Microsoft made a slew of announcements for Windows 11 as a part of what is often referred to as the Moment 2 update. The latest update, which is not rolling out to all Windows 11 users, mostly brings enhancements and improvements to existing features. For instance, the taskbar has been optimised for touch devices, the Snipping Tool has received a new feature, and most importantly, the Phone Link app now supports the iPhone.
You can read our coverage of the new ability of the Phone Link app to connect to the iPhone separately. In this article, I am going to talk about the Snipping Tool, Notepad, and support for third-party widgets. All of these features are now rolling out to everyone, so it may take some time for certain users to receive them before others.
New Snipping Tool
The Snipping Tool has been a handy tool, letting you take customisable screenshots, as opposed to the screen grab of the entire screen when you press ‘prt sc’. The new update adds the ability to record your screen activity to the Snipping Tool. You can select the area of your screen you want to record and hit the record button. This can be helpful in recording steps to solving something or navigating to a feature.
Although screen recording on Windows 11 has been available through the Xbox app, there were a few limitations. You could not record the desktop or minimise the app during recording. The availability of the screen recording feature in the Snipping Tool makes it more convenient.
New Notepad
Microsoft had previously hinted that most of its applications would get tabs to make your work more streamlined. The File Explorer received the support for tabs in the last update and this one adds tabs to Notepad. Instead of opening multiple Notepad windows, you can now open multiple tabs within one window to work separately. The new update also brings a new indicator for unsaved changes to a file.
Third-party Widgets
Microsoft has finally added support for third-party widgets in the Widgets panel. Usually available on the left side of the taskbar, the Widgets panel now features widgets from third-party apps such as Facebook Messenger, Spotify, and the Xbox Game Pass app. A screenshot shared by Microsoft shows Spotify playlists in the widget and chats in the Messenger widget.
The number of third-party widgets is limited right now, but you can expect more widgets to be available in the coming weeks.