Summary

  • Windows 11 lock screen now has media controls for easy adjustment without logging in.
  • New update allows users to disable notification suggestions from certain apps.
  • Beware of bugs like explorer.exe crashing when opening archive files in this update.

It seems that Microsoft's newest focus with Windows 11 is making the lock screen more useful. Last month, we saw an Insider build go out that added some handy widgets to the Windows 11 lock screen to bring some life to the otherwise barren display. Now, Microsoft has added a means to control your media from your lock screen, which sounds like a really convenient way to adjust what's playing without needing to log into your computer.

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The Windows 11 lock screen gets media controls on the beta channel

The new media controls
Image Credit: Microsoft

The newest Beta branch for Windows 11 is now in preview, and the highlight of the patch is the media controls added to the lock screen. Now, Windows 11 can detect when you're playing media and adds a simple player to the lock screen. You can use it to pause and play, skip ahead, and go back, which makes it really useful to quickly adjust what's playing.

That's not all the patch contains, though. You can now, in a weird sort of way, disable the notifications that ask you if you want to disable a notification:

If desired, there’s now an option to turn off the suggestions to disable notifications from certain apps. You can now press the “…” within the notification to disable the notification, as you can with other notifications, or you can go to the list of notification senders in Settings > System > Notifications and turn it off from there (called “Notification Suggestions” in the list). Note – this entry will only appear in the senders list after you have received one.

Unfortunately, the update does introduce some nasty bugs. For instance, the explorer.exe process may crash when you interact with an archive file, and it might encounter issues when going to Home. Otherwise, if you want to check out this new update, be sure to sign up for the Windows Insider program to get it.