Microsoft begins rollout of refreshed Windows 10 taskbar

The new Windows 10 taskbar

All PC users can look forward to using Microsoft’s new Windows 10 taskbar, bringing along a variety of new ways to personalise their device, following a decision to roll out the changes to a wider audience.

The taskbar, which has been available to Windows Insiders since early 2021, allows users to navigate through personalised information, collated from news, weather, and stock reports.

This feature will begin rolling out to customers over the next several weeks, as the company opts for a “phased and measured approach” for its introduction.

The “snackable” content is all available through the taskbar and doesn’t require any apps to be opened to access it. Users can also save stories for later or share them too.

Microsoft's new Windows 10 taskbar

You can also adjust which information cards are available and make changes to how weather updates are displayed. For example, if you’re not interested in any of the weather, finance, sports or traffic information cards, you can simply turn the icon corresponding to a specific card off.

There’s also a feature called the “interest manager” where users can directly indicate the topics they are interested in, or choose the content sources from the Windows “content ecosystem” they want to see.

Last month, Microsoft introduced new capabilities on its Power Platform suite of robotic process automation (RPA) tools, such as automation across Windows 10 apps and low code programming. The Power Automate Desktop, available to all Windows 10 users at no extra cost, gives RPA functionality to automate tasks across any application.

Furthermore, it was reported last year that the tech giant might be working on a new piece of software to run Android apps on Windows 10. The name of the project was Project Latte and was thought to allow Android apps to run on Microsoft’s operating system with little or no code changes.

Zach Marzouk

Zach Marzouk is a former ITPro, CloudPro, and ChannelPro staff writer, covering topics like security, privacy, worker rights, and startups, primarily in the Asia Pacific and the US regions. Zach joined ITPro in 2017 where he was introduced to the world of B2B technology as a junior staff writer, before he returned to Argentina in 2018, working in communications and as a copywriter. In 2021, he made his way back to ITPro as a staff writer during the pandemic, before joining the world of freelance in 2022.