Aero Peek lives on in Windows 11 through this app

If you’ve upgraded your PC from Windows 10 to 11, then you might’ve noticed that in the process, a small-yet-useful system tool inexplicably dissipated into the ether. This tool is Aero Peek, and its removal certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by some tech enthusiasts.

Windows Aero Peek lets you quickly glance at your desktop without directly minimizing or closing your app windows — its proven to be a useful tool to some, and an absolute nuisance to others.

With Windows 10 support coming to an end on October 14 of this year, and with no signs of Microsoft porting the feature over to Windows 11 anytime soon, it comes at no surprise to me that a new third-party Aero Peek mod for the latter OS has hit the scene.

What is Windows Aero Peek?

This handy feature makes glancing at your desktop a breeze

Microsoft first introduced Aero Peek in 2009’s Windows 7 release. The feature provides quick access to your desktop via a small button located in the right-hand corner of the OS’s taskbar.

When in a desktop environment crowded by open windows and running apps, a quick slide of your mouse onto the bottom display region triggers a glanceable quick-view of your desktop, temporarily removing windows and other obfuscations until you move your mouse cursor off of the button again.

A similar ‘show desktop’ button existed prior to Windows 7, but Aero Peek mounted the button in a more accessible location, and added in the useful ‘hover to peek’ behavior.

Microsoft rebranded the feature from ‘Aero Peek’ to ‘Peek to preview the desktop’ in Windows 10, and then removed the feature entirely when it rebuilt its taskbar code from scratch in Windows 11.

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How do I add Aero Peek to my Windows 11 PC?

The Windhawk program is your gateway to Aero Peek revival

Microsoft may have turned its back on Aero Peek, but you can always count on community modders and Windows enthusiasts to offer up third-party tools and workarounds.

Windhawk is a customization marketplace for Windows that lets you plug in various ‘mods,’ each of which performs a given duty. There are a ton of options to choose from, but the freshly-minted Taskbar Show Desktop Button Aero Peek mod is the one we’re interested in today.

To set up Aero Peek on your Windows 11 PC via the Windhawk program, follow these steps:

1. Download and install the Windhawk app onto your computer.
2. Click or tap on the Explore button > type Taskbar Show Desktop Button Aero Peek into the search field.
3. From here, download and install the Windhawk mod.
4. Restart your PC for the mod to take effect.

In my experience, the Taskbar Show Desktop Button Aero Peek Windhawk mod works as advertised. I had no trouble getting the tool up and running, and I’ve yet to encounter any stability issues or OS crashes.

I will say that while the feature works as intended, it lacks the visual polish that I remember so fondly from the Windows 7 days. When peeking at your desktop in Windows 7, a visually pleasing god ray effect displays on-screen, as well as a subtle outline of all your open windows.

Somewhere along the way — likely during Microsoft’s switch from Aero theming to Windows 8’s Metro design language — Aero Peek’s visual flourishes were gutted from the OS. This Windhawk mod solution is straight to the point, and it lacks any fancy animations or transition effects.

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Will Microsoft ever bring back Aero Peek?

Windows 11 development continues to trek forward, but I wouldn’t expect the return of Aero Peek anytime soon

Microsoft / Pocket-lint

When Windows 11 launched in 2021, it in many ways felt underbaked. Microsoft’s rebuilding of various shell components with modern code is a step in the right direction for the Windows platform as a whole, but the company failed to port over many of the features that were previously staples of the near-forty-year-old OS in the process.

Thankfully, Microsoft has been improving on the porting-old-features front, and Windows 11’s taskbar now boasts the return of such features as displaying seconds on the system tray clock, labeling and ungrouping apps, and more. We’re still waiting for the reintroduction of taskbar resizing and repositioning, but there’s evidence to suggest that this is also on Microsoft’s radar.

Unfortunately, however, I wouldn’t expect the return of Aero Peek anytime soon. While the show desktop button remains a core part of the modern Windows 11 experience, Aero Peek itself has never enjoyed the same level of enthusiasm or fanfare that some other taskbar tools have received over the years.

In fact, many users initially complained that Aero Peek was a hindrance to their workflow — its use of Fitts’s Law certainly made the feature easily accessible and within reach, but this came at the expense of triggering it on accident — a frustrating ocurrance for those not in-the-know about the feature.

In any case, if you find yourself missing this once-notable Windows function, or if you simply want to experience a quick blast from the past, then Windhawk is currently the best way to graft Peek Aero onto your Windows 11 PC.

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