Widgets in Windows 11: Keep the Weather, Hide the News (and News and Interests on Windows 10)

On Windows 11, news and weather live in Widgets: the weather icon at the left of the taskbar, which opens a panel of cards for weather, calendar, stocks, sports and more, plus a news feed called Discover. Press Windows key + W to open it. To hide the news but keep weather and other cards, open Widgets, select Settings, and switch Discover off (older versions call it Show or hide feeds). To remove Widgets from the taskbar entirely, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar and turn Widgets off. To stop the panel opening when you point at it, turn off Open on hover. On Windows 10, the equivalent is News and interests, which you hide by right-clicking the taskbar. Weather can also appear on the lock screen. This page began in 2020 as news of Microsoft's News Bar beta, the experiment that led to these features.

Ethan liked seeing the temperature in the corner of his screen, but he did not like the panel of celebrity stories and ads that slid out whenever his mouse drifted to the left of the taskbar. He asked Jake whether he had to choose between weather and peace. Jake showed him three switches. Open on hover went off, so the panel opened only when he clicked it. Discover went off, so the panel showed weather, his calendar and a stock he followed, with no feed beneath. And the lock screen got a weather card of its own, so he saw the forecast before he even signed in. Ethan kept the weather and lost the noise. This page explains every option for news and weather on the Windows desktop, including how to remove them completely and what to use instead.

Widgets in Windows 11

Widgets is the Windows 11 feature for quick information at a glance. On the taskbar, it usually appears as the current weather, a temperature and an icon, at the far left when the taskbar icons are centered, or as a widgets icon next to Start when they are aligned left. Selecting it, or pressing Windows key + W, opens the widgets board, a panel that slides out from the left edge of the screen.

The board holds small cards called widgets. Microsoft provides widgets for weather, calendar, to-do lists, photos, stocks, sports scores, traffic, family safety, tips and more, and many apps add their own, such as Phone Link, Xbox Game Bar and music apps. You can add, remove, resize and rearrange them. Below or beside your widgets, depending on the version, sits a news feed from MSN, called Discover in recent versions, with headlines, videos and sponsored content chosen by Microsoft based on your interests and location.

Widgets runs as part of a component called the Windows Web Experience Pack, which updates through the Microsoft Store separately from Windows itself. That is why the board's look and settings change more often than the rest of Windows, and why two PCs on the same version of Windows can show slightly different options. The instructions on this page give the current names first, with older names where they differ.

Where each setting lives

Names shift slightly between updates, but each setting stays in roughly the same place. If a menu item described here is missing, update Windows and the Web Experience Pack, then look again.

Hide the news feed but keep weather

Many people want what Ethan wanted: the weather and a few useful cards, without the stream of news and ads. Windows 11 now allows exactly that.

1. Press Windows key + W, or select the weather on the taskbar, to open the widgets board.
2. Select the Settings button (the gear icon) at the top of the board.
3. Under Dashboards, find Discover and switch it Off.
4. On older versions, choose Show or hide feeds instead and switch Feed off.
5. Close Settings and reopen the board to confirm only your widgets remain.

With the feed off, the board shows only the widgets you have added, and the taskbar still shows the weather. You can turn the feed back on at any time from the same setting. If you do not see a Discover or feed option, update the Windows Web Experience Pack through the Microsoft Store's Library page and install the latest Windows updates, since the option arrived in a later version of Widgets.

Microsoft has also been testing quieter defaults for Widgets in 2026, with Insider builds turning off open-on-hover, hiding the Discover feed, removing the red notification badges and stopping animated alerts on the taskbar icon until you use Widgets. Those defaults may reach all PCs in time, but the settings on this page let you have them now.

Turning off Discover is also a good choice on shared family PCs, where the feed's stories are shaped by whoever uses it most and may not suit children. Each Windows account has its own Widgets settings, so set them for every account that uses the PC.

Stop Widgets opening on hover

By default on many PCs, the widgets board opens when you simply point at the weather on the taskbar, which is the main source of annoyance for people who never meant to open it. To change that, open the widgets board, select Settings, and turn off Open widgets board on hover, sometimes shown as Open on hover. After that, the board opens only when you click the weather or press Windows key + W.

The same settings page can also control taskbar badges and notification badges, the small red dots or numbers that appear on the widgets icon, and whether the icon shows dynamic content such as breaking news, severe weather or stock moves instead of the weather. Turning these off keeps the taskbar calm. Our guide to taskbar badge notifications covers badges for other apps too.

