Windows 11 widgets; how to remove these annoying news feed windows in the Widgets panel?

Anonymous
2022-03-21T19:23:48+00:00

When hovering over or clicking on the Widgets shortcut the panel appears with ~50 of these stupid little windows all showing news feeds.

I don't mind the weather and a very few other widgets that show something useful but all of these news panels are pointless, annoying, and really leaning me more towards going back to Windows 10 where I can have real Live Tiles again without this excess junk.

How can we really customize this panel and remove all these unwanted news panels?

I have closed them with the upper-right 'X' which leaves them blank until the next time the panel opens.

I have chosen to 'Hide stories' from at least 100 different news agencies, but they continue to appear.

I have gone through the MS account 'personalize your interests' option to remove all possible genres of news.

Nothing removes the amount of windows shown or the genre of news that they continue to show.

I don't want to change what these little windows show, I want to delete the majority of the windows altogether so that only 4 or 5 at the most are there.

And why are these limited to these news feed type windows; weather, stocks, etc?

Why can't we create custom application shortcut widgets like in old Windows 7 & 8.1 add-ons with advanced options?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Settings

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-07-07T03:34:52+00:00

    This in one of several issues that M$ shoved down users throats with Windows 11. If I go to "all apps" I am presented with a list of many apps. Some that I may find useful but many that are a wast of screen space of worse. Lets go town the list: clock - why must I have it? It can not be uninstalled! ; Microsoft News - If I want news, I'll make my own choice. If I click, "uninstall" the result is the same as if I sent a note to Mr. Putin asking to the end the war.; Microsoft Teams - I have no use for this and it "uninstalls" just like News does.; Microsoft To Do - same an the other apps.; Phone link - don't want can and not kill it! ; Video editor - Use another why must I put up with yours? ; Xbox Game Bar - I do not use this PC for games!! get rid of the damm thing.

    How about some feed back from Microsoft with some real solutions.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-05-23T20:38:40+00:00

    Dude I understand. Every time I am like moving my mouse if I hover over it, it pops up. And sometimes it glitches so that I can't close it. So ANNOYING!

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-05-04T21:15:45+00:00

    Frustrating indeed that Microsoft forces news feeds on paying customers. However there is a way to neutralize the feed so it doesn't show when you click the Widget icon. Just pin a few things to force the news offscreen. I pinned Outlook, Weather, To-Do and Tips. Those 4 widgets fill the first pane that pops up when you click the Widget icon so you don't see the news. The useless news feed is still running, consuming bandwidth but at least I don't have to look. Hopefully Microsoft will fix this bad design soon and allow the user to completely turn off the news feed.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-31T01:25:49+00:00

    I completely agree. So far, the only useful widget is the weather widget. How about a dictionary widget or a translation one? maybe a conversion table calculator, a couple of clocks in different timezones, or a little display of the CPU temps or network bandwidth? There's loads of things it could do.

    Instead we get page after page of only what could very loosely be described as 'news'. Will Smith slapping someone at the Oscars, someones dog that walked 100 miles home, the latest fad diet, the latest paparazzi victim and a load of sports results I literally couldn't give two whoops about. There's very little actual real news like what's going on in Ukraine or the energy crisis.

    It asks me to customise the 'Discover Interests' page and then promptly ignores my customisations.

    It could be so much better.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-24T16:53:13+00:00

    So, if I get this right..

    To prevent the annoying news widgets from showing up the solution is to uninstall them altogether?!

    And uninstalling is better dan hiding them, because widgets that aren't being used will still be using resources?

    Think I might follow GObonzo's advice and go back to windows 10 indeed.

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