Report: Microsoft May Let Windows 11 Users Pin Widgets to the Desktop

Microsoft is planning to allow Windows 11 users to pin widgets on the desktop, according to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden. The company recently added support for third-party widgets on Windows 11, and it’s also been testing other updates for the Widgets Board with Windows Insiders.

“According to my sources, Microsoft plans to take the widgets experience one step further by allowing users to pin them directly to the desktop, a move that Microsoft hopes will increase engagement with widgets,” Bowden reported. “The experience will work similarly to how Windows Desktop Gadgets used to work on Windows 7, with them being placeable anywhere on the desktop.”

As you may remember, Microsoft originally launched desktop gadgets with Windows Vista, and Windows 7 later made it easier for applications to install these gadgets on the desktop. Microsoft later removed these desktop gadgets on Windows 8 as the redesigned (and controversial) Start Menu made Live Tiles front and center.

Fast forward to 2021, Live Tiles are dead on Windows 11, but there’s a customizable Widgets board with a personalized newsfeed powered by the company’s Start (previously MSN) platform. In addition to Microsoft’s own widgets for Outlook, Microsoft To Do, OneDrive Photos, or Xbox Game Pass, there are now third-party widgets for Facebook Messenger and Spotify.

Microsoft is still courting developers to create widgets for their Microsoft Store apps, and the company will be discussing how widgets can help to increase user engagement at its Build developer conference later this month. Nearly two years after the launch of Windows 11, it doesn’t seem like the Widgets Board is something users really love, though maybe these widgets pinnable on the desktop will change that. However, it would be quite ironic to see desktop widgets make a comeback a little more than 10 years after Microsoft killed them on Windows 8.