Permanently remove web search results from the Windows Start menu

By default, Windows always displays web results from Microsoft’s search engine Bing when searching via the Start menu. In addition, the search in Windows 10 and 11 cannot be switched to Google. If you don’t need web search, you can still turn it off.

Permanently remove web search results from the Windows Start menu
In case you are running the Pro version of Windows 10/11, you can also disable web search via Group Policy. To do this, type gpedit in the Start menu search box to open the Group Policy Editor. Click through to the “User Configuration -› Administrative Templates -› Windows Components” folder and then double-click on “File Explorer” on the right-hand side. Scroll down to the “Turn off display of recent searches in File Explorer search box” policy. Now double-click on it, then mark “Activated” and confirm with “OK”. After restarting Windows, the policy is valid.

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