Customize the Lock and Sign-In Screens

The Lock screen appears when you power on or wake up your PC. It provides a number of useful displays, including the date and time, an alert from a single app, and a high-quality photo that changes every day by default.

When you click past the Lock screen, Windows 11 will display the Sign-in screen, where you authenticate your account and sign in to Windows.

Windows 11 offers only a few ways to customize the Lock screen and Sign-in screen. To do so, open Settings (WINKEY + I) and navigate to Personalization > Lock screen.

The following settings are available:
Choose a background
By default, the Lock screen uses a feature called Windows Spotlight to provide a new, high-quality background photo from Bing every day.

The images provided by Windows Spotlight are very nice, and they are typically accompanied by some informational bubbles that provide you with more details about that day's photo.

But Windows Showcase also displays advertising bubbles for Microsoft products and services like the Microsoft Edge web browser, the Microsoft Store, and so on.

If this is undesirable to you, the only way you can remove these ads is to disable Windows Spotlight and choose your own picture or slideshow instead.

But you can configure the Lock screen to display your own photo or a slideshow of your own photos. This may be desirable regardless of your feelings about the subtle ads that Microsoft puts on the Lock screen.

To do so, select the drop-down next to "Personalize your lock screen."

Choose an app to deliver Detailed status alerts
Windows 11 lets you configure one app to deliver Detailed status alerts on the home screen. And not just any app will do: in a typical Windows 11 install, only three bundled apps---Calendar, Mail, and Weather---qualify.

Calendar is the default choice, and as you might imagine, it displays your next event or meeting right on the Lock screen so you know what's next when you wake up or turn on your PC.

To configure a different app to deliver detailed status alerts, select the drop-down next to "Lock screen status" and choose accordingly.

To disable Detailed status alerts, set it to "None."
Where did it go?
Unlike with Windows 10, the Windows 11 Lock screen doesn't let you configure up to 7 apps that can display Quick status alerts, which were a much simpler type of icon-based alert. There is no workaround.
Show the Lock screen background on the Sign-in screen
By default, Windows 11 displays the same background on the Sign-in screen as it does on the Lock screen. This makes the transition between the two more seamless and, we think, more attractive. But if this is undesirable, you can disable the use of the Lock screen background on the Sign-in screen.

To do so, change the setting "Show the lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" to Off.
Make the lock screen background react when you move the PC
This option only appears when you have one or more e...