[BUG] “Show Widgets” fails because UCPD blocks AllowNewsAndInterests

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• I have searched for my issue and have not found a similiar in the Open or Closed issues.
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Winhance Version

v26.06.12

Windows version, edition, and architecture

Windows 11 Pro 25H2 26200.9168

Describe your issue

Hello,

I found a reproducible issue with the “Show Widgets” setting in WinHance v26.06.12 on Windows 11 Pro 25H2, build 26200.9168.

WinHance is running elevated as Administrator.

When I try to enable Customize → Taskbar → Show Widgets, WinHance attempts to set:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh\AllowNewsAndInterests = 1

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh\AllowNewsAndInterests = 1

Both operations fail with:

Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.

WinHance then correctly detects the failure and reverts the toggle back to Off.

I was able to isolate the cause to the Windows UserChoice Protection Driver (UCPD).

For testing, I temporarily disabled UCPD and the scheduled task:

\Microsoft\Windows\AppxDeploymentClient\UCPD velocity

and rebooted Windows.

After UCPD was disabled, the exact same WinHance setting worked immediately:

AllowNewsAndInterests was successfully written as REG_DWORD 0x1, and the Show Widgets toggle remained enabled even after restarting WinHance.

I then restored UCPD to its original state and rebooted. UCPD is now running normally again, while the Widgets setting remains correctly configured.

So this does not appear to be an elevation or permissions problem in WinHance itself. The direct registry write is being blocked specifically by UCPD.

It may therefore be worth adding special handling for UCPD-protected registry values such as AllowNewsAndInterests, or at minimum displaying a clear warning to the user instead of silently reverting the setting.

I can provide the full WinHance log if useful. The relevant entries show:

Failed to set value ... Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.

for both HKCU and HKLM.

Best regards, Michael

Steps to reproduce the issue

Sure — very short and reproducible:

Start WinHance as Administrator. Go to Customize → Taskbar → Show Widgets. Try to enable Show Widgets. WinHance briefly applies the change, then the toggle reverts to Off. In the log, both HKCU and HKLM writes to AllowNewsAndInterests fail with “Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.” Temporarily disable UCPD and the UCPD velocity scheduled task, reboot, and repeat. The same WinHance toggle now works and remains On.

Expected behavior

nabling “Show Widgets” should successfully apply the setting and the toggle should remain On. If Windows blocks the registry change because of UCPD, WinHance should clearly inform the user instead of silently reverting the toggle.

Actual behavior

When “Show Widgets” is enabled, WinHance attempts to write AllowNewsAndInterests = 1 to both HKCU and HKLM, but both writes fail with “Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.” The toggle then reverts to Off and the setting is not applied while UCPD is active.

Screenshots or Logs (if applicable)

No response

Additional context

No response