⚙️🪟💻CP - User Experience - Disable News and Interests
What this policy is about 📰
The News and Interests feed. That taskbar slot quietly serving weather, stocks, sports scores, and an endlessly scrollable feed of clickbait optimized for whichever country your IP geolocates to.
On a personal Windows install? Sure, why not. 🛋️ On a managed business device? It's a distraction surface with a constant outbound polling habit.
This policy disables it.
"No news feed. Just a clean taskbar."
Your users will survive without knowing it's partly cloudy with a chance of meatballs. ☁️🍝
Why disable it? 🤔
- Focus. A live news feed two pixels from the Start button is not how anyone gets work done.
- Bandwidth. The feed polls continuously even when collapsed. Across a fleet that adds up.
- Security hygiene. Third-party content rendered in a Microsoft-branded surface. Less of that on managed devices, please.
- Consistency. One taskbar across the fleet. No tenant-by-tenant variation on whether MSN headlines are visible.
🛠️ Configuration Settings
Applied via Settings Catalog, device scope.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Enable News and interests on the taskbar | Not allowed | Removes the News and Interests flyout and its hover preview from the taskbar. |
This policy is specifically the News and Interests surface. The neighboring Widgets surface is a separate setting handled in ⚙️🪟💻CP - User Experience - Disable Widgets. They look similar but they're different CSPs. 🧩
Caveats ⚠️
License fit. Settings Catalog on Windows 11 Pro/Business. Business Premium covers it.
Reversibility. This setting writes to the NewsAndInterests policy CSP and tattoos. Excluding a device from this profile does not bring News and Interests back. If a tenant ever wants it re-enabled on a subset of devices, you need an explicit inverse policy. None exists yet. Add one only if a real use case shows up.
Windows 11 vs the lingering Windows 10 estate. On Windows 10 22H2 this setting still applies and behaves the same. On Windows 11, the News and Interests surface has been largely replaced by Widgets, so on most modern devices the visible effect is small. The companion Widgets policy does the heavy lifting on Windows 11.
💡 SuperVision tip
Baseline policy. Golden Master → Windows → Configuration Profiles → User Experience. Assigned to All Devices with the standard Autopilot carve-outs.
Tag candidate: none. This is a "do you want a news feed on managed devices, yes or no" question and the answer is no.
Pair with Widgets. Always deploy this alongside ⚙️🪟💻CP - User Experience - Disable Widgets and ⚙️🪟💻CP - User Experience - Remove Chat Icon. The three together produce the clean managed taskbar this baseline wants. ✨
Drift detection. Low priority. Once tattooed, end users can't bring it back from the taskbar UI.
👥 Group Assignments
✅ Included groups:
All Devices
❌ Excluded groups:
Why? IoT and W365 Boot devices don't have a normal taskbar. They either run a kiosk shell or have no interactive session at all. Excluding them keeps the assignment scope honest.
Standardize like a pro. Configure with intent. And remember: not every feature needs to be enabled. 🙅