Touch screens and keyboard shortcuts

On a touch screen PC or tablet, swiping in from the left edge of the screen opens the widgets board, the same as Windows key + W on a keyboard. That swipe can trigger by accident when you scroll near the edge. If it bothers you, turning Widgets off in taskbar settings or by policy stops it, and some versions of Windows include a setting under touch gestures to control edge swipes.

With a keyboard, Windows key + W toggles the board open and closed, and the Escape key closes it. Inside the board, the Tab and arrow keys move between widgets, and Enter opens the selected item, which helps people who use a keyboard rather than a mouse. Screen readers such as Narrator read widget content aloud.

Remove Widgets from the taskbar

If you do not want Widgets at all, removing it from the taskbar takes a few seconds:

1. Right-click an empty part of the taskbar and choose Taskbar settings, or open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.
2. Under Taskbar items, switch Widgets off.
3. The weather and widgets icon disappear from the taskbar immediately.

This hides the entry point but does not remove the feature. Windows key + W may still open the board, and the Widgets process may still run in the background. For most people, hiding is enough. For complete removal, see the sections below on policies and uninstalling. The taskbar settings page also lets you change alignment and other items; our guides to customizing the Start menu and taskbar and moving the Windows 11 taskbar cover the rest.

Hiding Widgets also frees space on the taskbar. On smaller laptop screens, the weather, search box and Copilot can crowd out pinned apps, and removing one or two of them gives open windows more room. Pinning only the apps you use daily keeps the rest tidy.

Customize your widgets

To add a widget, open the board and select the plus button (Add widgets), then choose from the list. Microsoft's own widgets appear alongside those from installed apps, and the Microsoft Store lists more. To remove a widget, select the three dots on its card and choose Unpin widget. The same menu offers Small, Medium and Large sizes and a Customize option for settings such as the weather location or the stocks you follow.

Drag widgets by their top edge to rearrange them. Pinned widgets appear at the top of the board, in the order you set. For the weather widget, set your location manually if the automatic one is wrong, which often happens on desktops without location services, and choose Fahrenheit or Celsius. The weather shown on the taskbar follows the weather widget's location.

Signing in matters for some widgets. Calendar and to-do widgets use your Microsoft account, and some features need it. Widgets that show your own data, such as Photos or Outlook calendar, only appear when you are signed in with a Microsoft account, while a local account sees a reduced set.

The most useful widgets

Beyond weather, a handful of widgets earn their place for most people. The Calendar widget shows today's events from Outlook, and selecting an event opens it. To Do shows your task lists from Microsoft To Do, which syncs with the phone app. Watchlist or Stocks tracks share prices and indexes you choose. Sports follows teams and shows scores and upcoming games. Traffic shows congestion near your location, useful before a commute.

App widgets add more. Phone Link shows your phone's battery, recent messages and notifications. Xbox Game Bar shows gaming information and friends. Music and podcast apps show what is playing with controls. Some third-party widgets are little more than advertisements for their apps, so add them one at a time and remove any that do not help. A board with four or five useful widgets is easier to read at a glance than one crowded with a dozen.

Getting the most from the weather widget

The weather widget does more than show the temperature. Its large size shows an hourly forecast, and selecting it opens the full forecast in the Weather app or MSN Weather in your browser, with radar maps, ten-day forecasts, air quality and pollen counts where available. Severe weather alerts for your area can appear on the widget and, if you allow badges, on the taskbar icon.

You can add more than one weather widget for different places, for example home and a city you travel to often, by adding the weather widget again and setting a different location. Only the first one controls the taskbar display. For travelers, setting the location to Detect location makes the forecast follow the PC, as long as location services are turned on.

If you keep the feed: make it useful

Some people like the news feed but want better stories. In the board, select the three dots on any story to choose More stories like this, Fewer stories like this, Hide stories from a source, or report a problem. In the feed settings, you can choose interests by topic, such as technology, sports teams, business or local news, and remove topics that do not interest you. Over a week or two of feedback, the feed becomes noticeably more relevant.

Sponsored stories and ads are marked as such and cannot be removed while the feed is on. If they bother you more than the useful news helps, turning the feed off is the only complete answer.

Weather on the lock screen

Windows 11 can show weather and other information on the lock screen, so you see it before signing in. Open Settings > Personalization > Lock screen, find Lock screen status, and choose Weather and more. The lock screen then shows a weather card and, depending on the version, other cards such as traffic, sports or stocks. Choose None to remove them, or pick a single app, such as Calendar or Mail, to show its status instead.

