News and Interests on Taskbar

Who has the new News and Interests taskbar item? It initially looks good showing the current weather info but click (or hover) and it shows all those news items from the app I purposely removed when Windows 10 came out.

Fun fact, hide all the news sources and get horribly disappointed when it just shows random news items instead of nothing at all.

Conversation 12 comments

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    06 June, 2021 - 8:14 am

    <p>Not seen it on any of my machines. All on 21h1</p>

  • simont

    Premium Member
    06 June, 2021 - 10:20 am

    <p>Showed up on my machines a day after the announcement that it was going out for general availability. And was immediately disabled.</p>

  • jmeiii75

    Premium Member
    06 June, 2021 - 1:27 pm

    <p>The update that enables it (KB5003214), which is one of those optional cumulative update previews, really messed up the system tray areas of the taskbar. The tray was either completely missing or jumbled up and unusable. I uninstalled. All that being said, I disabled New and Interests immediately after looking at it. </p>

  • navarac

    06 June, 2021 - 3:49 pm

    <p>Seen, disabled and since ignored. I don’t need this sort of crap (aka malware) in a PC OS. OK on a Tablet or other "consumption" device – if you like that sort of thing. </p>

  • sammyd710730

    06 June, 2021 - 11:36 pm

    <p>I have it on both my desktop and Surface Pro 7, and I’ve disabled it on both. I would use it if the news curated by MSN wasn’t so awful. </p>

  • mobabo3040

    07 June, 2021 - 9:52 am

    <p>So after months of "testing" a Windows "feature", MS still can’t integrate damn javascript properly. Disabling the news and crap totally messes up the icons in the systray. Good job Microsoft on releasing a "feature" no one wants or needs that breaks basic OS features, even that after the ridiculous insider "testing" program. </p>

  • simont

    Premium Member
    07 June, 2021 - 10:22 am

    <p>There are now GPO’s to disable News and Weather.</p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/group-configuration-news-and-interests-on-the-windows-taskbar/ba-p/2281005?s=09&quot; target="_blank">Group configuration: news and interests on the Windows taskbar – Microsoft Tech Community</a></p>

  • sherlockholmes

    Premium Member
    07 June, 2021 - 11:08 am

    <p>I have it, sadly. Deactivated it right away. </p>

  • winner

    07 June, 2021 - 2:26 pm

    <p>Taskbar is already so full of crap, just what we need is more stuff.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    10 June, 2021 - 5:58 am

    <p>Weather turned up with the updates this morning on Pro at home and work.</p>

  • pachi

    11 June, 2021 - 10:47 am

    <p>Genuinely thought this was malware of sorts. The actual text in the taskbar is <strong>blurry </strong>even!!! Just absolutely ridiculous.</p><p><br></p><p>I can’t believe they added even more junk to the taskbar. Does the average laptop user even have an inch of blank space after this?</p>

  • ikjadoon

    11 June, 2021 - 12:00 pm

    <p>I’m not wasting CPU cycles on this bloated junk. HTML &amp; CSS: webpages in the taskbar, terrible UI &amp; scaling. Just horribly implemented, like a weekend project by someone who just learned CSS.</p><p><br></p><p>https://windows.msn.com/shell</p><p><br></p><p&gt;^^ It is literally a webpage. You can open this on any OS.</p><p><br></p><p>Next time, Microsoft: make it native part of ShellExperienceHost.exe (not some HTML bloat) , kill the CPU load for lower-end CPUs, integrate it into the clock area with much less chrome, and….why on Earth does this not integrate with the UWP Weather app? </p><p><br></p><p>Why do we have a UWP app (Weather) that has literally zero connection to this taskbar bloat?</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft seems hellbent in making Windows an annoying advertisement front for their services: Office 365, Outlook, Bing, Edge, MSN, etc. </p>

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