Windows 10 had the News and Interests widget on the right of the taskbar. Windows 11 has the Weather widget in the left corner of the taskbar. When you mouse over, it activates and your workflow may be disturbed. Sometimes you may find it pretty much annoying. Don’t panic, you can remove it from your taskbar for your smooth work. Let’s see how we can hide weather widget from taskbar in Windows 11.
Hide Weather Widget From Taskbar Using Settings
You can remove the weather widget in Windows 11 by disabling the widget inside the Windows 11 Settings. Follow these steps to disable Weather Widget.
- To open the Settings app, right-click on the
Windows/Start
button and SelectSettings
option. Alternatively, Press Windows+I keyboard shortcut. - In the Settings window look for the
Personalization
option in the left pane. Scroll-down little bit on the right-side and clickTaskbar
option. - In the taskbar personalization settings, look for the
Widget
toggle button andTurn it off
. The weather widget will be removed from the taskbar.
Want to bring back the widget again? Follow the same steps mentioned above and turn the toggle button on for the weather widget.
Disable Weather Widget from Taskbar – Group Policy
To remove or disable the weather widget via Group Policy, you must have Windows 11 Pro or above running. In order to remove the weather widget via group policy, follow these steps.
- Press Windows+R to open up the Run Window. In the Run window type
gpedit.msc
in the text box and hit Enter or click theOK
button. The Local Group Policy Editor window will appear. - In Group Policy Editor Window, in the left pane, navigate to the path mentioned below.
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Widgets
Look for the
Allow widgets
entry in the right pane.Double-click
on the entry or select it and hitEnter
to open the policy settings. - Once the policy settings open, click on the
Disabled
radio button to disable the widgets on the taskbar. ClickOK
button to save the settings. - The weather widget is gone and not displaying anymore. However, if you navigate to the
Taskbar
options in the settings app, you will notice that theWidgets
option is grey in color and can’t be set or unset. If you want to enable the option back then you need to do it via group policy by selecting theNot Configured
option in the policy settings window.
Remove Taskbar Weather Widget – Registry Editor
Windows 11 Home edition doesn’t support the Group Policy. In this scenario when you don’t want to use the Settings app then you can use the Registry to disable the weather widget.
- Press Windows+R to open up the Run Window. In the Run window type
regedit
in the text box and hit Enter or click theOK
button. The Registry Editor window will appear. - In the registry editor window, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
>SOFTWARE
(Double click the name to expand it) - Double click the
Policies
option and then Right-click on theMicrosoft
option. Select theNew
and then clickKey
option. A new key will be created with the nameNew Key #1
, Right-click on the new key and rename it toDsh
. - Once the Dsh key is created, select it. On the right pane Right-click on the empty space select
New
and click onDWORD (32-bit) Value
. The new value will be created with the nameNew Value #1
, rename it toAllowNewsAndInterests
. - Double-click on it or hit Enter by selecting the newly created value to open the edit value dialog. In the dialog select the
Hexadecimal
option and type0
as the value in theValue data
field. Click on theOK
button to save the changes. Now the value has been set and the widget has been disabled. - A PC reboot will be required to make the weather widget disappear from the taskbar. For this purpose, close all the open windows and apps along with the registry editor and restart the PC. The weather widget will be disappeared after the PC restarts.
The registry method is intended to be used by advanced users so if any awful situation occurs or anything goes wrong due to lack of experience can be recovered. It is highly recommended to back up your PC or create a restore point in Windows to recover from any instability in the system.