After installing the optional Win10 Update Preview KB5003214 this morning, the mythical Microsoft News and interests widget finally appeared.
What a steaming pile.
I’m going to start off with the fact that I’m highly not all that excited about this widget. I’ve already got several news sites I visit daily, I don’t trust Microsoft to pick my news sources, and I’ve got accurate weather with alerts and radar on my phone.
Out of the gate the weather location is wrong, like the wrong county wrong. No problem, I change it.
Next up, “Top Stories”. Not a single thing I’m interested in. I spend the next 20+ minutes playing whack-a-mole with news sources. I hide Women’s Health and Redbook comes up. I hide E Online and Hollywood Reporter comes up. I hide an article about soccer and another comes up. Don’t wanna see the local news from Tulsa? No problem, how about Dallas? Or maybe Cleveland? Didn’t like that article on the Pittsburg Steelers? How about the Buccaneers?
Why couldn’t they just let me wipe the slate clean and create my own sources?
I would like to be able to filter stories that ever mention say: Lebron James, The Voice, the stock market, anything involving a Kardashian, and a zillion other topics.
Why do I need traffic on my desktop computer? I’ve got Waze on my phone thank you.
Some folks have complained about the widget using Microsoft Edge instead of some other browser. I really don’t care. Edge is just Chrome with some Microsoft thrown in. As for myself, I left Microsoft browsers a long time ago and see no need to reconsider. Aside from Gmail and some shopping, I do my web activity in Firefox in a Linux Mint virtual machine. I digress…
I’m gonna leave the News and interests widget active for a few days to see what’s what but I don’t see a future for it on my desktop beyond that.
Oh, and the game schedule is wrong. The next game is tonight…
Directions to disable this are below the next picture.
How To Disable The News and Interests Widget:
I don’t know why people are making a big deal over this. Registry edits, Group Policy edits… Humbug.
Right-click on the Taskbar > News and interests > Turn off
Thanks for the warning Eric. I just built a new rig. Sanitation is getting expensive these days.
I completely agree. I had this stupid widget since the beginning of the month as being designated as a guinea pig for Microsoft since I’m not part of their development program. I find it as another way for them to try and track me as I keep updating my location thanks to their “inaccuracy” plus a bunch of news I do not care about or “media manipulation” on their part. Thanks, but no thanks. Turned it off as of now.
Installed the May cumulative update KB5003173 this morning. Expected to see the News & Interests toolbar item after the reboot but it did not show up. Right clicking on the taskbar does not show a configuration item for this new item in the listed options either. We’ll see if it shows up after the next reboot. Otherwise I’m at a loss as to why it is not present.
Windows Update > View optional updates > install KB5003214
You’ll be pleased to know, if you haven’t already discovered it, that, if you turn off News and Interests before or after installing KB5003412, the right hand side of your taskbar will disappear. It might be OK if the display scaling is 100% instead of the often “recommended” 125%. It’s also OK if you don’t install KB5003412, which is a much more useful option until MS removes this useless piece of bloatware.