How to Disable Windows 10’s Annoying Weather Widget

If you’ve enabled automatic updates on Windows 10, you’ve probably noticed the addition of a new — and rather annoying — weather and news widget in the taskbar. It’s called “News and Interests,” which Microsoft added to Windows 10 with the version 1909 update, and it highlights everything that’s wrong with Windows 10: inconsistent design elements, the addition of a feature no one really asked for, and more clutter you don’t need.

The taskbar widget even looks a bit blurry when compared to the crisp high-resolution elements all around it, which adds to the sadness. (We’re not mad at you, Microsoft; we’re just disappointed.)

Luckily, you can easily remove it. Here’s how:

1. Right-click any part of your Windows 10 computer’s taskbar. This is located to the left of the clock and network connectivity icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
2. Select News and interests.
3. Click Turn off.

In case you ever regret your decision to remove this widget (unlikely), you can bring it back by right-clicking anywhere on the taskbar and selecting News and interests > Show icon and text. You’ll also notice an option called Show icon only, which will show just the small weather icon without the text next to it.

Also, whenever you hover your mouse pointer over the weather widget, you’ll see a huge panel with news and weather information pop up. If you want to see the weather on your taskbar, but don’t care much for news and updates powered by Microsoft, you can disable just the news part of the widget.

To do that, right-click on the taskbar and go to News and interests. Now uncheck Open on hover. This will keep the weather widget in the taskbar, but it won’t allow the enlarged — annoying! — news panel to open unless you click the widget.

And if you are looking for alternatives, there are lots of other excellent weather apps for Windows that you can check out.