Microsoft has released new previews of Windows 10 version 20H2 and the upcoming 21H1, and introduced the news and interest Taskbar widget to versions 20H2 and 2004. The updates also contain a bunch of fixes for pesky bugs.
The software giant is rolling out its ‘news and interests’ widget to older versions of Windows 10 all the way back to version 2004 from May 2020, according to Windows Central.
Microsoft began experimenting with the Taskbar widget in January for the newest previews of Windows 10, and has been tweaking it ever since, but notably is now rolling the feature out to older versions of Windows 10.
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The feed includes news, weather and other info that can be personalized. Users can turn it off if they’re not interested.
It was expected to show up as a new feature in Windows 10 21H1, due out this spring, or the fall release of version 21H2. But Microsoft appears to be confident it’s worth pushing the taskbar feature towards older versions of Windows 10.
“We are rolling out news and interests on the Windows taskbar to Beta and Release Preview rings. This has been available in the Dev Channel, with on-going improvements based on Insider feedback. News and interests on the taskbar make it easy to stay up to date with information at a glance, and we look forward to hearing what you think,” it said in a blogpost announcing a preview for Windows 10 20H2, the release from October 2020.
The latest 20H2 preview update is the ‘C week’ update that Microsoft releases to users so that admins can test optional updates that will roll with the Patch Tuesday security updates on the second Tuesday of the next month. The same roll out is happening for users on builds from the Windows 10 21H1 branch with build number 19043.962 (KB5001391).
