Most phones and tablets include little motors that buzz when you perform common actions such as typing, or when apps notify users of important events. Microsoft may be about to bring similar good vibrations to the PC with features that see Windows 11 make your mouse or touchpad tremble when you perform UI actions such as snapping windows into place.
As spotted by X user Phantomofearth, there's a new, hidden setting in the latest Beta and Dev builds of Windows (build number 26220.7070) that allows you to enable haptic feedback for certain UI functions and to control the strength of the buzz. Invisible by default and not-yet-working (even if you have a haptic mouse), the new controls live under Bluetooth & Devices -> Mouse in the Settings app.
The interface for this feature presents a toggle and a slider. The latter regulates the intensity of the buzz. The on/off toggle with title "Haptic signals" has a subhead that reads "Feel subtle vibrations when you snap windows, align objects, and more." Aside from the fact that Microsoft uses an Oxford comma, we learn here that several different actions would trigger a buzz, but that only one of these is readily apparent.
Using Windows Snap, which splits your screen between two windows when you drag one into the side of the desktop, will trigger a buzz if this feature becomes real. It's unclear what Microsoft means by "align objects" or "and more."
It's worth noting that several Windows laptops, including some of Lenovo's ThinkPads, Dell's XPS and Premium laptops, and Microsoft's own Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Laptop Studio, have haptic touchpads that buzz to simulate a click when you touch them. These are likely the devices that will support Microsoft's new "haptic signals" in the UI when and if Windows adds them. Some standalone mice also have haptics, including the new Logitech MX Master 4 and G Pro X2 Superstrike models.
So buzzing on a PC is not new, but adding that feedback into the OS as a response to certain UI actions is another rumbling step forward into a deliberately shaky future. Whether Microsoft is serious about adding this capability and when it might appear are open questions.
Right now, the settings that allow you to enable and control the "haptic signals" are hidden, even from Windows Insiders. If you have Windows build 26220.7070 installed, you can make the settings appear by using ViveTool, a utility that reveals hidden Windows features, though the functionality behind them still doesn't work.
To make the settings appear, first download ViveTool and unzip it to a folder called C:\vive. Next, open an administrative command prompt, which you can do by searching for cmd, right clicking, and selecting the "Run as Administrator" option.
Then, in the command prompt window, change to the C:\vive directory.
After that, enter the following command to enable the hidden Settings menu.
Then reboot your computer. When you log in next, you should be able to see the new settings under the mouse menu in Settings. You can even play with the toggle and slider, but at the moment, it won't actually do anything ... except whet your appetite for making a future version of Windows buzz. ®
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