Windows 11's Widgets Can Now Trigger Notifications on Your Taskbar

Microsoft is rolling out the taskbar notification system for its Windows 11 widgets this week. While the Weather widget made its way into Windows 11 earlier this year, it remains a largely static experience that displays a sunny icon when the weather is nice and an umbrella icon when it's raining and out. Is. Is. That's all changing this week, as Microsoft is now adding live animations to this taskbar widget.

All Windows 11 users will start seeing these new widget notifications in the coming days and weeks, thanks to an update to the Windows Web Experience Pack powering Microsoft's widget feature. Notifications appear as live animations on the taskbar weather widget, and include thunderstorm alerts and even ticker alerts when the stock you're following goes up or down.

"When something important happens related to another of your widgets, you may see an announcement from that widget on your taskbar," Microsoft explains in a support article. "These announcements are quick and viewable, and if you don't interact with them, the taskbar will return to show you the weather."

I've been seeing some of these notifications on my Windows 11 machine recently, and they can be distracting - especially if you have the taskbar focused. While weather alerts are useful for alerting you to thunderstorms and other elements of nature you want to avoid, alerts for stocks are very rare in my experience. You can just ignore the notifications and the taskbar widget will return in steady weather, but animations definitely deserve your attention if you're in the middle of a meeting or you're busy figuring out why your VLOOKUP table works. does not. not doing. Not doing this in Excel.

Microsoft does not provide a way to easily disable these notifications. I'd like to keep the weather alerts but remove the stock animations and any other notifications so that my taskbar is a little less distracting. Given that we can fix the news content inside the main widget panel, I expect a setting to fix the widget notifications is on the way.

Speaking of future Windows 11 updates, Microsoft is also planning to release its next major OS update on September 20. Windows 11 22H2 will include new app folders in the Start menu, drag and drop on the taskbar, new touch gestures and more.