Clean up Windows 11: Hide task view, widgets and search with Intune

The taskbar became fuller with Windows 11. If you want to clean up Windows 11 for your end users, this guide shows you exactly how. In a previous blog I explained how to remove the teams icon or delete it completely. In this blog I want to explain how to hide the task view, widgets and search with the help of a remediation script, so you can clean up Windows 11 across your whole fleet with Intune.

A tidy taskbar is one of the easiest wins in any device baseline. When you clean up Windows 11, you reduce visual noise, cut accidental clicks on widgets, and give users a more focused desktop. The best part: everything below is fully managed through Microsoft Intune, so the policy stays consistent on every enrolled device.

Before:

After:

Why clean up Windows 11 with a remediation script

There are several ways to clean up Windows 11, but a proactive remediation (Endpoint Analytics) script is the most flexible. Unlike a one-off configuration profile, a remediation can detect the current state and only act when needed, which keeps logs clean and avoids unnecessary writes. If you manage hundreds of devices, this approach scales effortlessly while still allowing users to re-enable an icon later if they really want it. For background on how proactive remediations work, see the official Microsoft Learn documentation.

It is worth knowing what is happening under the hood. The task view, widgets and search buttons are all controlled by per-user registry values under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced – for example ShowTaskViewButton, TaskbarDa for widgets, and SearchboxTaskbarMode for search. Because these live in the current user hive, the remediation has to run in the user context, which is exactly why we set “Run this script using the logged on credentials” to Yes later on.

Create the remediation script to clean up Windows 11

• Download the script from my GitHub repository.

• To deploy this script to the clients, we open the Intune admin center and navigate to Reports -> Endpoint analytics -> Proactive remediations
• Click Create script package

• Enter a name
• Click Next

• Upload the script as detection script and the remediation script
• Select Yes for Run this script using the logged on credentials
• Click Next

• Click Next
• Assign the Script to a group and click on Daily
• Change the Schedule to Once (you can also select another schedule like daily) and click apply
• Click Next

• Click Create

Verify and test the result

After the remediation runs, the task view, widgets and search icons disappear from the taskbar. To confirm the result you can run the detection script manually on a test device, or simply wait for the next scheduled cycle. When everything succeeds in Endpoint Analytics, you know the policy did its job and you have managed to clean up Windows 11 the supported way, even on new devices automatically during enrollment.

A practical tip while testing: the remediation only triggers on its schedule, so you do not have to wait if you want quick feedback. Open Task Scheduler on the client, browse to Microsoft > Windows > EnterpriseMgmt, and run the corresponding health-script task manually. Within a minute the icons should be gone. A common pitfall here is forgetting that the changes apply to the logged-on user only – if you test under a different account than the one targeted, it can look like the script failed when it actually worked perfectly.

Conclusion

It is not a big deal to remove these 3 icons but it makes a lot of order in the task bar for the user. You only have to create an Endpoint Analytics script to clean up Windows 11. The search, for example, can also be easily executed from the Start menu. It is also very easy for the user to turn some of these icons back on afterwards, so this is a low-risk change that improves the daily experience.

Now the taskbar doesn’t look so crowded anymore, and you have a repeatable way to keep it tidy for every user.

Stay healthy, Cheers
Jannik