Microsoft is rolling out a taskbar notification system to its Windows 11 widgets this week. While the climate widget returned to Windows 11 earlier this 12 months, it’s largely been a static expertise that shows a sunny icon when the climate is sweet and an umbrella icon when it’s raining and sucks to be outdoors. That’s all altering this week, as Microsoft is now including stay animations to this taskbar widget.

All Windows 11 customers will start to see these new widget notifications within the coming days and weeks, due to an replace to the Windows Web Experience Pack that powers Microsoft’s widgets function. The notifications seem as stay animations on the taskbar climate widget, and embrace alerts for thunderstorms and even ticker alerts when shares you’re following go up or down.

“When something important happens related to one of your other widgets, you may see an announcement from that widget on your taskbar,” explains Microsoft in a support article. “These announcements are meant to be quick and glanceable, and if you don’t interact with them, the taskbar will return to showing you the weather.”

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

I’ve been seeing a few of these notifications in latest days on my Windows 11 machine, and they are often moderately distracting — particularly if in case you have the taskbar centered. While the climate ones are helpful to warn you to thunderstorms and different parts of nature you’d moderately keep away from, the alerts for shares are far much less so in my expertise. You can simply ignore the notifications and the taskbar widget will return to the static climate one, however the animations definitely catch your consideration for those who’re in the course of a gathering otherwise you’re busy determining why your VLOOKUP desk isn’t working in Excel.

Microsoft doesn’t seem to supply a strategy to simply disable these notifications, both. I’d prefer to preserve the climate alerts however ditch the inventory animations and every other notifications so my taskbar is rather less distracting. Given we are able to effective tune information content material inside the primary widgets panel, I’m hoping {that a} setting to effective tune widget notifications is on the best way.

Speaking of future Windows 11 updates, Microsoft can be planning to launch its subsequent main OS replace on September twentieth. Windows 11 22H2 will embrace new app folders within the Start menu, drag and drop on the taskbar, new contact gestures, and way more.