Microsoft Pulls Plug on Taskbar Companion Apps After Brief Windows 11 Experiment

Microsoft is retiring three lightweight Windows 11 “companion” apps—Calendar, People and Files—that it began automatically installing on some enterprise devices about a year ago. The apps will stop working and receive no support after December 16, 2026, according to Microsoft’s own documentation. The software was first quietly pushed in late October 2025 on Windows 11 machines that already had Microsoft 365 desktop apps, pinned to the taskbar and integrated Copilot via Microsoft Graph. Microsoft says no user data is deleted because calendar items, contacts and documents remain in Microsoft 365 services. IT admins will need to uninstall and block installations through Intune or other tools.