News and Interests in Task Manager (win 10)

BadHellie

BadHellie

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Hi, forgive me in advance but I am quite a beginner with NTLite. I managed to create a very debloated win10 iso (I removed pretty everything, defender, oobe, updater, intrusive stuff, xbox,...). I started from the most updated win10 iso taken from uupdump.net. I installed it and everything seems fine, but one 'sh*t' remained: news and interests is still listed in the task manager ! Can you please tell me which component is related to it, which I should remove and which I overlooked ? I could find nothing relevant searching for keywords in the Components. Thx
 
It is integrated with the taskbar and cannot be removed, but can be disabled
Settings - Desktop - News and Interests - Taskbar Tools
 
Mr. Yu said:
It is integrated with the taskbar and cannot be removed, but can be disabled
Settings - Desktop - News and Interests - Taskbar Tools
Click to expand...
Uhm... I have disabled it in the Settings indeed, and in fact it does NOT show up in the taskbar. It is listed in the *task manager*. So, I don't want crap tasks running and I wanted to know which component originated this unwanted task. I understood I shall investigate...
 
reg add “HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Feeds” /v “EnableFeeds” /t REG_DWORD /f /d 0
reg add “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Feeds” /v “ShellFeedsTaskbarViewMode” /t REG_DWORD /f /d 2
Click to expand...
The first registry is a regular method.
The second registry is to disable the taskbar from connecting to the network, completely solving the problem of background occupation.
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...completely-shut-down-news-and-interests.4699/
 
Thank you mr yu ! Very interesting. Geez Micro$oft hid its cr@p very well and deeply !!!!!! :O
 
Sorry for my late feedback, but I had to test things carefully before commenting again, to be 100% sure it was not my fault...
Unfortunately, setting the two key values above does NOT solve the issue. As a premise, they are effectively set since I can check that in regedit after installation, and I made no typos. Unfortunately, the New and Interests task is still listed in the Task Manager (see screenshot, sorry taken with my phone since the PC used for the tests is still not connected to a LAN). News and Interests in Taskbar is DISABLED in NTLite / Settings of course. Also, there is a Meet icon in the taskbar, which I can't get rid of, and which is disabled in NTLite settings aswell.
This News and Interest cr@p seems related to Windows Search and to the Search App, as you can see. But if I remove Windows Search from the ISO, I end up with a search bar which is no longer functional (as expectable), so I can't get rid of it... Any further suggestion is appreciated !
 
Check the registry to see if the keys actually got installed, because it most likely didn't and I can see two reasons why.

VERIFY REGISTRY KEYS
These steps explain how to manually check if a registry key was installed properly.

1) Start > Windows Administrative Tools > Registy Editor > then maximize the window so that it's full screen.

2) Delete everything in the address bar where it says, "Computer\" near the top left of the screen. Then enter:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Feeds

3) Look in the menu on the right half of the screen, it should have a key that says, "Enable Feeds" and shows 0x00000000. If it does not, then the registry key isn't installed, and that's why it's not working.

ISSUE #1 = SMART QUOTES
One of the issues in this thread, is because the tweak being discussed was copy/pasted using smart quotes which is a rich text format that the registry does not support, thus causing the entry to fail and not apply. Smart quotes can be distinguished from normal ones, because they are typically in italics and have a different design.

To fix this, delete the quotes and just type a new quote while in a simple editor, such as the basic Notepad included with Windows. Apply the tweaks, reboot, and now check the registry to see if it worked. Smart quotes will cause the "Run" box and registry files to both fail.

ISSUE #2 = NTLITE IS BROKEN
The NTLite tool doesn't handle this tweak right, because there's 2 ways to disable News properly and NTLite is missing a key that makes either option work, so the tool is broken right now. Pinging nuhi so he can fix it. Below are the options to address this, and only one set of these tweaks needs to be used. The first two keys are for the standard method, while the last key is the group policy method.

