Turn Off Windows 10 News and Interests on the Taskbar using MEM Intune | Group Policy

In this post, you will see how to manage Windows 10 News and Interests on the taskbar. News and interests on the taskbar have started rolling out to Windows 10 users’ devices running Windows 10, version 1909, or later installed who have installed the May 2021 Windows monthly update (or later) will be included in this phased rollout.

News interests on the Windows taskbar simplify this process with a convenient and personalized experience centered around you. When you select or hover on the weather icon in your taskbar, you will open news and interests.

From here, you will see content covering the news, weather, traffic, and more. Content updates throughout the day and is designed to keep you up to date. How to get rid of weather and stock market details on the taskbar? You can get more details from this post.

Microsoft has now rolled out the Windows 10 News and Interests to everyone and enabled it by default on the taskbar. Let’s check the different ways to disable News and Interests feature if you already have –

Turn On or Off News and Interests from Taskbar

In Windows 10, a nice feature if you like to have at-a-glance weather on your taskbar, as well as news updates just a click away. Suppose you had rather not have News and Interests sitting there taking up space on your Windows taskbar. However, getting rid of it is easy. Here’s how –

Right-click any blank space on the taskbar and select News and interests >Turn off. When you turn off news and interests, the weather will no longer appear on your taskbar.

To turn on news and interests, right-click a blank space on the taskbar and select News and interests > Show icon and text.

To only show the weather icon and to save space on your taskbar, you can switch to icon-only mode. Right-click any blank space on the taskbar and select News and interests > Show icon only.

Turn Off News and Interests on the taskbar with Group Policy

To turn off news and interests on the taskbar from Windows 10, follow the steps below –

You must be logged in as an Administrator on the computer.

• On Windows 10 device, click Start type gpedit.msc in search to run the Local Group Policy Editor.
• Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > News and interests. The Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

Double-click the Enable news and interests on the taskbar policy to edit it. You can disable or enable the news and interests experience on the taskbar through this policy. If you leave the setting as “Not configured,” the experience will be enabled by default.

Enabled – News and interests will be allowed on the taskbar. The settings UI will be present in the Taskbar context menu, and users will be able to turn it off or switch modes.
Disabled – News and interests will be turned off completely, and the settings UI in the Taskbar context menu will be removed.

Close the Local Group Policy Editor. All changes have been saved and will take effect immediately. If needed, Sign out or Restart your computer.

Turn Off News and Interests on the Taskbar with Registry

To add or import a registry value, follow these steps:

Important – We recommend you create a backup before editing the registry.

Please navigate to the following registry path, do the changes mentioned below, export the registry Or prepare a registry file (.reg) with the help of this blog post and test it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Feeds

EnableFeeds DWORD

0 = Disable
1 = Enable

The registry key below is applicable only for the current users, not the machine level.

Navigate to the following registry path

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Feeds

ShellFeedsTaskbarViewMode DWORD

0 = Show icon and text
1 = Show icon only
2 = Turn off

Once the changes have been saved and will take effect after you Sign out or Restart your computer.

Turn Off News and Interests Using Intune Portal

Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers the policy configuration options to allow or disallow News and Interests. How to get rid of the weather on Taskbar?

Follow the Steps to Configure Policies –

• Sign in to the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center.
• Navigate to Devices > Configuration Profiles >+ Create Profile
• Select Platform as Windows 10 and Later
• Select Profile as Settings catalog (preview)
• Click on Create button

Click on + Add settings. A flyout will appear to search the settings by keywords to get it easily, and Select Enable News and interests.

This policy setting specifies whether News and interests are allowed on the device. Configure either Allowed or Not Allowed from the drop-down list and click Next to complete the assignment, deployment.

Resources

• Group configuration: news and interests on the Windows taskbar
• Easiest Option to Upgrade to Latest Version of Windows 10 21H1 | No Need to Download 21H1 | Best Upgrade Option

Author

About Author – Jitesh, Microsoft MVP, has over five years of working experience in the IT Industry. He writes and shares his experiences related to Microsoft device management technologies and IT Infrastructure management. His primary focus is Windows 10 Deployment solution with Configuration Manager, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), and Microsoft Intune.