With the latest Windows 11 Insider build 22518, Microsoft introduced a few new changes like Spotlight desktop wallpapers and a new accessibility feature called Voice access to name a few. Besides that, the Redmond giant has also adjusted how you access widgets. Ahead, you’ll see a weather icon on the taskbar that looks a lot like Windows 10’s News & Interests widget. However, the app is intrusive and the widget page will be triggered automatically when you hover over the weather icon. If you are not interested in watching the weather directly from the taskbar or just want to get rid of the boredom, here is how to disable the weather widget in Windows 11.
Disable Weather Widget in Windows 11 (2022)
As mentioned above, the new weather widget icon in the taskbar is only available in the latest Windows Insider build 22518. However, since the feature is still in stable A/B testing, we’ve also added steps to force-enable the feature. You can get a feel for this feature before its official release and bookmark this resource to disable the new weather widget when it becomes available with the next Windows 11 update.
Force Enable Taskbar Weather Widget in Windows 11
1. Since the new weather widget is not yet widely available to everyone, you can use Albacore’s ViveTool to manually enable the feature. To start, download the latest ViveTool version from GitHub.
2. After downloading the ZIP file, right-click on the file explorer and select “Extract All”.
3. Then click the “Browse” button to change the destination folder.
4. From the file picker interface, set course in this direction Windows -> System32 and select “Select Folder”.
5. After choosing the path, click “Extract” to move the content to the destination folder.
6. Now that you have ViveTool installed, press the Windows key once, type “cmd” and click “Run as administrator” in the right pane to run Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
7. In the Command Prompt window, paste the following commands one by one and wait for the confirmation message. Restart your Windows 11 PC after running all commands.
vivetool addconfig 36553793 2 vivetool addconfig 36226456 2 vivetool addconfig 36226054 2 vivetool addconfig 34301415 2
8. One last step to do Update windows web experience pack. To do this, open the Microsoft Store, switch to the “Library” section and click the “Update” button. If you don’t see the update, you can install Winget and use the command below to manually update the package.
winget upgrade 9MSSGKG348SP
9. If you have centered the taskbar, you will see the weather widget in the lower left corner. If you moved the taskbar icons to the left, the new weather icon will replace the existing widget icon in the center.
Disable Windows 11 Weather Widgets from Taskbar Settings
1. Right-click anywhere on the taskbar and select “Taskbar settings”.
2. Disable the “Widgets” toggle from the Taskbar settings page and that’s it. You will no longer see the weather widget in the Windows 11 taskbar.
Uninstall Windows 11 Weather Widget Using Windows Settings
1. Another way to remove the weather widget is from the Settings app. Open the Settings app using the Windows 11 keyboard shortcut “Win+I” and Personalization -> Taskbar.
2. To get rid of Windows 11 widgets, you can now disable the widgets toggle.
Uninstall Windows 11 Weather Widget Using Winget
1. If you prefer to remove widgets instead, you can also do it this way: Uninstalling the Windows web experience package. First press Win key, type cmd and run Command Prompt as administrator.
2. Next, run the following command to uninstall Windows Web Experience Pack from your Windows 11 PC and press Enter. If you want to reinstall the widgets later, you can download the package again. from Microsoft Store.
winget uninstall "windows web experience pack"
Hide Weather Widget in Taskbar on Windows 11 PC
While the weather widget is handy, it would be nice to only see the weather when you click or hover over the widget icon, instead of the full widget screen. We hope Microsoft changes the trigger behavior before the wider release on the stable channel. In the meantime, you can check out our linked guides to customize the Windows 11 taskbar and replace the Windows 11 Start Menu.
