Windows 11 came onto the market in autumn 2021. One of the new features highlighted at the time was widgets. However, because the users had little influence on the news reports displayed in them, the widgets were more or less ignored by many users.
Almost a year ago, Microsoft announced at the Build 2023 conference that it wanted to remove the news feed from the widgets. Little happened at first.
The company distributed the new update on Wednesday KB5034765. It changes the previous profile icon in the widgets to a gear icon. However, this was not immediately the case on a test system. First we had to do that “Windows Web Experience Pack” Search and update in the Microsoft Store.
New settings dialog
The gear then appeared in the Windows 11 widgets. After clicking on the symbol, a new settings dialog opened. Another click on the line “Show or hide feeds” then showed the new option “Microsoft Start”. After turning off the option and restarting the widgets, the news reports disappeared from the widgets.
With the change, the manufacturer is implementing one of the requirements of the European Union (EU). The Digital Markets Act (DMA) forces dominant companies like Microsoft to make changes to their core products.