; Taskbar > News and interests > Turn off
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Feeds]
"HeadlinesOnboardingComplete"=dword:00000001
"ShellFeedsTaskbarViewMode"=dword:00000002

; Taskbar > News and interests > Disabled
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Feeds]
"EnableFeeds"=dword:00000000
 
Also, there's some confusion in this thread, because SearchApp.exe isn't just the News and Interests on the Taskbar, so while the problems and tweaks discussed in the previous reply are still valid, it may not completely eliminate the instances of SearchApp from the Task Manager (rather than the Taskbar), since things like Cortana, Edge, and Indexer could be a related part of the overhead too.

These components have evolved quite a bit over time and were integrated in different ways, so the situations can change depending on the build and tweaks used. I have News and Interests disabled, so it doesn't appear on the Taskbar, but in the Task Manager it's suspended with zero resource usage, and that's the best case scenario I've seen so far without anything breaking. There are guides on how to clean and optimize the Start Menu and Taskbar (link1), plus Cortana (link2), which may help with your goals.
 
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Thanks Hellbovine, as I said I checked with regedit and the required key values have effectively been added and without typos (I can attach screenshots if required). I have also added the third one, HeadlinesOnboardingComplete.
Please note that in my installation I have removed pretty all M$ cr@p, so there is no Cortana and no Edge beyond other things. I also tried to remove WebView but it makes no difference.

I can kill the N&I task, but as soon as I click in the Search box it gets launched again.

I understood the task is ’suspended', but I am stubborn and the fact it is there still annoys me ;)
->More specifically, I have also a Tiny10 installation for my tests (you know, those debloated tinyXX iso images from mr. NTDev), and what is interesting is that there is no News and Intetests task listed there !!! Yet, the SearchApp is present and functional, in fact the Search box in the task bar is operational (while here, if I remove Windows Search from the ISO, the Search box stops working.) So I wonder: how could he prevent any News and Interest task being launched at all without compromising search functionality ?? Is there some registry value we still ignore ? Unfortunately I can't ask mr. NTDev since there is no way to contact him...
 
The thing everyone needs to understand about Tiny10/11, since it keeps being brought up on the forum, is that he just uses NTLite, and he's simply removing components like the rest of us, it's nothing special. He also uses some other scripts and tools, but we've had veterans here dissect those and everyone always comes to the same conclusion--it's an inexperienced and broken image overall.

The author even admitted the project was never about performance or stability, it was just an experiment born out of boredom with the goal of removing as much as possible and still be able to boot into Windows. The consequences is that a colossal number of things are broken and it's not a usable image except in ultra niche cases. No credible helpers here will recommend it, because we know it contains far more bad than good.

Anyway, I currently don't have the "News and Interests" in the processes of the Task Manager on my computer, and while I don't know specifically which component eliminated it, because this is just a test build I'm experimenting with, all I did was use the W10 22H2 ISO directly from Microsoft's website, applied the "Lite" NTLite template and processed it, then applied my Optimized Image guide and processed that.

I know that my Optimized Image was responsible for suspending the app and reducing the resources to zero, but it was definitely the component removals that eliminated it from the processes section of the task manager. If you want to see if that works for you, maybe try what I did as a starting point and then merge your extra tweaks into it and keep building on it from there.
 
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Thanks Hellbovine.

Re: NTDev, so he is using NTLite as I suspected ! That is a bit unfair imho. Ok, his releases are free and he is not demanding money (other than donations), but I initially thought there was more hard work behind that... I mean, if he is using NTLite I see it as a 'cheat', I also could (paradoxically) prepare some optimized ISOs with NTLite and share them with lots of bells & whistles & videos & web pages... unfair !!!!! It looks like he is doing the major work while most work is done by NTLite actually !!!!! But yes they are broken and full of bugs. For example, creating restore points or system images does not work (gives error 0x8007043C), while all *heavily* debloated ISOs I am trying to create with NTLite now for my tests, they all still have those features perfectly functional, despite my slaughterworks lol (and I can't surely define myself an expert here, OTC).

Re: News & Interests, I understood that the only way to understand how to remove it *radically* without compromising Windows Search functionality would be either analyzing carefully your changes, or even Tiny10 ISO, check for differences one by one, test,... a very long and interative process, considering the plethora of components and or registry values involved. That's why I hoped for a brief answer, like "yes just change this registry value" or "just remove this component" ;) But I understood things are *very complicated* for how Micro$oft hid and set things up.
I will hopefully add my findings here, if any :)
 
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