Widgets (23H2, M5) (Archived)

Windows 11 includes a Widgets feature that consists of a Widgets button on the left end of the Taskbar and a pop-up widget board that displays notifications for important news and events, widgets, and a Microsoft Start news and general interests feed.

This feature can be annoying in its default configuration, depending on your needs. But it’s also highly customizable: You can disable the notifications that appear over the Widgets Taskbar button and on top of the widget board, choose and arrange the widgets it displays, and personalize or hide the feed.

When there’s important news, the widget board will display a notification card above the widgets that occupy about a third of the widget board on the left and the feed that appears on the right.

Widgets are cards that display dynamic information culled from Microsoft and third-party online services, and they appear together in the left third of the widget board by default. The feed takes up the rightmost two-thirds of the widget board by default, and it also displays cards, each representing a news or general interest story.

Unfortunately, the feed is populated with low-quality content from Microsoft Start and advertising. Microsoft claims that the content you see here will become more useful the more you use it. But after years of trying, we have never witnessed this miracle. And so we recommend hiding the feed. When you do so, the widget board will display only widgets, a configuration we find more useful.

You can learn how to hide the feed later in this chapter.

Where did it go?

If you upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10, you may recognize Widgets as an evolution of a feature from that system called News & interests.

The problems with Widgets

As noted above, the Microsoft Start feed is full of low-quality content and interspersed with advertising. But these issues are among the least of the problems we have with Widgets. Unfortunately, Microsoft is using this feature to drive the usage of its other products and services in an underhanded way. And this can undermine the experience.

It starts with Microsoft Edge: As with the Search highlights feature in Search, Widgets forces you to use Microsoft Edge, even if you’ve configured another web browser as the default: If you click on a widget or feed card, Microsoft Edge will open to display the content it links to. There is no way to configure it to behave otherwise.

And it’s not just Edge. Though the cards in the feed are credited to a variety of content sources—some well-known and respected, but most not—the content itself always displays on MSN or some other Microsoft-owned website, where you are exposed to Microsoft’s advertising and your activities are tracked and sold to advertisers.

Most widgets also click-through to Microsoft websites with the same issues. But less obviously, third-party widgets are not standalone items, as each requires a separate app install from the Microsoft Store. This benefits Microsoft in a less egregious way, but with rare exception–Spotify being the key example–those apps you also have to install are web apps. Which, wait for it, run in Microsoft Edge and are thus beholden to its secret tracking and advertising tie-ins.

If you find any of these behaviors objectionable, you will need to balance your usage of Widgets with the knowledge that Microsoft is using this feature to gain an unfair advantage over its web browser, web search, advertising, and content aggregator competition. Or, you can minimize your use of Widgets, perhaps by hiding the Microsoft Start feed, or simply ignore this feature entirely: While you can’t uninstall Widgets, you can at least remove the Widgets icon from the Taskbar.

Yes, we explain how to remove the Widgets icon from the Taskbar later in this chapter.

Fix annoying Widgets behaviors

Widgets is highly configurable, and we cover many of its customization capabilities as needed throughout this chapter. But because it’s so likely that you will want to customize at least some top-level Widgets behaviors, it makes sense to discuss those first.

All but the first of these customization options occurs in Widget settings. You access this interface by opening Widgets and clicking the “Settings” button–it resembles a gear–in the upper-right of the widget board.

We reference this interface as needed in this section and throughout the chapter.

Remove the Widgets icon from the Taskbar

If you know you will never use Widgets and are not interested in seeing a weather forecast in your Taskbar, you can simply remove the Widgets icon from the Taskbar.

To do so, open the Settings app and navigate to Personalization > Taskbar. Then, in the “Taskbar items” area, configure “Widgets” to “Off.”

You can still open Widgets after you remove its Taskbar icon. To do so, type WINKEY + W. Widgets will appear normally but without displaying the weather forecast in the Taskbar.

Prevent the widget board from appearing when you mouse over the Widgets Taskbar icon

By default, Widgets will open if you mouse-over its Taskbar button, but that can be annoying if you do so inadvertently. We recommend disabling that behavior.

To do so, open Widget settings, locate the option “Option Widgets board on hover,” and configure it to “Off.

Make sure the Widgets Taskbar icon only displays a weather forecast

If you like the Weather forecast but don’t intend to otherwise use Widgets, it makes sense to keep the Widgets icon in the Taskbar and prevent the widget board from opening when you mouse-over that icon as noted above. But the Widgets icon also displays breaking news and other announcements instead of the weather forecast from time-to-time by default. If you only want the weather, you should disable these interruptions too.

