Depending upon the user, the News widget could be one of the most useful features in Windows 11 or one of the most annoying features in Windows 11. Windows 11 widget gets the news, weather, sports scores, stock, and information solely from MSN and Bing. If you have a different source for news and information or if you find MSN news annoying, you can disable Widget in Windows 11.

Windows 11 widget board is a collage of news, weather, stocks, stories, traffic, photos, and other contents. The Widget app shows news and stories on a group of small widget panels from different sources.

So, you cannot disable all news in Windows 11 widget. You can either hide the news from certain sources or unfollow unwanted interests to avoid the news you don’t like. Or you can fully disable the Widget feature altogether in Windows 11.

Hide Widgets from Taskbar using Settings

The Windows 11 Settings is the easiest way to hide the Widget feature from the Taskbar. But this method only hides the Widgets from the Taskbar not fully disables it from your Windows 11 PC. Here’s how you can do that:

First, right-click on the empty area in Taskbar and select the ‘Taskbar Settings’ option. Alternatively, open the Settings app, click the ‘Personalization’ tab and go to the ‘Taskbar’ section.

From the Taskbar settings page, turn Off the ‘Widget’ option under the Taskbar items section.

This will immediately hide the news widget on the Windows 11 taskbar. If you want to show the widget’s icon again on the taskbar, simply re-enable the above toggle.

Hide Stories from Sources on Widgets Board

If you are annoyed by MSN’s celebrity-centered news, you can hide stories or news from certain sources or sites you don’t like. Here’s how you can do this:

First, click the Widget icon on the taskbar. In the newer builds, the widget icon (weather icon) is moved to the left corner of the taskbar or it is located in the middle of the taskbar next to the Task View icon (in older builds). Or, you can press Win+W to open Widgets.

On the Widget board, click on the ‘See more (3 dots)’ button in the bottom-right corner of a news story from the source you don’t like or want, then select the ‘Hide stories from <website>’ option.

Once you do that, you will see a message that you won’t get stories from the <website>.

Alternatively, you can click the ‘See more (3 dots)’ button in the bottom-right corner of a news story and select ‘Fewer stories like this’ to get fewer stories or news related to that particular topic.

Hide a Story to Remove from News Feed 

You can also hide a story or article to remove it from the news feed.

To do that, click the ‘Hide this story’ (X) button in the top-right corner of the news article you want to remove.

Windows will ask you what you don’t like about this story, you can select that you are not interested in the story, you don’t like the source, or that you want to report an issue.

Microsoft will remember your feedback and show you news and stories according to that.

Remove Interests to Stop News Feed on Widgets

You get news, articles, or other information on your Widget feed based on the topics and interests you follow on your Microsoft Start service as well as other topics you have viewed. Microsoft Start is a personalized news feed service that lets you customize the content you get on your device.

If you don’t want to get news from certain topics or interests on your widget boards, you can unfollow those topics on your Microsoft Start page. Follow these steps:

Click the ‘Widget’ icon on the taskbar or hit Win+W to open Widgets. In the Widgets window, click on your profile picture in the top-right corner.

Next, click the ‘Manage interests’ or ‘Personalize your interests’ link at the lower-left corner of the Widget settings window.

This will take you directly to the My interest page on the Microsoft Start website in your Edge browser as shown below.

Here you can remove interests to stop following them in your news feed.

On the Microsoft Start page, click the ‘Followed interests’ in the left pane.

Under the Followed interests section on the right pane, uncheck topics you no longer want to follow or get updates from.

Alternatively, you can click the Block button to stop all news from that specific topic.

If you are following some news sources, you can also unfollow them to stop getting news from them.

To do that, click the ‘Followed Sources’ on the left panel on the Microsoft Start webpage. Then, uncheck the sources or websites you no longer want to follow on your news feed.​

Disable Widgets using Registry Editor

While the above methods work when you want to avoid particular kinds of news or from certain sources but if you want to stop all news from the widget, you might have to disable the Widget feature itself. Because even if you don’t follow any interests or sources, Widget will still display the latest news and articles based on your region and your online activity.

If you don’t want news from MSN feeds or any other news on the widget, you can get rid of the widget feature from Windows 11 using Registry Editor. Follow the instructions to disable widgets via Windows Registry:

Open the Start menu and type ‘Registry Editor’ in the search bar or open the Run command (Win+R), type ‘regedit’ and hit Enter.

There are ways you can disable Widget using Registry Editor.

Method 1: When the Registry Editor opens, navigate to the below location or paste the following command in the address bar and hit Enter:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\

Next, right-click the ‘Microsoft’ key (folder) on the left pane and click ‘New’ then the ‘Key’ option.

Then, rename the new key as Dsh.

Now select the ‘Dsh’ key and in the right-side pane, right-click on the empty area and select ‘New’ then ‘DWORD (32-bit)’ Value option.

Next, name the newly created DWORD as ‘AllowNewsAndInterests’ and double-click on it to edit its value.

Then, make sure its value is set to 0 in the Value data field and click ‘OK’.

After that close the Registry Editor and restart your computer to apply the changes.

If you decide to restore the widget in Windows 11, go back to the above-mentioned location and simply delete the above ‘AllowNewsAndInterests’ DWORD in the Dsh key.

Method 2: In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following location or paste the below path in the address field:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Next, locate the ‘TaskbarDa’ registry value from the right panel.

If the TaskbarDa DWORD is not found inside the Advanced key, you need to create one. To do that, right-click on the ‘Advanced’ key from the left panel, go to ‘New’, and select ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Then, name the newly created DWORD as ‘TaskbarDa’.

After that, double-click on the TaskbarDa and assign 0 as the value, and click ‘OK’.

Then, close the Registry Editor and restart your PC to apply the changes.

If you want to re-enable the widget feature, change the value of ‘TaskbarDa’ from ‘0’ to ‘1’.

Disable Widgets Using the Group Policy Editor

Another method for disabling widgets in Windows 11 is using Group Policy Editor. Here’s how you can do that:

Open the Start menu, search for ‘Edit Group Policy and select ‘Edit Group Policy’ control panel to launch Group Policy Editor. Or type gpedit.msc in the Run command and press Enter.

When the Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to the following location using the left panel:

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Widgets

In the right-side pane, double-click on the ‘Allow widgets’ policy.

Then, select the ‘Disabled’ option, click ‘Apply’, and then ‘OK’.

This will immediately remove the news widget from Windows 11 Taskbar if not restart your computer.

Uninstall Windows 11 Widgets using PowerShell

Even if you disable Windows 11 Widget from the taskbar, you can still access it by swiping inward from the left edge of the screen or pressing the Win+W shortcut. If you want to completely uninstall the Widget feature, you can do that by removing the Windows web experience package which will also remove the widgets option from the Taskbar settings page.

First, open ‘Command Prompt’ or ‘Windows PowerShell’ with administrative privileges by searching for ‘Cmd’ or ‘powershell’ and clicking ‘Run as Administrator’. Alternatively, you can right-click the Start menu and select ‘Terminal (Admin)’.

Click ‘Yes’ to User Account Control if prompted. Now, type or copy and paste this command and press Enter.

winget uninstall "Windows web experience Pack"

If the Winget tool asks you to accept the source terms, type ‘Y’ and hit Enter.

Winget tool will uninstall the ‘MicrosoftWindows.Client.WebExperience_cw5n1h2txyewy’ package which is the package name of the widget feature.

Now, the widget feature will be completely removed from the computer (including from the taskbar and settings).

That’s it.