This easy guide will show you how to disable and hide the Home page in Windows 11 Settings app. It is a new page introduced in Build 22621.2361 that shows quick details about your devices, operating system settings, subscriptions, cloud storage, and much more. It is now the landing page for Settings, but the change is not everyone's favorite.
Microsoft has added a new homepage within Settings, offering users a dynamic and personalized experience. It delivers an overview of their device, provides quick access to key options, and aids in managing their Microsoft account.
The new Home page includes interactive cards representing an array of device and account-related settings, grouped according to commonly accessed functions. Each card is designed to provide the most relevant information and controls for an efficient user experience, with up to seven cards currently available and more to come. The sections Recommended settings, Cloud storage, Account recovery, Personalization, Microsoft 365, Xbox, Bluetooth devices are among the cards displayed in there.
Despite the fact that the home page allows quickly changing each group of options, many users want to remove or hide it for a more classic experience through the Group Policy Editor and Registry. The latter method is more flexible as it works in any edition of the operating system.
Remove Home Page in Settings app with Registry Editor
To remove and hide the Settings Home in Windows 11 with the Registry tweak, do the following:
- Press Win + R on the keyboard, and type regedit in the Run box to open the Registry Editor.
- Now, navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
. You can paste this path in the address bar of the regedit app to go there directly. - In the left pane, right-click the Explorer key, and select New > String value from the menu.
- Name the new value SettingsPageVisibility, and double-click it to edit its data.
- Finally, set the value data to
hide:home
. - Re-open the Settings app. The Home page is now hidden.
You are done!
Note: In some rare cases, you may need to restart the computer to apply the Registry modification. Do it if the page remains visible after the above steps.
Here are some details. The Registry tweak we just reviewed utilizes a policy that allows you to show or hide specific Settings pages . The :home
portion is an ms-settings command that directly opens Home. Try typing ms-settings:home
in the Run dialog and you'll see.
REG files to save your time
If changing the Registry manually is not your usual way, you can download the following REG files.
Applying them will save your from manual editing of keys and values.
Extract them to any folder of your choice. Even the Desktop folder is suitable. Now, open one of them:
hide_home_in_settings.reg
- disables the page.show_home_in_settings.reg
- shows its again by default.
Confirm the User Account Control prompt (click Yes), and then click OK in the Registry merge prompt. That's all you need to do here.
Finally, here is one-more time saving method. My Winaero Tweaker app can also be of help with hiding pages of the Settings app.
Bonus: Hide Settings Home Page with Winaero Tweaker
Download the app from here. Install and run it. Now navigate to Hide Pages from Settings in the left pane. There, on the right, check the "Home" option in the hierarchical list, which is the first top item. Make sure that the above switch option is set to "Hide selected". Voila, it is just a couple of clicks for you to hide any page of your choice now!
Now, let's review how to use an alternative method. It requires you to have installed a specific Windows edition.
Remove Home Page in Settings app with Group Policy
To remove and disable the Settings Home in Group Policy on Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions, do the following:
- Open the Start menu, and directly type gpedit.msc.
- From the search results, select Open in the right side of the Search window to open the Local Group Policy editor.
- On the left, browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel.
- In the right pane, find the Settings Page Visibility item and double-click it.
- Now in the next dialog, select the Enabled option.
- Type
hide:home
in the "Settings Page Visibility:" box under "Options". - Finally, click Apply and OK.
Done!
Undoing the change is also easy. You'll need to set the Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Settings Page Visibility policy to "Not configured".
Finally, you can manage the page visibility from the command prompt. This goes well with various automation scenarios, logon scripts, and bulk customization.
Disable Settings Home Page from Command Prompt
- Press Win + X, and select Terminal(Admin) from the menu.
- In terminal, open a new Command Prompt tab from the drop-down menu or with the Ctrl + Shift + 2 hotkey.
- To disable the Settings Home, type the following command:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v SettingsPageVisibility /t REG_SZ /d "hide:home" /f
. - To revert the change (unhide the page), use the following command:
reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v SettingsPageVisibility /f
- You can now close the Terminal app.
By saving the two above commands as a batch file you can quickly apply the Registry modification on any PC you use. The commands use the built-in console REG tool, which allows changing the Registry from the console. It is part of all modern Windows versions.
That's it.
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There’s a typo at “Now navigate to dfdsfsf in the left pane.” It should be “Hide Pages from Settings” instead of “dfdsfsf”.
Lol, sorry, I typed that as a placeholder but forgot to replace it! Thank you very much!
You’re welcome ^^.