Personalization Enable or Disable Peek in Windows 11

Hey!

Great article !!!!!

... and you're my very last hope!
After researching the entire web I found nothing, but your website which shows me what I really need. BUT ...

But there's always a but, because Windows 11 changed (again) something since the last patch I guess because I can NOT do "Peek" like with "WIN" + "," and it's really totally important to me to do it with the mouse.

MS Feedbackhub is already noticed but they don't help as always. So you are my really last help!
If you can not help me, no other one can do.

Sooo...
If I click in this "peek area" I MUST click now to see the desktop.
If I hover over it I "could" normally see the desktop like "WIN" + "," but there's nothing and I need it so bad when I copy files from folder to desktop and so on.

That "Peek Preview" was since years over years implemented in windows, then removed in Win 11, then back again and now only with a click preview'able. WTFrick?

I also noticed they added now a tiny little white bar if I hover in the peek area and also changed the area where I can click to "show" the desktop like in the old days.
In the old days you used to be able to go to really the bottom right to click on it or preview it, which was in Win 11 a pain to get the "right spot".

That was also the case when I was drag & dropping files from a zipped/winrar'ed archive:
Dragging it into the peek area, then hoping to find the right spot and boom, peek preview, there was(!) my desktop.
I miss it sooo bad!
Pffff..., now did they the area bigger like in the old days but I can not hover anymore for drag & drop to the desktop.
What is MS thinking? Oh nooo, let's not discuss that. Haha.

So, please help me out. I bookmarked this site and will regularly watch it for your comments.
Thank you very much in advance!

Sincerely

Hello @forgotmynick, and welcome.

Yeah, the "Peek at desktop" is only available via the Win+, keyboard shortcut now.

If it may help, you can use the the "Show Desktop" shortcut below where you like to make it easier to use than the far right corner of the taskbar. You could also use the shortcut's command to map to a key or mouse button.

Hi,
Yeah ms screwing up peek on hover is pretty silly nice trick on winkey, though

Hello Brink! Thank you very much for welcome me and for your quick response! I'll definitely add this forum to my favorites now.

Unfortunately, your "hint" doesn't help me out and I wonder why MS decide to just delete this functionality just because of what ever. Apparently this seems to be official that MS decided to do this. But it is interesting to know that MacOS has implemented peek at desktop as standard. Totally funny! (just read about that in another web article)
Meanwhile I try to search and find some Windows 11 modpacks who still have something like this installed, but I can't find anything to my problem.
Maybe anyone does have a clue?

@ThrashZone: Yes, it is!

But anyways, thank you very much!

Sincerely

Can I get confirmation that this functionality no longer works? I just upgraded to 22H2 and I no longer have this functionality, just a small bar with a caption which I cannot tell you how much I hate. I need Peek back. Ugh.

CartmansPiehole said:

Can I get confirmation that this functionality no longer works? I just upgraded to 22H2 and I no longer have this functionality, just a small bar with a caption which I cannot tell you how much I hate. I need Peek back. Ugh.

Click to expand...

Hello,

It still works for me.

Just to note, it only works when hovering the pointer on the thumbnail preview of a taskbar icon for an open window.

Windows Peek, enabled...

Brink said:

Hello,

It still works for me.

Just to note, it only works when hovering the pointer on the thumbnail preview of a taskbar icon for an open window.

Click to expand...

I was wondering if you could shed some light on as to why this behavior is happening. I opened up GIMP (it literally could be anything), hovered my mouse on the Taskbar and this is what I saw, not the Window preview. I miss the Window preview, and instead, it basically only gives me a title or caption (however it's labeled). Sorry, I took the pic with my phone, couldn't figure out how to take a screenshot of my entire screen. My newer keyboard doesn't have a print screen option, so I remapped a key for it but it seems to only work when I do ALT+Print Screen and I obviously needed more than the topmost Window to illustrate my problem.

CartmansPiehole said:

I was wondering if you could shed some light on as to why this behavior is happening. I opened up GIMP (it literally could be anything), hovered my mouse on the Taskbar and this is what I saw, not the Window preview. I miss the Window preview, and instead, it basically only gives me a title or caption (however it's labeled). Sorry, I took the pic with my phone, couldn't figure out how to take a screenshot of my entire screen. My newer keyboard doesn't have a print screen option, so I remapped a key for it but it seems to only work when I do ALT+Print Screen and I obviously needed more than the topmost Window to illustrate my problem.

Click to expand...

Check using the tutorial below to see if you may have added and changed the ExtendedUIHoverTime DWORD to a large value effectively disabling taskbar thumbnail previews.

Brink said:

Check using the tutorial below to see if you may have added and changed the ExtendedUIHoverTime DWORD to a large value effectively disabling taskbar thumbnail previews.

Change Hover Time to Show Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to change the hover delay time to show taskbar thumbnail previews for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The setting in this tutorial no longer works starting with at least Windows 11 version 24H2. The taskbar is a horizontal bar at the bottom of your...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

Well I have good news and bad news.

Good news, my Windows 11 decided to update itself. The Mouse-over was automatically fixed.

The bad news, my Taskbar has been locked down pretty severely. I've now lost my Quick Launch toolbar and I only have to options now when right-clicking. This deserves a separate thread IMO, as it's off-topic to the OP's intent.

Not working for me, latest Windows 11 as of 30 March 2024. Using Startallback if that changes anything.

Lamberto Vitali said:

Not working for me, latest Windows 11 as of 30 March 2024. Using Startallback if that changes anything.

Click to expand...

Hello,

What were you wanting to do?

It's possible Startallback could have caused an issue with this, but let's wait and see.

Is this related to your original thread below?

Yes that thread is about the same thing, which has been solved by 7+ taskbar tweaker.

All I wanted was nothing to popup when hovering over my taskbar buttons.

The whole idea of things doing things on hover is absolutely insane. A click should always always be required for something to react. Another example is when you click a menu, try to move to one of the entries in that menu, only to accidentally move the mouse cursor across the title of the next menu for a billionth of a second, so you get the wrong menu opening. The menu should not change without a click. I can find no way to fix that problem.

Lamberto Vitali said:

Yes that thread is about the same thing, which has been solved by 7+ taskbar tweaker.

All I wanted was nothing to popup when hovering over my taskbar buttons.

The whole idea of things doing things on hover is absolutely insane. A click should always always be required for something to react. Another example is when you click a menu, try to move to one of the entries in that menu, only to accidentally move the mouse cursor across the title of the next menu for a billionth of a second, so you get the wrong menu opening. The menu should not change without a click. I can find no way to fix that problem.

Click to expand...

Ok. That is for taskbar thumbnail previews below instead. If you use a very long delay time (ex: 10000 milliseconds), it will effectively disable showing taskbar thumbnail previews when hovering on a taskbar icon.

AFAIK there are two things - a line of text, and a thumbnail. I randomly got either of them.

Lamberto Vitali said:

AFAIK there are two things - a line of text, and a thumbnail. I randomly got either of them.

Click to expand...

You'd normally only see the thumbnail preview when you hover over a taskbar icon of an open item. Otherwise, you'd only see the line of text to let you know which app the taskbar icon is for.

I tried having program A maximised, then program B on top of it, then hovered over program A's button. Randomly I'd get either text or thumbnail.

We shouldn't have this stupid thing in the first place, and if we do, it should be easy to turn off in the control panel. MS don't have a clue how to make an interface. It's the little things which annoy you every day....