How to Remove News and Interests From the Taskbar
News and Interests is a widget which sits on your Windows 10 taskbar to display the weather. Selecting it displays other stories, sports scores, and more. Windows 11 transforms this entire feature into a menu which opens on the taskbar via the Widgets button. Aside from the weather widget not displaying directly on the taskbar, all the same items are available. To get to them, simply select the Widgets button and the panel will slide out from the left side of the screen. Disabling the button will clean up your taskbar and prevent you from accidentally opening it. But doing so is a little different from how it works in the previous version of Windows, but still very easy to do. We’ll step you through each method.
Use the Taskbar
The Widgets button sits on the taskbar, so removing it directly from there is by far the quickest and easiest way to turn off News and Interests. Simply right-click the Widgets button and choose Unpin from taskbar.
Use Settings
The Windows 11 Settings is another way to edit what’s visible on the taskbar. There are a few extra steps compared to the easier method above, but still very straightforward.
Use the Registry
If Windows 11 isn’t activated, there are some personalization settings you aren’t allowed to access. The taskbar settings is one of those settings. But you can still disable the Widgets/News and Interests taskbar button from the Windows Registry. Another way to get there is by right-clicking an empty area of the taskbar and choosing Taskbar settings.
News and Interests Isn’t Really Turned Off
It’s common for something to be accessible multiple ways in Windows, and the Widgets panel is no different. The button on the taskbar is really just a shortcut to this feature, so it’s no surprise you can still open the menu without using that button. Disabling the Widgets button simply makes it inaccessible from the taskbar. Widgets can still be accessed by swiping inward from the left edge of the screen, or via a keyboard shortcut: Despite the taskbar no longer having a Widgets button, pressing those keys together will still trigger the panel. It will slide out from the left side of the screen, making the weather, news stories, etc. accessible again, without needing to use the button.
