By default, Windows 11 places a weather icon on the far left side of your taskbar. When you click this icon (or accidentally hover over it with your mouse), a massive panel slides out covering half your screen. This is the “Widgets board,” a resource-heavy feed populated with MSN news articles, celebrity gossip, and stock tickers.
While you can easily turn off the taskbar icon via the standard Settings menu, the background processes (specifically Widgets.exe) will continue to run silently in the background, consuming valuable RAM. To completely eradicate the Widgets board and reclaim your system resources, you must disable it via the Registry.
How to Disable Widgets via Registry Editor
- Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog box.
- Type regedit and press Enter. (Click “Yes” to grant administrative privileges).
- Copy and paste the following path directly into the address bar at the very top of the window, then press Enter:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft
- In the left-hand folder tree, look for a folder named Dsh underneath Microsoft. If it does not exist, you must create it: Right-click the Microsoft folder, select New > Key, name it exactly
Dsh, and press Enter. - Click on the Dsh folder so it is highlighted.
- Move your mouse to the empty white space in the right-hand pane. Right-click, select New, and click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
- Name this new value exactly:
AllowNewsAndInterests
- Press Enter to save the name.
- Double-click your newly created
AllowNewsAndInterestsvalue. Ensure the “Value data” box is set to 0 (zero). - Click OK.
Applying the Fix
Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
When you log back into Windows 11, the weather icon will be permanently gone from the taskbar. Furthermore, if you check your Task Manager, the Widgets.exe process will no longer be running, freeing up memory and CPU cycles for your actual applications.
If you ever want the Widgets board back, simply return to the Registry Editor and change the AllowNewsAndInterests value data from 0 to 1.