Turn off Widgets completely (including the taskbar weather button) — via Microsoft Learn

The easy way

1. Just want the button gone? Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → turn off Widgets.

Group Policy

Open gpedit.msc (Pro, Enterprise and Education only) and go to:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Widgets > Allow widgets (Disabled)

Registry equivalent

Double-click a .reg file and confirm to merge it. Right-click → Edit first if you want to read it, which is always a good idea with any .reg file from the internet.

Apply

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: Turn off Widgets completely (including the taskbar weather button)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh]
"AllowNewsAndInterests"=dword:00000000

Undo

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: undo Turn off Widgets completely (including the taskbar weather button)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh]
"AllowNewsAndInterests"=-

Same thing from a command prompt

Run in an administrator Command Prompt or Terminal.

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh" /v "AllowNewsAndInterests" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Undo:

reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh" /v "AllowNewsAndInterests" /f

Microsoft documents this for Windows 11 21H2 and later on Pro, Enterprise and Education.