To do so, open Widgets settings, locate the “Notifications” option, and click it. In the “Notifications” settings page that appears, configure “Show notifications on the taskbar” and “Show announcements on the taskbar” to “Off.”

Hide or replace the Microsoft Start feed

If you want to use individual widgets but have no interest in the low-quality Microsoft Start feed, you can hide it and free your soul.

To do so, open Widget settings, click “Show or hide feeds,” and configure “Microsoft Start” to “Off.” When you do, the widget board only displays your widgets.

When you make this change, Widgets displays as a smaller pane, and you can now longer configure Widgets to display in “Full View,” as described later in the chapter.

Though none are available at the time of this writing, Microsoft allows you to install other news and interests feeds in Widgets, and it’s not difficult to imagine that we might someday have higher quality options than Microsoft Start. To do so, open Widgets settings, select “Show or hide feeds,” and then click the “Add more feeds from Microsoft Store” link. The Microsoft Store app will open and display the available options.

We will update this part of the book when and if third-party feed options appear here.

View the weather forecast, news bulletins, and notifications in the Widgets Taskbar button

The Widgets icon can be found at the far left of the Taskbar, and while it typically displays the local weather forecast, it can also display breaking news or other announcements and notification badges.

We explained how to configure the types of content the Widgets icon displays earlier in this chapter.

Open the widget board

To open Widgets and display the widget board, mouse-over or click the Widgets icon on the Taskbar.

Or, type WINKEY + W.

You can disable the mouse-over behavior as described earlier in this chapter.

Display the widget board in Full View

By default, Widgets appears as a large pane on the left side of the Desktop. But you can alternatively display Widgets full-screen in what’s called Full View instead. To do so, click the “Expand to Full View” icon in the upper right of the pane.

When you do, Widgets appears full-screen.

Widgets will remember this change and display in Full View every time it’s opened in the future.

To reverse this change, select the “Collapse to Half View” button in the upper-right of Full View.

Use and configure widgets

By default, Widgets displays a handful of widgets–typically Weather, Watchlist, Traffic, and Photos–each of which is tied to a specific Microsoft web service, on the left side of the widget board. You can also pin–add—other widgets to the widget board, as described in the next section.

If something notable is happening, Widgets will spotlight the relevant default widget by displaying it at the top of this widgets area. For example, you might see the Traffic widget promoted when there are unusual traffic conditions nearby.

Confusingly, the default widgets behave a bit differently from pinned widgets. You can’t manually reposition them, nor can you resize them, as you can with pinned widgets. But you can pin a default widget, which is non-intuitive. When you do, you gain the ability to rearrange or resize it. For some reason.

What’s really happening here is that the widgets area is invisibly divided into two sub-areas, one for pinned widgets on the top and one for default widgets on the bottom. Pinned widgets can be rearranged using drag and drop, but only within the pinned widgets area. That is, you can’t pin a default widget and then reposition it somewhere within the default widgets area.

The obvious workaround is to pin each default widget and then reposition them as desired.

If you unpin a default widget, it doesn’t disappear from the widget board entirely. Instead, it moves back into the default widget area, and in its original position and size. To remove a default widget from the widget board, you must click its “More options” button (“…”) and select “Hide this widget” from the menu that appears.

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A> Once you hide a widget, you can never put it back in the default widgets area. All you can do now is pin it normally, as described below.

Illogical? You bet.

Pin a widget

In addition to letting you pin a default widget, Widgets also lets you pin a growing collection of widgets for Microsoft and third-party services to the left side of the widget board.

To see what’s available, open Widgets and click the “Add widgets” button (“+”) at the top right of the widgets area.

When you do so, the “Pin widgets” window opens and displays the list of available choices.

You can also find more widgets in the Microsoft Store by clicking “Find more widgets” at the bottom left of the “Pin widgets” window.

To add a widget, select it on the left and then click the “Pin” button. When you return to Widgets, it will be at the top of the widgets area in the widget board.

If Widgets is promoting one of the default widgets because of breaking news or a live event, the pinned widget will appear between the promoted widget and the default widgets.

When you customize the widget board this way, then changes are synced to your Microsoft account so that they will appear in Widgets on any PC you use. For example, if you pin the Outlook Calendar and Weather widgets to the board on one PC, you will also see those two widgets at the top of the widget board on any other PCs you use.