Lock screen cards use the same information service as Widgets, so setting your location in the weather widget helps them show the right forecast. If you use the Windows spotlight picture of the day, the lock screen may also show facts about the image; our guide to lock screen slideshow settings covers backgrounds, and our page on alarms and reminders on the lock screen covers the other lock screen options.

Lock screen cards are useful on a PC that sits on a desk at home, where a glance at the screen gives the forecast before you head out. On a work laptop used in public, you may prefer None, since the cards show your location's weather and other details to anyone who sees the screen.

Widgets on multiple monitors

On a PC with more than one display, the widgets board opens on the screen where you clicked the taskbar weather or, with the keyboard shortcut, usually on the main display. If you show the taskbar on all displays, through Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Show my taskbar on all displays, the weather may appear only on the main display's taskbar, depending on the version.

If the board opens on the wrong screen, change your main display in Settings > System > Display by selecting the display you want and turning on Make this my main display. Widgets and other panels such as notifications and the calendar then open there.

On a laptop that docks to an external monitor, the main display can change when you connect and disconnect, so the board may appear on the laptop screen one day and the monitor the next. Setting the external monitor as the main display while docked keeps it predictable.

News and interests on Windows 10

Windows 10 has an older version of the same idea called News and interests, which Microsoft added in 2021. It shows the weather on the right side of the taskbar, near the clock, and opens a panel of weather, news, stocks, sports and traffic cards with a news feed.

To control it, right-click an empty part of the taskbar and point to News and interests. Choose Show icon and text for the full weather display, Show icon only for a smaller one, or Turn off to remove it. The same menu has an option to turn off Open on hover, so the panel opens only when you click. Inside the panel, the three-dot menu on each card lets you hide stories or cards, and the settings let you choose topics and interests.

Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, with consumer Extended Security Updates available until October 2027. News and interests continues to work on Windows 10, but new features arrive only on Windows 11. If News and interests is missing from the right-click menu, it may be disabled by a policy or not available in your region.

Windows 10 users who later upgrade to Windows 11 find News and interests replaced by Widgets, with their earlier settings not carried over. After upgrading, open the widgets board and apply the hover and feed settings again, and set your weather location, since Windows 11 starts with its own defaults.

News Bar: the 2020 experiment

This page began in March 2020 as news of a Microsoft beta called News Bar. Released through the Microsoft Store for Windows 10, it was a slim bar that docked to the top, bottom or sides of the screen, or floated as a window, and showed scrolling headlines from Microsoft News, along with stock prices and other updates. You could choose topics and sources, and selecting a headline opened the full story in the browser.

News Bar never became a major feature in its own right, but its idea did: a small, always-visible strip of news and information on the Windows desktop, powered by Microsoft's news service. A year later, Microsoft built that idea into the taskbar as News and interests on Windows 10, and Windows 11 expanded it into Widgets. The tension News Bar created, between useful information and a constant stream of news and ads, is the same one users manage today with the settings on this page.

Microsoft's news service itself has changed names more than once in that time, from Microsoft News to Microsoft Start and then back to MSN, but it has remained the source of the feed in Widgets, News and interests and the Edge new tab page.

The idea of a desktop news ticker goes back further than News Bar. Windows Vista and Windows 7 had desktop gadgets, small programs for clocks, weather, headlines and stocks that sat on the desktop. Microsoft removed gadgets in 2012 because of security problems in the platform, and the gap stayed open until News and interests and Widgets filled it in a safer, more controlled way.

Disable Widgets with Group Policy or the registry

For complete control, especially on several PCs, use policy. On Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise and Education, open the Local Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc in the Start search. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Widgets, open Allow widgets, set it to Disabled, and restart. Widgets disappears from the taskbar, the Windows key + W shortcut stops working, and users cannot turn it back on from Settings.

On Windows 11 Home, which lacks the policy editor, the same policy can be set in the registry. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh, create a DWORD value named AllowNewsAndInterests and set it to 0, then restart. Create the Dsh key if it does not exist. Delete the value to undo it. As with any registry change, back up the registry or create a restore point first.

On Windows 10, the equivalent policy is Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > News and interests > Enable news and interests on the taskbar, set to Disabled. Organizations can also manage these settings through Intune or other device management tools.

Policies applied this way survive Windows updates, which is the main advantage over the Settings switch. If you manage a few family PCs, setting the policy once means you will not need to turn Widgets off again after each feature update.

Uninstall Widgets completely

Some people prefer to remove Widgets entirely. The feature is part of the Windows Web Experience Pack, which can be uninstalled from a terminal. Right-click Start, choose Terminal (Admin), and run winget uninstall "Windows Web Experience Pack", accepting the prompts. Restart afterward. Widgets and the weather disappear from the taskbar and the Widgets setting no longer works.

