Windows 10 could change the lock screen with a ‘love it or hate it’ effect

Windows 10
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Windows 10 may get some changes to the lock screen and camera settings in the future, or at least these tweaks are present in the latest preview build of the operating system.

The lock screen alteration in particular could prove to be divisive. As spotted by Windows Latest, this is present in preview build 21277 of Windows 10 – albeit hidden away behind experimental flags – and it’ll deliver a parallax (kind of 3D) effect for the lock screen image.

In other words, this will give the lock screen image more depth and will deliver a ‘subtle panning affect’ for devices with an accelerometer, so Windows 10 tablet users will be able to tilt their slate and be suitably impressed (hopefully) with the more dynamic visuals.

If you don’t like the effect – which is entirely possible – then there’s a section of the Settings app that’ll let you switch these parallax shenanigans off, and in that case, you’ll see the normal static lock screen image.

Camera extras

Another hidden move which has been unearthed is the introduction of new camera options (in the Settings app), which include the ability to alter brightness and contrast, preview the camera image, and troubleshoot any technical issues you may be having.

Finally, Windows Latest also notes that the Spotlight feature – which incorporates Bing’s image of the day as your desktop wallpaper, for folks seeking a bit of daily variety with their background – is in the mix and should be arriving as part of the Windows 10 H2 2021 update. That’s the second upgrade for next year, which will purportedly usher in ‘Sun Valley’, a project currently underway at Microsoft which makes sweeping changes to the Windows 10 interface.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).