Pinned widgets have a small “pin” icon near the top right to differentiate them from default widgets. Among other things, this icon indicates that the widget can be repositioned and resized.

Customize a widget

Default and pinned widgets both support a range of customization options via a “More options” button (“…”) that appears on the top right of each.

The options you see via the “More options” button vary by widget. But some of the more common options include “Hide this widget” “Customize widget,” plus sizing options like “Small,” “Medium,” and “Large.”

Your “Customize widget” choices will likewise vary by widget. The Weather widget lets you choose one or more locations, for example.

If you customize the Weather widget to display the weather for a different location, that location will also be used by the weather forecast displayed on the Taskbar.

Additionally, widgets that provide multiple views—like Traffic and Weather—provide a drop-down menu as their title so that you can easily change the view as desired.

To reposition a pinned widget, grab it with the mouse cursor, drag it to the position you prefer, and drop.

Click through a widget to a website

When you click a widget, Microsoft Edge opens and navigates to the relevant content on the web.

For example, if you click the Traffic widget, Microsoft Edge will display the local traffic view in Bing Maps. Likewise, if you click the Photos widget, Microsoft Edge will display that content in OneDrive Photos.

Unpin a widget

To hide a pinned widget, click the “More options” button and choose “Unpin widget” from the menu that appears. When you do so, the widget is removed from the widget board.

Use and configure the Microsoft Start feed

In our opinion, the Microsoft Start feed is of low-enough quality that you should simply hide it as described earlier in the chapter. But if you find this content compelling or useful, you should at least consider customizing it to your preferences.

Browse content in the feed

The default Microsoft Start feed provides news and interests stories in cards, and you can browse through the available content, scrolling down as needed. If you see a story you wish to read in the feed, click it: Microsoft Edge will open and display the article on the web.

Remember, Microsoft Edge will open even if you’ve configured another browser as your default.

By default, the widget board uses what’s called the Discovery view, and as noted, it provides cards of general news and interests content. But there are links at the top that let you switch to Following, Watch, or Play views instead.

The Following view changes the widget board so that it only shows content related to your interests. You can also use the Channel tiles below the header to filter the view to a specific topic.

If you haven’t picked any interests yet, you will be prompted to do so. We explain how to manage your interests elsewhere in this chapter.

The Watch view, meanwhile, displays cards of video news and interests content instead of articles and blog posts. You can mouse-over a card to preview its video, but if you click play, it will load in Microsoft Edge. Of course.

Finally, the Play view offers a very basic front-end to online games you can play on the Games from Microsoft Start website. Which opens in Edge if you click anything in this view.

One important note here: You cannot set Following, Watch, or Play to be the default view in Widgets. Nor will it remember the view you were using. When you close and reopen Widgets, it will again display the Discover view.

Customize Microsoft Start

If you are going to use the Microsoft Start feed for some reason, you should at least take the time to customize it.

This customization takes different forms. You can remove news sources you don’t like or trust, for example, or tell Widgets that you’d like to see more–or fewer–stories that are similar to the one you’re previewing. You can also manage your interests, which will help the feed determine which types of stories to show you.

Block a content source. If you find a particular content source objectionable or uninteresting–and you will–you can tell Widgets to stop displaying cards from that source. To do so, select the “See more” (“…”) link in the upper right of the card in question and choose “Block [content source]” from the menu that appears.

The card that was displaying the content will give you the option to undo the change if it was made in error.

Hide this story. If you don’t like a particular story but don’t want to block its source, you can select the “Hide this story” icon (“X”) in the top right of the card. (It expands into a bigger “Hide this story” button as you mouse-over it.) As with content blocking, the card will give you the chance to cancel the change as well.

See more/less like this and comment. You can also choose to see “More like this” or “Less like this” and comment on the story in a content card by clicking the appropriate icon in the lower left of the card. Clicking “More like this” or “Less like this” will influence the types of content cards you see going forward.

Manage your interests By default, Widgets displays news and other content from a wide variety of mostly low-quality content sources. But you can manually manage the entire list of content types and sources by selecting “See more” (“…”) in a content card and then choosing “Manage interests.”

You can also access this interface from Widgets settings: Just click your profile picture in the upper-right of Widgets.

When you do, a “Personalize Microsoft Start” window appears. You manage your interests in its “Discover interests” section, which offers search, recommended topic cards, and lists of interests you’re following and have blocked.

You can also manage your interests on the web. To do so, use your web browser to navigate to the Microsoft Start website and click the “Personalize” button in the upper right of that page.