If you’ve been encountering the blurry text issue on the news and interests taskbar widget, you’re not alone. As reported by Neowin, many Windows 10 users have been complaining on Reddit and Microsoft’s forums [1, 2] about this bug after installing the latest optional updates, and the company has now acknowledged the problem.
Microsoft announced the news and interests taskbar widget back in January this year. The feature had been in testing with Windows Insiders for a couple of months, and it’s now generally available for everyone with the June 2021 updates. However, soon after receiving this update, customers began reporting that the feature comes with some bugs that mess up the taskbar’s display and notification icons on the tray.
In a Reddit post, a thread from a user describing the font and icon rendering issues in news and interests on the taskbar on his Windows 10 PCs has received 143 upvotes as of this writing. “I don’t mind the feature but the text is SOOOO noticeable and just hideous. I thought it was maybe because I was using the small taskbar option but nope, text is still blurry even on the normal size,” a comment on the initial post reads.
Many people on Microsoft’s Feedback Hub described having similar issues, and the bug is affecting users running Windows 10 version 21H1, 20H2, 2004, and 1909. The company has recently updated its Windows 10 Health Dashboard page to confirm that it’s investigating this issue, and a fix is coming in a future release. “After installing KB5001391 or later updates, the news and interests button in the Windows taskbar might have blurry text on certain display configurations,” the company explained.
There’s no precise ETA yet for when this patch will be available on Windows 10, but we’ll let you know as soon as we get more information. In the meantime, if you’re bothered by the widget, we invite you to check out our step-by-step guide to turn off the news and interests widget on the taskbar permanently. Have you encountered this blurry text issue on your Windows 10 PC? Let us know in the comments below.