Windows 11’s widgets can now trigger notifications on your taskbar

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

This week, Microsoft is rolling out a new notification system. When the weather is good, a sunny icon is displayed, while when it is raining, an umbrella icon is displayed. This week, Microsoft is adding live animations to the task bar.

The update to the Windows Web Experience Pack will allow all Windows 11 users to see the new notifications. When stocks go up or down, you can get ticker alert on the notifications.

According to Microsoft, when something important happens related to one of your other widgets, you may see an announcement on your taskbar. If you don't interact with the announcements, the taskbar will show you the weather.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

I have seen some of these notifications on my Windows 11 machine in the last few days, and they can be rather distractive. In my experience, the stock alert is much less useful than the weather one to alert you to storms. If you are in the middle of a meeting or trying to figure out why your VLOOKUP table isn't working in excel, the animations may catch your attention.

Microsoft doesn't seem to have a way to easily disabling these notifications. I would like to keep the weather alert, but not the stock animations or notifications that distract me from my work. I would like to see a setting to fine tune notifications in the main panel.

The next major OS update from Microsoft will be on September 20th. New app folders will be included in the Start menu in Windows 11 22H2.