During its Windows 11 hybrid work event today, Microsoft announced an array of new features including a tabbed File Explorer. In addition to the features Microsoft highlighted during the event, there was one that might have slipped past all but the most attentive viewers - apparently, there will soon be an option to view the Windows 11 Widgets panel in full-screen mode.

In its current iteration, the Widgets panel opens from the left side of the screen and displays over your desktop or open apps. However, the video shows a user maximizing the Widgets panel to take up the full screen, covering the desktop. This allows many more widgets, as well as news stories from Microsoft Start, to be displayed at once.

That's not all that's new, though. Apparently, the Widgets panel will also simultaneously support work and personal accounts. Currently, the Widgets panel shows different content depending on the kind of account you're using. Personal accounts have widgets for weather, OneDrive photos, sports, and so on, while business users get some widgets that highlight recent files within their organization.

Windows 11 Widgets menu showing personal and work accounts signed in at the same time

In the video, though, when you click your profile picture, you can see a personal and a work account signed in at the same time, and the information displayed seems to be coming from both accounts, too. You can see more work-related widgets on the left side of the screen, and more personal things on the right. It's possible that this is just the way it's organized in this short clip, though, and you may be able to mix and match them at will.

Since this was only briefly shown, there's no indication of when the new Widgets panel improvements will be available for Windows 11 users, or even Windows Insiders. However, there's a good chance it'll happen soon, since many of the features announced today are already available for Insiders. There should be a new build to test this week, so we'll have to wait and see if it includes this change.


Source: Microsoft