By
Delia
/ Last
update
December 28, 2021
What is the weather icon show in Windows 10 taskbar
Some users may find that the temperature and weather information appears on the right side of the taskbar after a certain restart of Windows 10. This is actually a customizable feature introduced by Microsoft to Windows 10 users called "News and Interests". Users with Windows 10 versions 1909 and later will find an additional weather icon on the taskbar, and if you hover over it, you can see some real-time news, stock quotes, interest feeds, and more.
This feature takes some inspiration from Live Tiles and allows users to view and customize news. But from the actual feedback, many users are asking for it to be turned off. After all, News & Interests takes up a lot of space on the taskbar, and if you have a narrow screen, it can be a huge distraction in some cases (especially if the mouse accidentally hovers over the icon). Also if you have a slow internet connection, you may have to wait some time for the news content to load (or it may not be displayed).
How to Disable News and Interests
To do this, right-click on an empty space in the taskbar, click “News and interests” in the menu that appears, and select “Show icon only” or “Turn off” in the submenu.
If you select “Show icon only”, only the weather icon will be displayed. If you select “Turn off”, the News & Interests section will be completely hidden.
Configure News and Interests
If you don't want to hide this feature completely, you can also consider setting it up to better suit your needs.
For example, you can change the location of the weather. Click on the weather icon to bring up the News and Interests screen, then click on the weather card with the ... icon and select “Edit Location” in the menu.
If you select “Always detect my location”, Windows 10 will detect your location and show you the weather for that location. Of course, you can also select “Specify location” and enter the name of a place in the input box below to see the weather for that location.
You can also hide information that is not of interest. Open the News & Interests screen, hover over the card you are not interested in, and click the X icon in the upper right corner. A short questionnaire will appear, select the appropriate one and the information card will be hidden.
You can also edit the cards for changing the topics you want to see (popular news, sports, stocks, traffic, etc.), as well as edit the topics you are interested in. To do this, click the weather icon in the taskbar, then click “Manage interests” in the upper right corner of News & Interests, this will launch Microsoft Edge and bring up the “My Interests” page. Here you can select the topic you want to see news about.
Overall, while this feature provides a way to keep up with real-time information, many users feel it should be an optional desktop update rather than mandatory. For users who don't like this change, it can be turned off to allow the taskbar to return to its previous appearance.