Microsoft is working on new changes for Windows 10's desktop

Dec 15, 2014 09:23 GMT  ·  By

Windows 10 build 9901 got leaked yesterday, and in addition to Cortana and some other improvements that point to the unification of the desktop and mobile platforms, it also comes with a handful of features that need to be manually activated.

Case in point, a stylish new clock that can be accessed by clicking on the existing tray clock and which shows you the time, a calendar, plus the current time for other user-defined locations across the world.

Basically, the new clock brings Windows 10 for the desktop closer to Windows Phone, as it comes with a design which appears to be inspired by the smartphone market. At the same time, it also reminds of the Modern UI, confirming that Redmond has finally found a way to bring the two closer together.

How to enable it

As mentioned, this new clock is not turned on by default, and in order to enable it, you need to change a small registry setting.

To do this, type “regedit” in the Start menu search box and hit enter. Click “yes” when asked about administrator privileges and navigate to the following location:

code
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\UseWin32TrayClockExperience
Once you're there, look for the ”UseWin32TrayClockExperience” key and set its value to “0.” If it's not there, don't worry. Simply right-click in the right side of the screen and create a new DWORD value with the aforementioned name. Again, set its value to 0 and close the registry editor.

The next time you click on the clock, you shall see the new UI, along with the aforementioned information. If you want to go back to the original configuration, just set the value of the ”UseWin32TrayClockExperience” to “1” or simply delete it completely.

Other features

The new clock also includes an option that launches the “Alarms” app and enables the user to configure the world clock for multiple locations. At this point, both the Alarms app and the new clock appear to be somewhat glitchy, as they both fail to launch every time and might take up to 1 minute to load.

Obviously, nobody should complain about this since both features are in their very early days on Windows 10, and you should really give them a shot to see what they look like.

Of course, you can always return to the original configuration using the steps above in case the new interface of the clock isn't quite the best choice for you.

Windows 10 build 9901 clock (6 Images)

Windows 10 clock
Editing the key in Registry EditorEditing the key in Registry Editor
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