Turn off App vs Toast notifications on the lock screen

Question

I'm looking for some guidance regarding the difference between what an app notification is vs a toast notification, in the context of these two GPO Settings disabling them.

Currently we have both of these GPO settings enabled:
User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Start Menu and Taskbar/Notifications - Turn off toast notifications on the lock screen: Enabled
Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/System/Logon - Turn off app notifications on the lock screen: Enabled

We need to change Turn off app notifications on the lock screen to Disabled/Not Configured to allow an app to work, and I am trying to figure out what notifications this change may now allow to appear on the lock screen. I'm trying to understand what could be considered to be a app notification vs a toast notification.

In my testing so far with Toast notifications: enabled but App notifications: disabled, I am not seeing any typical notifications show up on the lock screen at all, for example: new Teams IMs, Outlook email, or 3rd party apps that create notifications. I am assuming all of these are toast notifications and thus are blocked by the toast setting. Does anyone have an example of what a "App notification" would be in this context?

This is on Windows 10 Enterprise 21H2

Answer 1

Hello,

Basically, Toast is the little banners at the top of the screen. Push notification is the data that allows the phone to alert you with the toast. Often more than not the app will also have a live tile that shows the number of notifications that have come through as a toast but after the banner has disappeared but before you check the notification. So say a Facebook wall post comes through, the alert has been "pushed" to your device, triggering the "toast" at the top of the screen, and if you dismiss it (by swiping it to the right) or simply ignore it, then the Facebook live tile will have a little red number up at the top right corner indicating how many unchecked notifications you may have.

For more information you can check the Microsoft article about Notifications: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/shell/tiles-and-notifications/#notifications

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