There are trade-offs. The Web Experience Pack also supports other features, such as lock screen weather cards and some widgets used by apps, and those stop working without it. Windows Update or the Microsoft Store may reinstall the pack later, especially after a feature update. To get it back on purpose, install Windows Web Experience Pack from the Microsoft Store. For most people, turning Widgets off in Settings or by policy is simpler and less likely to cause side effects than uninstalling.

Bring Widgets back

If you turned Widgets off and want it back, reverse whatever you did. If you switched it off in taskbar settings, switch it on again. If you set the policy, set Allow widgets back to Not configured or delete the AllowNewsAndInterests registry value, then restart. If you uninstalled the Web Experience Pack, install it again from the Microsoft Store and restart.

After restoring, open the board and check your settings, since some may have reset to defaults, including hover and the feed. Your pinned widgets usually return if you sign in with the same Microsoft account.

Options compared

Start at the top and stop when you are happy. Most people find that turning off hover and the feed is enough, keeping the weather they want without the parts they do not.

The quickest test is to try each step for a day. If you still find yourself annoyed by the board, move to the next row; if not, you have found your setting.

Privacy and the news feed

The Discover feed is personalized. Microsoft uses your interactions with stories, the interests you choose, your approximate location and, if signed in, information linked to your Microsoft account to decide what to show, and the feed includes advertising. In the feed settings, you can manage interests, hide stories from particular sources and tell Microsoft which topics you do not want.

Turning off the feed stops you seeing it but does not change the separate Windows diagnostic and advertising settings. For those, open Settings > Privacy & security > General and review the options for personalized ads and suggested content, and Settings > Privacy & security > Location to decide whether apps, including Widgets, can use your precise location. A manually set weather location works without location services turned on.

The Edge browser's new tab page shows a similar MSN feed. Our guide to turning off the MSN feed in Edge covers it, and our guide to tracking prevention in Edge covers the browser's privacy settings.

Children's accounts managed through Microsoft Family Safety can have the feed filtered or disabled. The Family widget, available to family organizers, shows children's screen time and location at a glance on the board, which some parents find useful even with the news feed turned off.

Search highlights: the other news on your taskbar

Widgets is not the only place Windows shows news-like content. Search highlights puts illustrations, notable dates, trending searches and suggestions in the Windows search box and the search panel. On some PCs, the search box shows a small picture that changes daily. If you want the taskbar free of all this, open Settings > Privacy & security > Search permissions, scroll to More settings, and turn off Show search highlights.

Search highlights and Widgets are controlled separately, so turning off one does not affect the other. Together with the Edge new tab feed and lock screen cards, they make up the four places Microsoft's news and trending content can appear on a Windows PC, and each has its own switch.

Alternatives for news and weather

If you remove Widgets, there are other ways to get weather and news on Windows. The built-in Weather app (MSN Weather) gives detailed forecasts, radar maps and hourly charts, and you can pin it to Start or the taskbar. Its live information on Start is limited in Windows 11, but it opens quickly. The Clock app shows world times, and the calendar flyout from the taskbar clock shows your agenda.

For news, a feed reader using RSS lets you follow exactly the sites you choose, without an algorithm or ads from a feed provider. Many free readers run in the browser or as Windows apps. News sites' own apps and newsletters are another option, as are news aggregators in the browser. For weather, your phone and smartwatch are often closer to hand than the PC.

Enthusiasts who want desktop widgets without Microsoft's feed use tools such as Rainmeter, a long-running free program that places customizable gauges, clocks, weather and news panels directly on the desktop. These need more setup but give complete control over what appears and where.

Whatever you choose, the main thing is control. Windows gives you the information if you want it, and every piece of it can be turned off, moved or replaced with something you prefer.

Phones and smart speakers have also taken over much of the job desktop widgets were invented for. If you already check the weather on your phone each morning, the PC does not need to repeat it, and a clean taskbar costs you nothing.

Should you keep Widgets?

Whether Widgets is worth keeping depends on how you work. If you glance at the weather several times a day, check your calendar often, or follow a few stocks or teams, a trimmed board with the feed off is a quick, built-in way to see all of that without opening apps. If you never use it and only notice it when it opens by accident, removing it from the taskbar gives you a cleaner screen and one fewer distraction.

A middle path suits many people: keep the weather on the taskbar, turn off hover and the feed, and open the board only when you want it. That is the setup Ethan settled on, and it keeps the useful part while removing nearly everything people complain about. Try it for a week before deciding to remove Widgets entirely.

