When you run searches on Windows 11 from the operating system’s Start Menu, you will get local results as well as web-based results powered by Bing by default. Microsoft introduced web search functionality in Windows 10 and has kept the feature in Windows 11.
Many Windows 11 users see web searching as a way for Microsoft to promote its Bing search engine, and not as something that adds value to the search functionality. Web Search integration broke Windows Search at least once on Windows 10, and there is the chance that this is going to happen again.Windows 11 comes with an official option to turn off web searching in the Start Menu. It is not an option in the Settings application. While there is an option to manage cloud content search in the Settings application, it does not affect Internet search in the Windows 11 Start Menu but content of the Microsoft Account, e.g. form OneDrive, that may be returned.
Just turn off the options on the page and run a search; you will notice that results from Bing web searches are still included.The official option is available in the Group Policy Editor and Registry. The Group Policy Editor is only available in professional and Enterprise editions of Windows 11. Home users need to make the change in the Registry to get rid of “Search the web” in the Start Menu.Note that it is possible that you may still web-based results after making the change. If that is the case, you will need to make the edits in the Registry to stop web search results in Windows 11’s Start Menu.The change should be visible right away. Just run a search from the Start Menu to verify that no web search results are displayed anymore on the Windows 11 PC.
Just delete the Dword value again if you want to restore the default functionality.
Now You: do you find web search results useful in Windows 11’s Start Menu?
This really bothered me to the point I reverted back to Win10…it was annoying. I was searching inside my PC and Win11 was giving me Web results first.
W11 should be released in 2023, by now is a more or less a disaster for productivity. :[
This teawk seems not working in W11 x.348, rebooting included.
Anyway it does not bother me too much. :[
Can’t say this bothers me too much, as I hardly ever search through the Start Menu (or the Search button for that matter) anyway.
Yea. Program Everything is much better and faster.
Start11 lets you replace the Start Menu with a clone of it, and it lets you remove the “recommended” section, in-case you don’t use it. It also turns off the search the web nonsense. Just a thought.
However, it’s not free. Probably OpenShell will do the same near soon. :]
Not everything needs to be free. Do you work for free?
I work to earn money not to waste it.
Didn’t work for me
This does not work on newest Windows 11. The ONLY option that works is the following registry tweak:
-) HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsExplorer
-) create the Explorer key if not present
-) inside of Explorer, create new DWORD 32bit entry called
DisableSearchBoxSuggestions
and set the value to 1
-) reboot
Which version of Windows 11 did you test this on?
I tested it on the current build 22000.348
At least in my case, my mentioned Registry tweak was the only option that worked
@roman’s trick works fine, same version of W11 here. :]
Searches of sensitive local content are sent to Microsoft by default, what a bunch of cunts.
This was one of the first things I did when I discovered that Windows 11 was sending search queries to Bing.
Shameful that there isn’t an easy option to disable this in the Settings panel.
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Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.

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