News about a major event in the world, information about the weather in your region, and everything in between is what you can access using Widgets in Windows 11. With a push of a button, you can access everything that we just mentioned.
It is an excellent feature users enable to get constant updates about anything going on around the globe. But there are users who don’t particularly use or maybe don’t like Widgets being displayed on the taskbar.
You can either use Windows Settings or the Registry editor itself to easily hide or unhide Widgets on Taskbar.
Table of Contents
Using Windows Settings
Windows Settings allows you to change your entire desktop including what displays on the Taskbar.
- Press Windows + I key to open Settings.
- Go to Personalization.
- Scroll down and select Taskbar.
- Under Taskbar items, use the radio button to enable or disable Widgets.
Using Registry Editor
If you cannot access these settings, you can change the value in the registry to enable or disable Widget. But you need to be careful when changing the values in the registry.
Changing the wrong values could affect your system’s performance. So make sure that you backup the registry before changing any of its values.
- Press the Windows R key to open Run.
- Type
regedit
and press enter to open Registry Editor. - Navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
- On the right panel, double-click on TaskbarDa.
- Set Value Data to 0 to hide Widgets and 1 to unhide Widgets.
- Click OK.
- Restart your computer to save any changes made to the registry.
When enabled Widgets is displayed as a small icon that appears on the left most side of the taskbar.
Both the steps mentioned above only hides or displays Widgets. But you can completely disable or remove Widgets from taskbar and the entire system. You can either use Group Policy Editor or the command prompt to do this.
Disable Widgets Using Group Policy Editor
Before we start, Group Policy is not available on all edition of Windows. If your system does not have Group Policy Editor, you will need to enable it first.
- Press the Windows + R key to open Run.
- Type
gpedit.msc
and press enter to open Group Policy Editor. - On the left panel navigate to, Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Widgets.
- Now on the right panel, double-click on Allow widgets.
- Here, select Disable and click on Apply.
- Restart your PC to apply changes made to the Group Policy Editor.
Uninstall Widgets Using Command Prompt
You can install any application in Windows using Command Prompt. Windows web experience pack manages Widgets. So you can uninstall this application to remove Widgets completely from your PC.
- Press the Windows + R key to open Run.
- Type
cmd
and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt as Admin. - Type
winget uninstall “windows web experience pack”
and press Enter. - Press Y if the command asks for confirmation.
You can install it again using Microsoft Store. Once the installation is complete, restart your PC to get Widgets.