- Windows 11 has a useful change for multiple monitors in a new preview
- You’ll be able to access notifications and the calendar flyout on the secondary monitor
- Previously that wasn’t possible, even though it is in Windows 10
If you use multiple monitors with Windows 11, there’s a change in the pipeline with the taskbar that you’re really going to appreciate.
Windows Central noticed that Microsoft has brought in the ability to access the notification center and calendar flyout in the taskbar on a secondary display. This has happened with the latest preview release of Windows 11 in the Dev channel (build 26200.5722).
It’s currently the case that if you’re running two monitors with Windows 11 you can only access these details on the main display. With the secondary display, the active elements of the system tray – on the far right-hand side of the taskbar – don’t work, meaning all you can do is look at the time and date.
If you want to access the calendar panel (by clicking on the date), you need to mouse across to the primary monitor to do so (and the same is true for checking on notifications).
However, with the new preview build, it’s possible to click on those parts of the taskbar and access the mentioned panels on the secondary monitor.
Analysis: the return of another Windows 10 feature that was ditched
This is another tweak for Windows 11 which sounds like a relatively small move, but it’ll actually be a major convenience for those whose PC setup includes two monitors (or perhaps more). That might be a niche set of people, granted, but it’ll be quite a boon for them – the move has already been welcomed with open arms by some (Windows Central included).
Indeed, you might be wondering why this wasn’t possible in the first place – especially because in Windows 10 you’ve always been able to access these parts of the taskbar on a secondary monitor.
Well, that’s a good question, and it’s not the only piece of functionality that fell by the wayside when Windows 11 arrived. There were quite a few key pieces of the interface and options therein that were mysteriously dropped from Windows 10 in the shift to Windows 11.
They included the ability to move the taskbar away from the bottom of the screen to pick an obvious example (or to ‘never combine’ apps on the taskbar, though that functionality has since been added back).
The reason these decisions were made was apparently down to some of the complexity involved in the changes under the hood with Windows 11 – or at least those were the vague noises Microsoft made some time ago now, by way of a rather unsatisfying explanation.
At any rate, Microsoft acknowledged in the blog post for the new preview build that this change is being made to “address your feedback”, so clearly there have been a fair few complaints about the missing functionality in question.
Note though that this change is only rolling out in testing for now, so not all Windows Insiders will see it (though it is possible to force an enablement, as leaker PhantomOfEarth explains on X).
It’ll probably be a while before this arrives in the finished version of Windows 11, and the feature seems a likely pick for inclusion in the big Windows 11 25H2 update arriving later this year.
