Windows 10: Turn On or Off Peek at Desktop in Windows 10

How to: Turn On or Off Peek at Desktop in Windows 10

How to Turn On or Off Peek at Desktop in Windows 10


You can use Peek (aka: Aero Peek) to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar. This can be useful for quickly viewing desktop icons and folders, or when you dont want to minimize all open windows and then have to restore them.

Peek also allows you to see taskbar thumbnail live previews of open items when you hover over their taskbar thumbnail.

Peek is turned on by default in Windows 10.

This tutorial will show you different ways on how to turn on or off Peek to preview the desktop for your account in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Turn On or Off Peek from Show Desktop Button
• Option Two: To Turn On or Off Peek in Settings app
• Option Three: To Enable or Disable Peek in Visual Effects Settings
• Option Four: To Turn On or Off Peek using a BAT file

EXAMPLE: Peek at desktop




EXAMPLE: Taskbar thumbnail live preview









OPTION ONE [/i] To Turn On or Off Peek from Show Desktop Button
1. Right click or press and hold on the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar (just to the right of the clock), and click/tap on Peek at desktop to check (turn on) or uncheck (turn off) for what you want. (see screenshot below)

*note If Peek at desktop is grayed out, then you will need to check Enable Peek in Option Three:.









OPTION TWO [/i] To Turn On or Off Peek in Settings app
1. Open Settings, and click/tap on the Personalization icon.

2. Click/tap on Taskbar on the left side, and turn on or off Use Peek to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar on the right side for what you want. (see screenshot below)

*note If Use Peek to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar is grayed out, then you will need to check Enable Peek in Option Three:.

3. You can now close Settings if you like.









OPTION THREE [/i] To Enable or Disable Peek in Visual Effects Settings
1. Open your Visual Effects settings.

2. Check (turn on) or uncheck (turn off) Enable Peek for what you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)









OPTION FOUR [/i] To Turn On or Off Peek using a BAT file

*note The downloadable .bat files below will modify the DWORD values in the registry keys below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
DisablePreviewDesktop DWORD

0 = On
1 = Off

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM
EnableAeroPeek DWORD

0 = Off
1 = On
1. Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.


2. To Turn On Peek
*note This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_On_Peek.bat

Download

3. To Turn Off Peek
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_Off_Peek.bat

Download
4. Save the .bat file to your desktop.

5. Unblock the .bat file, and run it.

6. You will now notice your screen flicker as a command prompt quickly opens and closes to apply the registry changes and restart explorer.

7. You can now delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Enable or Disable Aero Shake in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Aero Snap in Windows 10
• How to Change Taskbar Thumbnail Live Preview Hover Delay Time in Windows 10

:)

 

Buggy taskbar Windows 10/ twitchy show desktop/ peek button.

Hi,



Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for posting your query.



Let’s turn off the Peek option and check. Follow the below step.

• 
  Right click on the Windows task bar and click on Properties.
  
• 
  Uncheck the option Use Peek to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Sow desktop button at the end of the taskbar.
  
• 
  Now click on Apply and click on
  OK.
  

Hope this helps. If you need further assistance with Windows, let us know and will be glad to help.

 

Windows peek/taskbar Thumbnail not working (Help)

Hi Elias,

We may need to change some settings to enable the peek option. Follow the steps below:

• Open Settings.
  
• Click Personalization.
  
• Select Taskbar on the left pane.
  
• Locate Use Peek to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar option, turn it
  ON.

Let us know if you need anything else. We're here to help.

 

turn on peek button in windows 10

how do I turn on peek button in windows 10

 

Windows "aero-peek" reqularly only presents blank program icon

Hi!

1. This happens with UWP programs and with "normal" ones. For example this happens with Spotify downloaded from Windows store and with Office products like Word and Excel which are not UWP programs.

2. This issue has been present for several months now.

3. Yes I have F-secure Safe installed and running

Aero peek is already enabled from visual settings, as mentioned on my first post, aero peek does work but regularly it just stops working.

I have already the latest display drivers installed. Also as I have been facing this issue for months now, I have updated my display drivers several times during this with no effect.

You can barely see it in the picture, but below the "blank" program icon you can see spotify controls that are part of the Spotify aero peek. So the aero peek is there but the blank program icon prints on top of it.

 

Windows "aero-peek" reqularly only presents blank program icon

Hello Eemi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Please provide some additional information, so that we can assist you better.

1. Where did you downloaded the application?
   
2. Since when are you facing this issue?
   
3. Have you installed any security software program on your PC?
   

You can use Peek to preview the desktop when you move your mouse to the Show desktop button at the end of the taskbar. This can be useful for quickly viewing desktop icons and folders, or when you don’t want to minimize all open
windows and then have to restore them.

I suggest you to follow below mentioned steps and see if that helps:

Step 1:
Check the Visual effects settings.

1. Open ‘’Windows +R’’ and type ‘’Sysdm.cpl’’
   
2. Select ‘‘Advanced tab’’ on the top left hand corner.
   
3. Click “Settings’’ under ‘’Performance’’.
   
4. Click on ‘’Let Windows choose what’s best my computer’’
   
5. Check the option ‘’Enable Aero Peek’’.
   
6. Click on ‘‘Apply’’ and ‘’Ok’’.
   
7. Restart the computer.
   

Step 2: Update the display driver and restart the computer to effect the settings. Follow the Microsoft article on
how to update drivers.



Hope it helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking ‘Yes or No’.

Harish

Microsoft Community – Moderator