Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: Eternal Student on 17/06/2021 17:29:35
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Hi.
I hope everyone is well.
So, there's been a recent windows update and now my OS boots up with an extra piece of trashy information in the right hand side of the task bar.
It tells me if it's day or night and if it's raining or not. This could be very useful if I lived in a basement flat without any windows but I don't.
I can only imagine this new app is eating up some CPU clock cycles and some available RAM. It's also getting new data from somewhere so I guess it's eating into my internet bandwidth.
It seems like a pointless waste of resources. What's the fastest way to turn this off please? Obviously I want it thoroughly disabled not just made invisible - I want my resources back.
Thanks.
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Try right click taskbar and go news&info.
Should be able to access the controls. Some of it seems to be linked to an MSN site
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Thanks Colin 2B.
Try right click taskbar and go news&info.
I think that should be news and interests not news&info.
Anyway this does provide a "turn off" option. Thank you. Sadly it's not obvious if the process or service is still running and chewing up resources while just prevented from displaying anything.
I was running the Task manager while I tried turning this app on and off......
I had 2 apps and 50 background processes listed while it was on. I also had 2 apps and 50 background processes listed when it was off.
Whatever this thing is, it's active process is not shown. It may be classified as a background SERVICE rather than a PROCESS. However, there are about a hundred of these and I couldn't be bothered to check them all. In the worst case, it isn't a process or service all of it's own, it's just extra code added to an existing process or service so we'll never find it and could hardly modify the software anyway even if we did.
If any geeks learn what it is please post here.
Some more internet searching has suggested that the app can be uninstalled.
Start -> Settings -> Apps find Microsoft News and uninstall this.
This may be a more efficient method of killing all processes and services associated with it HOWEVER there are reports that it is also involved with the Microsoft calendar service and you could also lose this. It's also not obvious that you could easily re-install the app once removed either. You may need to uninstall the entire windows update and re-install that again (which may also damage subsequent updates so that they also have to be re-installed). In short, it could be a lot of work.
From what I have read, the uninstall procedure is still likely to leave some mess behind (just like most of them do).
See https://www.auslogics.com/en/articles/uninstall-microsoft-news-app-in-windows-10/
for some guidance but this is ONLY GENERAL advice about what may be left behind.
One registry key involved is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Feeds
The ShellFeedsTaskbarViewMode DWORD takes these values
0 = Show icon and text (default)
1 = Show icon only
2 = Turn off
Which means that there are bound to be many other registry keys associated with the app and taking them all out may be almost impossible.
There is also the following executable that was picked up by someone's third-party firewall (Micorosoft's own firewall was automatically tweaked to allow this - you didn't get much choice).
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\SearchApp.exe
This seems to be used to get data to / from the internet for the news and information app.
SUMMARY:
Microsoft have decided on our behalf that the Windows OS can and should be bloated with this piece of rubbish and it's likely to be quite difficult to clean it all out. :(
Maybe it's time to go back to Linux again.
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I want my resources back.
It seems you have found the answer:
Maybe it's time to go back to Linux again.
(For the record, all my PCs run Windows and my phone's an iPhone...)
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This is why most of our computers run Windows. It is like a pair of shoes you purchased and are determined to get your money's worth out of them despite the pain they cause you every day.