- Microsoft has toned down the ads and annoyances of Windows 11’s widgets panel
- In testing, the new defaults are much less in-your-face and distracting
- This is part of a big push to improve Windows 11 over the past month, and Microsoft has further promised that another major change is coming to the taskbar soon
Microsoft has made a helpful move to tame ads on the widget panel in Windows 11 (as previously promised), and it’s updated us on overall progress in fixing the OS so far — complete with reassurance that the big taskbar change some people are desperate for is coming soon.
Windows Latest reports that in a preview build released a few days back in the new experimental channel — which hosts the earliest pre-beta test builds — there’s a change to make the widget board “quiet,” which is Microsoft-speak for less in-your-face with ads and promoted news stories.
Microsoft tells us: “We’re working to make Widgets feel less distracting and overwhelming by making the experience quiet by default. To do this, we’re testing a new set of defaults designed to reduce unexpected alerts and visual interruptions.”
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These new default settings mean that mousing over the widget section of the taskbar will no longer cause the panel to pop up. More importantly, when the widget panel is called up, you get the “widgets experience on first launch”, which means that the panel will default to widgets only – no MSN feed.
The MSN (Microsoft Network) feed is where Microsoft makes money from interface widgets, pushing news and ads, and it’s not something many people want to see – at least not by default. If you want to turn it back on, however, it is entirely possible with the new way of working that you might expect.
Microsoft is also toning down the taskbar badging for the widgets panel, which is when little notification dots appear, e.g. for latest news.
Keep in mind that these changes are still only in testing for now, and at an early stage of that process too.
Analysis: ‘top improvements’ being pushed through
Essentially, Microsoft smooths out a lot of distractions with the widgets panel here and disables some of the advertising in Windows 11 by default. That’s good news for everyone, and it’s also a positive sign that in its big revamp of Windows 11, Microsoft isn’t afraid to make changes that users really want, even if they could potentially disrupt its revenue stream.
I recently wrote about my doubts about Microsoft calming down its upselling activities in Windows 11, so I’m glad to see that steps are actually being taken to back off some of the promotional nonsense that’s included by default as part of the operating system.
These widget changes are mentioned in a long blog post that Microsoft wrote about the “top improvements” that have started rolling out in testing, and it’s quite a list, from making File Explorer faster and improving overall system performance, to a bunch of important changes to Windows Update.
Another important piece of information dropped here is Microsoft saying, “We know there’s a lot of excitement for taskbar customization — and it’s coming soon.”
So the ability to move the taskbar away from the bottom of the screen (and other useful customization options) is not far away, and that’s good to hear. It seems that the rumors that this is a top priority for Microsoft were on the money.
All in all, it’s good to see that Microsoft wants to stay engaged with Windows 11 users, and that it’s keeping us all up to date regularly and pushing through promised changes with some alacrity — including reining in some ad-related bugs on the operating system.
Fixing Windows 11 is still a tall order, don’t get me wrong, but I’m starting to have more faith that Microsoft can actually pull this off.
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