It seems that news is coming for Windows 10: yes, the “old” operating system that Microsoft had put some time ago in “maintenance mode”, focusing its energies on Windows 11 and limiting itself to security updates and little else. The latest build of the system released in the Release Preview channel for Insiders includes a new widget for the Lock Screen.
The widget is the same one that was spotted a few days ago in the first Windows 11 Insider build of the year, although to enable it you need to resort to external tools: it is dedicated to the weather, has renewed graphics compared to the previous version and allows you to access much more data and information without the need to unlock the device (via Edge browser). According to Microsoft, it will be available in stable Windows 10 within a few weeks.
Microsoft’s change of direction, and the choice to positively re-evaluate the importance that Windows 10 still holds on the market (it is still the most popular version of Windows according to multiple statistics, and by far!), is probably to be found in the significant turmoil at the management level that we have observed in recent months, with the departure of Panos Panay. The new guard clearly intends to bring Windows 10 closer, at least on a functional level, to Windows 11, and therefore the (one could argue marginal) weather widget that is the subject of this article will not be an isolated case.
Microsoft has already said that it will also bring Copilot, the virtual assistant based on generative artificial intelligence, to Windows 10, and apparently it also intends to revive the Insider program with the reopening of the Beta channel (at the moment the only option available is Release Preview). However, it is worth noting that the system is now on its way out: the original plan to end support in October 2025, just over ten years after its debut, has remained unchanged. In short, it is to be expected that it will not quite reach feature parity with its successor.