. Click the Add widget button.

   

6. Choose the widget from the list.

7. Click the Add widget button.

   

8. (Optional) Click the widgets menu on the right and choose the Remove option to remove it from the Lock Screen.

   

9. (Optional) Select and drag a widget to the position you want to appear on the Lock Screen.

10. (Optional) Click the widgets menu on the right, then choose Customize widget to adjust the settings (if applicable).

11. (Optional) Turn on the “Suggest widgets for your lock screen” toggle switch to allow the system to show widgets automatically if there are unused slots. 

After you complete the steps, only the widgets you specified will be available from the Lock Screen.

Alternatively, you can open the settings by tapping the menu button in the Lock Screen widget, then selecting the “Manage widgets” option.

Disable widgets in Lock Screen

To disable and remove the widgets from the Lock Screen, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings.

2. Click on Personalization.

3. Click the Lock Screen page.

4. Turn off the “Widgets” toggle switch.

   

Once you complete the steps, the Lock Screen will no longer show the widgets experience.

Enable widgets settings using ViveTool

If you can’t find the “Widgets” settings after installing the latest operating system update, you may try using ViveTool to force-enable the experience on your computer.

To enable the “Widgets” settings for the Windows 11 Lock Screen, follow these steps:

1. Open the GitHub website.

2. Download the ViveTool-vx.x.x.zip file on your computer.

3. Double-click the zip folder to open it with File Explorer.

4. Click the Extract all button.

   

5. Click the Extract button.

6. Copy the path to the folder.

7. Open Start.

8. Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.

9. Type the following command to navigate to the ViveTool folder and press Enter:

   cd c:\folder\path\ViveTool-v0.x.x

   In the command, remember to change the path to the folder with your path.

10. Type the following command to enable the new Lock Screen widgets experience and press Enter:

    vivetool /enable /id:50179255,53672489

11. Restart the computer.

Once you complete the steps, the new experience will be enabled, and you will be able to control it using the above instructions.

If you want to undo the changes, you can follow the same instructions outlined above, but in step 10, run the vivetool /disable /id:50179255,53672489 command.

Update October 27, 2025: This guide has been updated to ensure accuracy and reflect changes to the process.