Problems Solved
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Can I enlarge Peek on my desktop?
Q I was interested to learn in Issue 610 that a Windows tool I often use is called the Peek bar. Is there a way I can make this bigger? When displaying my desktop in Teams meetings, I often need to return to the desktop to access other folders, but the red Teams display window covers this Peek bar, so trying to click it can be rather hit and miss. Can you advise?
Ian Henderson
A Strictly speaking, this mere sliver of a button is called ‘Show desktop’, not Peek. However, hovering the mouse pointer over it activates a feature called Peek, so many people, including us here at Computeractive, simply call it that.
Naming aside, although many users would no doubt appreciate the ability to change the size of the Peek strip, there is unfortunately no such option. Microsoft’s idea is that you simply drag the mouse pointer over to the very bottom right of the screen and hover there without giving it much thought. This triggers the Peek feature, which lets you ‘see through’ all the currently displayed windows, or click to switch to the desktop. That’s all well and good, but the logic instantly falls apart if you use more than one monitor, because the mouse pointer just keeps going to next screen – and the Peek strip is a very small target when you’re trying to hit it intentionally. It’s also a bit useless if pop-up notifications get in the way, as happens to you regularly.
One workaround is to disable some or all notifications so that the bottom-right of the screen is never obscured. To do this, first click Start followed by the Settings cog and then System followed by ‘Notifications & actions’. Next, under the Notifications heading, either click to flip the), or scroll down to find sliders that control notifications from individual apps.
