windows: How to make the most out of Windows 11 widgets – Times of India

Widgets in Windows isn’t entirely a new concept. Widgets were an important part of Windows 7 operating system and now the same is the case with Windows 11. However, Microsoft has a very different take on Widgets with its latest operating system.
Windows 11 comes with an all-new widget panel that carries different types of cards and information like weather, news,etc. Basically, the Widgets panel has two sections. The top section carries widgets for weather, sports, photos and other topics. The bottom section is all about news curated from several online news websites.
The bottom section is basically the New & Interests section that we see on Windows 10 taskbar.
The entire setup is a little confusing and it might take a little time to get used to. To make that simpler for you, we have explained the entire Widgets panel and how to get the most out of it. Read on.
How to open Widgets in Windows 11
There are three ways you can access widgets in Windows 11. The most simple way to open widgets is by clicking on the Widget icon on the taskbar (it looks like a rectangular box with white and blue split-screen). Another way is by pressing Win + W keys. On touchscreen laptops, widgets can be accessed by swiping from the left.

Widgets panel explained
As soon as you open widgets, you’ll see a couple of widgets like stock, weather, photos along with a search field and option to add new widgets. Weather widget shows weather, you can customise the location by simply clicking on the ‘pen’ icon at the top of the weather widget. Similarly, you can customise other widgets as well.

The second section has news with clickable headlines and there’s nothing much you can do about it except managing your interests to see content curated based on your interests.
Managing widgets
Managing widgets is easy. If you are familiar with Windows 10 live tiles, then there’s nothing new to learn. Long press on a widget to move around. Click on three dots at the top to adjust the size — small, medium or large. Under the three-dot menu, you’ll also find the option to customise and remove the widget.

Clicking on any widget will redirect you to the web browser where it will one the website that’s powering that widget. For now everything is powered by MSN. So, the weather widget goes to MSN weather, stock redirects to MSN stocks and so on.
To add a new widget, simply click on the Add Widgets button between the Widgets section and News section and you can choose new widgets from there. Right now, the widgets selection is pretty shallow and the ones available are made by Microsoft only. More widgets might be arriving at a later stage from third-party app developers.
Managing New Feed
New Feed shows information based on your interests. There’s nothing much to do about it. All you can do is click on the three dots at the right side of every headline and select whether you want to see more stories or fewer stories like this. Also, there are Facebook-like reactions available that allow users to react to each news. The three dot menu also has Save for later section along with Manage interests.

Clicking on Manage Interests again redirects you to Microsoft Start where you can add new topics, remove them based on your interests from different categories like Music, Books, etc.