That hides the UI entry point, but widgets.exe continues running, along with 5-6 edgewebview2.exe processes, taking up valuable resources. If you try to kill widgets.exe, a system service restarts it :(
Unfortunately, the powershell incantation is the only way to get rid of it...
will there not be some registry entry you can change?
No, there is no way to disable it via registry or group policy that I know of.
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
by SpaghettiCthulu on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:06PM
(#35223626)
These "powershell incantations" usually modify the registry or group policy, or delete or replace system files behind the scenes. And from my experience the ones that modify system files often don't persist across system updates.
winget uninstall "Windows web experience Pack"
Get-AppxPackage *WebExperience* | Remove-AppxPackage
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
by benhurmarcel on Sunday March 19, 2023 @06:26PM
(#35224336)
I just checked, and yes you're right. But it uses 1.2 MB of RAM, and no CPU.
You don’t need PowerShell to get rid of Widgets. You can disable it with three clicks: right click on the Taskbar, go to Taskbar settings, and toggle the switch next to Widgets at the top of the window.