When you are giving a presentation and suddenly, your computer’s screensaver suddenly kicks in, or notifications start popping up, interrupting your presentation and the audience’s concentration. Windows has a solution for this called Presentation mode. It is available on Windows 10 and 11 and is designed to help you give a presentation without distractions.

This guide discusses steps to enable presentation mode, customise its settings and create a desktop shortcut.

Also read: How to restart a Windows 11 laptop with the keyboard?

What is the Presentation mode?

Presentation Mode is a bit like your smartphone’s Do Not Disturb (DND) mode. Its main job is to silence the notifications that keep popping up from different apps. So, if you’re getting new emails or alerts, it’ll keep them quiet until enabled.

It will silence even alerts like calendars and reminders. Before you start a presentation with Microsoft PowerPoint, it’s a good idea to turn on Presentation Mode in Windows 10. It helps you to do your presentation without being interrupted.

Microsoft introduced this feature back in Windows Vista, and now it’s in all Windows 10 and 11 versions, except for the Home edition.

How do you enable the Presentation mode?

A direct way to enable the Presentation mode is through the Windows Mobility Center. To enable the presentation mode, follow the steps below:

Step 1: In the Windows settings, type Mobility Center and click on the first result, which will be Windows Mobility Center.

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Step 2: In the Windows Mobility Center, click the Turn on button under Presentation Settings.

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How to customise presentation settings?

When you turn on Presentation Mode in Windows 10 or 11, you get some useful options. You can change your background picture, screen saver, and volume settings, and these changes will stay the same while Presentation Mode is on. To customise these settings, follow the steps below:

Step 1: In the Windows search, type presentationsettings.exe and click on the first result.

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Step 2: You can customise the following settings:

I am currently giving a presentation: When you checkmark this setting, it will enable the presentation mode, which means your PC will stay awake, and notifications will be disabled.
Turn off the screen saver: When you check to mark its settings, it will disable the screensaver till you are presenting.
Set the volume to: It will allow you to set it as you prefer.
Show this background: This setting will allow you to set a preferable background; you can browse images from your PC and also set its position.

After you are done customising the presentation settings, click on the OK button.

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Add a desktop shortcut to presentation mode

Shortcuts are a convenient way to access anything on your PC. If you give presentations frequently, then you need a shortcut for presentation mode to access it quickly. To create a shortcut for presentation mode, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Right-click on an empty space on your desktop and then in the menu, click on New and then Shortcut.

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Step 2: Now copy and paste the path C:Windows/System32/PresentationSettings.exe in the Type the location of the item box and then click on the Next button.