Microsoft has been consistently tweaking the Widgets panel in Windows 11’s Insider channels. We previously reported some useful changes in the Widget board’s layout. For example, Microsoft moved the Widgets board to a new spot when the taskbar was aligned to the left. KB5040546 changes the UI again and adds custom feed providers in the EU.
The KB5050546 update brings Windows 11 Build 22635.4000, which contains this hidden feature. As Phantom noticed, Microsoft has already officially announced a new Widgets board experience for users in the European Union.
The new experience includes greater controls over privacy and news feed, but it also hints at a new design based on WinUI 3. We have already reported that the Widget board will have a navigation pane on the left side to let you switch between Feed and Widgets. Now, Microsoft is rebuilding some parts of the Widgets board with WinUI 3 guidelines in mind.
Currently, the Widgets board uses Edge WebView, which can often be slow and feel out of place. This changes with KB5040546 where the widgets board uses WinUI3, which looks much better than the old WebView2 engine.
However, the change currently appears exclusive to EEA users because Microsoft had to announce two interoperability points after the EU intervened.
In our tests, Windows Latest noticed that Microsoft has removed many widgets from the widget picker. You must visit the Microsoft Store to download them. This change is also exclusive to Europe.
Custom feed providers are a distant dream
EEA users will soon have multiple feed providers available while the rest of the Windows users can sulk in the corner. Microsoft lets you disable the default feed in the Widgets board.
There hasn’t been any announcement for the third-party feed providers coming to all users in the future.
Even if you disable the default Microsoft Start feed and then click on the “Add more feeds” option, Microsoft Store launches. It only displays the Edge browser as an option. So, you are only left with the widgets pane on the board.
Other changes in the KB5040546 update
Apart from these widget board improvements, the update modifies the jumplists on the Taskbar. They launch automatically when you hover the cursor on any app pinned on the Taskbar.
Note that the jumplist shows on hover only for apps that aren’t open. If the app pinned on the Taskbar is open, you must right-click it to open the jumplist.
Besides that, the update adds several bug fixes and some Voice Access improvements to the Beta build.
