Microsoft makes News and Interests for Windows 10 taskbar widely available

Microsoft has begun adding the News and Interests feature to the Windows 10 taskbar. It will be a phased distribution, starting with users who have previewed the April 2021 Cumulative Update.

In the coming months, News and Interests should become widely available, Microsoft reports. By default, this feature shows the weather, personalized based on the user’s location, with a drop-down menu for news and other personalized notifications. Links to messages opens Windows in the Edge browser by default. Users can customize their interests through the MSN site and the feature can be turned off by right clicking on the taskbar. News and Interests does not show any advertising at the time of writing.

Microsoft reports that Windows 10 users running the April 2021 Cumulative Update Preview will be the first to receive the feature, as reported earlier this week. But in the coming months, systems running Windows 10 November 2019 Update or later versions and installing the upcoming May 2021 Update will follow. Administrators of organizational systems can enable or disable the feature. Microsoft has been testing the news feature with Insiders users in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and India in recent months.