Disabling "News and Interests" causes entire notification area to go blank

Hi J,

You are not alone. We have many reports of the same.

Via Taskbar problems kb-5003214 - Microsoft Community

You will see this if:

- KB5003214 is installed (KB5003637 in your case)

- News and Interests on the taskbar is turned off, and

- Your DPI scaling (Settings|System|Display|Scale and layout is other (larger?) than 100%

Change any one of those, and the problem goes away.

If issue still persists, kindly drop your feedback to Microsoft using Feedback hub so that the engineering team could resolve it in next updates/builds.

Greetings!

I uninstalled update KB5003637 as you suggested and, yes, the "feature", (and the problem), went away.

Briefly.

It wasn't a matter of five minutes before Windows Update, in it's own infinite wisdom, noticed this (so called) "security update" was missing and proceeded to immediately re-install it.

Note, It's now at "20%" and there appears to be no way to stop or pause the re-installation. Like it or not, need it or not, it appears I am doomed to have this installed regardless of my own desires or the update's effect on the stability of my own system.

How do I build on such quicksand?

How do I tell Windows Update that, no thank-you, I really do not want update KB5003637 installed on my system? I could "hide" updates in Windows 7, but that does not appear to be an option anymore.

Note: It appears that there used to be a show/hide updates tool for Windows 10, (KB3073930) that does not appear to exist anymore as all links to it now go to a generic "what can I help you with today?" web-page.

Additionally, there are articles describing how to do this using a downloaded "module" for PowerShell - dated from 2015. (and setting execution restrictions in PowerShell to "unrestricted" which is scary. . .)

Any ideas on how to make this fix permanent?

Hi J,

Everything you wrote is correct wrt showhide tool. We also are unaware why MS removed it.

At the time, please pause the update for 7 days - I am hopeful that MS would fix this by next week.

Based on the previous behavior, I suspect that the procedure for (ahem!) "disabling" this is:

1. Un-install the update.

2. IMMEDIATELY disconnect from the Internet. (Unplug the cable and/or turn off WiFi.)

3. Pause updates.

4. Reconnect to the network.

Apparently, Windows is too smart for it's own good.

Corollary question:

Is there a way to limit or forbid updates that are not absolutely essential?

I have real issues, as in the "I can get sued up the wazoo" kind of issues, with Microsoft using my computer as a test bed for whatever new "features" they may want to offer.

Viz.: A corollary posting by me.

It appears that I am not the first person to raise this issue. Is there some way to accomplish this, aside from using a different operating system?

Thanks!

I'm with you, J.

Still works, but it's only good case-by-case. MS shouldn't be shoving out new features at all in quality and security updates. Never mind something like this that is largely useless and wasn't debugged. Looks like it came from the marketing department rather than the engineering group.

You'll have to stay connected to the Internet long enough for MS update to see that the update you just uninstalled is now missing.

I am so sick and tired of Microsoft trying to monetized my operating system that I could scream until blood comes out.

I have to date stopped playing any kind of Microsoft casual game because of extreme monetization, I have stopped using Microsoft news because of the same and now this News and Interests, installed without permission (MY DEFINITION OF MALWARE) has got a bug that forces me to leave it in my tray.

HORRIBLE!!!!!!