How to remove Widgets from the Windows 11 taskbar
Windows 11 puts a Widgets button at the left-hand end of the taskbar. It usually shows the current weather, and resting the pointer on it opens a board of news stories and cards. A switch in Settings takes the button off the taskbar. This guide covers that switch, and what to do if you want Widgets gone from the PC rather than hidden.
What you'll need: A PC running Windows 11. The switch in Settings doesn't need an administrator account. Uninstalling Widgets, covered under Variations, does.
Open Settings
Hold down the Windows key and press I. The Settings window opens.
Click Personalisation
In the list down the left-hand side of the Settings window, click Personalisation. If the window is too narrow to show the list, click the three-line menu icon at the top-left first.
Click Taskbar
Scroll down the Personalisation page and click Taskbar. It sits near the bottom of the list, below Start.
Switch Widgets off
The first section on the Taskbar page is Taskbar items, listing Search, Task view and Widgets. Click the switch next to Widgets so it reads Off. The weather icon and the Widgets button disappear from the taskbar straight away. There's nothing to save.
Widgets is still installed. The button has gone, but holding down the Windows key and pressing W still opens the board. If you'd rather it couldn't, see Uninstall Widgets altogether under Variations.
Variations
Right-click the weather icon on the taskbar and click Hide from taskbar. This does the same thing as the switch in Settings, and the switch changes to Off on its own. Some versions of Windows 11 word the menu line Unpin from taskbar instead.
Widgets arrives on the PC as an app called Windows Web Experience Pack. It isn't listed under Installed apps in Settings, so removing it takes a command. Right-click the Start button, click Terminal (Admin), then click Yes when Windows asks for permission. Paste in the line below and press Enter. If it asks you to agree to the source terms, press Y and Enter.
winget uninstall "Windows web experience pack"Restart the PC when it finishes. The board no longer opens with the Windows key and W, and the Widgets switch disappears from the Taskbar settings page. To get it back, open the Microsoft Store, search for Windows Web Experience Pack and install it, or run the same command with install in place of uninstall. A later Windows update may also put the pack back without asking.
Follow steps 1 to 4 and click the Widgets switch so it reads On. The weather icon returns to the left-hand end of the taskbar.
Troubleshooting
That's expected. The switch in Settings only hides the taskbar button; the Widgets app keeps running in the background and the keyboard shortcut still reaches it. The only way to stop that is to uninstall the Windows Web Experience Pack, as described under Variations.
On a work or school PC, the organisation may have turned Widgets off or locked the setting, and Settings usually shows a line saying some settings are managed by your organisation. Ask whoever manages the device. On your own PC, a missing switch usually means the Windows Web Experience Pack has already been uninstalled, so there's nothing left to hide.
If you set the Allow widgets policy to Disabled yourself in the Group Policy Editor on a Pro or Enterprise edition, the switch stays greyed out until you set that policy back to Not Configured. The policy lives under Computer Configuration › Administrative Templates › Windows Components › Widgets.
That's a separate setting. Open Settings, click Personalisation, then Lock screen. Under Lock screen status, change the drop-down from Weather and more to None.
Feature updates can reset taskbar settings, and the Windows Web Experience Pack can be reinstalled by an update. Switch Widgets off again using steps 1 to 4. If you uninstalled the pack and it has returned, run the uninstall command again.
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