Widgets in Windows 11 can now cause notifications to appear on your taskbar
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| Windows 11 |
This week, Microsoft will begin distributing a taskbar notification system for its Windows 11 widgets. Although the weather widget made a comeback in Windows 11 earlier this year, it has primarily remained a static experience that shows an umbrella icon when it's raining and a sunny indicator when it's nice and sunny outdoors. All of that is changing this week as Microsoft updates its taskbar widget with live animations.
The Windows Web Experience Pack, which drives Microsoft's widgets feature, has been updated, and as a result, all Windows 11 users will begin to see these new widget notifications in the upcoming days and weeks. The taskbar weather widget displays messages as live animations that include ticker alerts for up-and-down stock prices and alerts for thunderstorms.
Microsoft states in a support page that "you may receive an announcement from that widget on your taskbar when something noteworthy happens connected to one of your other widgets." If you don't interact with these announcements, the taskbar will resume displaying the weather. They are meant to be brief and glanceable.
On my Windows 11 computer, I've noticed some of these notifications lately, and they can be quite annoying, especially if you have the taskbar centred. The stock warnings are much less effective in my experience than the weather ones, which can help you escape thunderstorms and other natural hazards. The taskbar widget will revert to the static weather widget if you choose to ignore the notifications, but if you're in the middle of a conference or trying to figure out why your Excel VLOOKUP table isn't working, the animations will undoubtedly attract your attention.
Microsoft doesn't seem to provide a simple option to turn off these notifications. To make my taskbar a little less distracting, I'd like to keep the weather alerts but remove the stock animations and any other notifications. I'm hopeful that a feature to fine-tune widget notifications is on the horizon given that we can customise news information inside the main widget panel.
Regarding upcoming Windows 11 improvements, Microsoft also intends to roll out its subsequent significant OS update on September 20th. Drag and drop on the taskbar, new touch gestures, new programme folders in the Start menu, and much more will be part of Windows 11 22H2O.
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