Widgets not working or weather wrong

If the widgets board is blank, does not open or shows an error, work through these steps. Sign out and back in, or restart the PC. Make sure Windows and the Microsoft Store apps are up to date, including the Windows Web Experience Pack. Check that you are signed in with a Microsoft account if widgets that need one are missing. If the board still fails, open Task Manager, end the Widgets process, and open the board again.

If the taskbar weather shows the wrong place or units, open the weather widget's menu, choose Customize widget, and set the location and temperature unit manually. If the weather is stuck on an old reading, check your internet connection and restart the Widgets process. If Widgets is missing from the taskbar settings altogether, a policy may be disabling it; check the Group Policy and registry settings described above, especially on a PC that was once managed by a workplace.

When the taskbar itself misbehaves, such as not hiding or showing icons in the wrong place, the cause is usually elsewhere; our guide to a taskbar that won't auto-hide covers the common fixes.

Do Widgets slow down a PC?

Widgets runs a few background processes, including one named Widgets and others for the Web Experience Pack, which use some memory even when the board is closed. On PCs with 8 GB of memory or more, the effect is small and unlikely to be noticed. On older or low-memory PCs, disabling Widgets by policy stops these processes and frees a little memory, which can help slightly.

The feed also uses some network data to load stories and images, which matters on metered connections. When a connection is set as metered in Windows, background downloads are reduced, and turning off the feed reduces data use further. For battery life on laptops, the difference is small, though fewer background processes are always better on a long trip.

Widgets, Copilot and the crowded taskbar

Windows 11's taskbar has gathered several features that compete for attention: Widgets on the left, Search, Task View, Copilot and app icons in the middle, and the system tray on the right. Each can be shown or hidden in Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. A tidy taskbar with only the items you use makes the PC feel calmer and leaves more room for open apps.

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, is separate from Widgets, though both use Microsoft's online services. If you want to keep Copilot from starting with Windows or remove it from the taskbar, our guide to stopping Copilot starting automatically covers it. Our page on whether you need a Copilot+ PC explains which AI features need new hardware.

Notifications and focus

Widgets is one source of interruptions; notifications are another. If you are tidying the desktop to concentrate, open Settings > System > Notifications to turn off notifications from apps you do not need to hear from, and use Do not disturb to silence banners during work or meetings. Focus sessions, started from the Clock app or the notification center, turn on Do not disturb, hide badges on taskbar apps and stop flashing taskbar icons for a set period.

Combined with Widgets' hover and feed turned off, these settings give a desktop that only asks for your attention when something important happens. Ethan uses a Focus session each morning for his first hour of work, and the weather on the taskbar is the only moving part on his screen.

For businesses and schools

Many organizations turn off the Widgets news feed or the whole feature on work and school PCs, to reduce distractions and keep personal news and ads off company devices. The Allow widgets policy disables it completely. Newer policy options also let administrators hide the feed while allowing work-related widgets, which suits organizations that want weather and calendar but not news. Check the Widgets policies available in your version of the administrative templates.

For shared PCs in classrooms, libraries and kiosks, disabling Widgets and lock screen cards keeps screens predictable. On personal devices used for work, users can follow the hide-news steps on this page without needing IT to change anything.

Administrators who want consistent behavior should set policies rather than relying on users' settings, because updates to the Web Experience Pack can change defaults. Testing a policy on a few machines before rolling it out avoids surprises, such as lock screen cards disappearing when the whole feature is disabled.

What this page said in 2020

The original version of this page, from March 2020, reported that Microsoft had released a beta of News Bar for Windows 10, a docked bar of headlines and stock prices. That experiment led to News and interests on Windows 10 and Widgets on Windows 11. This rewrite turns the news note into a full guide to news and weather on the Windows desktop: how Widgets works, how to keep the weather and hide the news, how to remove it completely, and what to use instead.

Since 2020, the balance has shifted toward giving users more control. Early versions of Widgets had no way to turn off the feed; today it is a single switch, and Microsoft's own testing points toward quieter defaults for everyone.

Widgets, news and weather on Windows: frequently asked questions

Ethan's taskbar still shows the temperature, and when he clicks it, he sees his forecast, his calendar and one stock, with nothing else. The lock screen tells him whether to take an umbrella before he signs in. He never sees the panel by accident anymore, and the news he reads comes from the sites he chooses.

Revision note. Written October 3, 2026, rewriting our 2020 news note on Microsoft's News Bar beta into a complete guide to news and weather on the Windows desktop, covering Widgets, News and interests, the lock screen and alternatives. May your taskbar show only what you asked it to.