Windows 10 - search bar box and the junk it contains

[neatfeatguy]

I absolutely dislike Windows 10. Always wanting to shove unnecessary shit in your face.

Does anyone know if there's a way to remove all the stupid crap that's outlined in red in the picture below?

I've tried to find a setting that will help me out, but so far no luck. You can't right click and remove/uninstall like you can with all the unwanted apps that come preinstalled.

I know it's a minor inconvenience and I don't really have to see it if I simply hit the Windows key and start typing in the search bar, but if I'm navigating with the mouse and I click in the actual search bar.....well, that big stupid box that takes up nearly 1/5th of the monitor space and all the stupid crap that it's populated with comes up. I can live with the big stupid, oversized box that takes up 1/5th of the monitor space, but I don't need a bunch of dumbass news/weather feeds showing off to me. Anyone know how to clean out this area of the news feed junk?

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

I absolutely dislike Windows 10. Always wanting to shove unnecessary shit in your face.

Does anyone know if there's a way to remove all the stupid crap that's outlined in red in the picture below?
View attachment 188666

I've tried to find a setting that will help me out, but so far no luck. You can't right click and remove/uninstall like you can with all the unwanted apps that come preinstalled.

I know it's a minor inconvenience and I don't really have to see it if I simply hit the Windows key and start typing in the search bar, but if I'm navigating with the mouse and I click in the actual search bar.....well, that big stupid box that takes up nearly 1/5th of the monitor space and all the stupid crap that it's populated with comes up. I can live with the big stupid, oversized box that takes up 1/5th of the monitor space, but I don't need a bunch of dumbass news/weather feeds showing off to me. Anyone know how to clean out this area of the news feed junk?

That is not a default thing on windows that has to be some add ware you have installed i have never seen that this is a basic default windows install for exampple

 

[thesmokingman]

My search button is plain as can be and doesn't look anything like the OP's. ^^I'm with the above sentiment, something was added, changed, etc.

 

[Caring1]

Change your permissions and history in search settings to Moderate, to filter out video links etc.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Count me in in the "never seen that before" crowd. My W10 is completely up to date and I've never, EVER, seen anything like that...

Also, I have my search bar hidden. I've still never seen anything like that.

 

[Candor]

I have also never seen this.

This may help:

How to Disable Bing in the Windows 10 Start Menu

Tired of those web searches in the Start menu? Here's how to get rid of them.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Jetster]

neatfeatguy​

This script will removes ALL windows 10 bloat. It will even put it back if you want it too.
Just use Windows PowerShell to run the script

GitHub - Sycnex/Windows10Debloater: Script to remove Windows 10 bloatware.

 

[Vayra86]

Here's mine.

You don't have a clean Windows installation, bloatware was pre-installed and/or you selected Store apps when installing the OS.

But, to be fair... I only ever access search to straight up 'WIN' + some part of an application I want and hit enter, I never see this dialog box.

 

[qubit]

Looks like some kind of third party crapware is installed. Look under Apps & Features and see if you can uninstall anything that looks like it doesn't belong there. Also have a look at Task Manager to see what's running.

 

[abactuon]

Get-AppxPackage -allusers
and (or)
Get-WindowsCapability -Online

Get-AppxPackage -allusers "<name>" | Remove-AppxPackage

Remove-WindowsCapability -Name "<name>" -Online

*news* ?

 

[neatfeatguy]

Off the top of my head, since I'm not currently at home, here are the things I can think of that I have installed:

I ran MS updates after installing Windows 10 Pro (install was 3-4 weeks ago). After all updates were done I disabled updates in gpedit.
Plex media server
Steam
GoG Galaxy
Ubisoft Play/Connect (whatever they call it these days)
3 or 4 games from GoG
1 game from Ubisoft
LoL
A few benchmark programs: Cinebench/Heaven 4.0/3DMark Timespy
MS Office 2016 student edition
Samsung Magician
Winrar
Chrome
Teamviewer 14
CPU-Z
GPU-Z
Adobe Acrobat Reader (wife uses it a lot when working from home otherwise I probably wouldn't have installed it)
Most recent Nvidia driver
MakeMKV
Handbreak
Origin
EGS

That's about it. I haven't installed much. I'll look into a few of the suggestions from you guys when I get home. Thank you for the help so far.

 

[95Viper]

Try this... hope it helps.

Show or Hide Popular News in Search on Windows 10

Show or Hide Popular News in Search on Windows 10​

The article respectively illustrates how to show and hide popular news on the Search's Home page in Windows 10 computer.

Part 1: Show popular news in Search​

Click the search box on taskbar, tap the ellipsis icon on the right of Popular now, and then choose Show popular news.

Part 2: Hide popular news in Search​

Hit the bottom-left search box on desktop, click the top-right ellipsis button and select Hide popular news.

 

[Mescalamba]

Dont have that.

But then I run long term branch. More stuff that I dont have in it that I have.

Which is perfect.

 

[Mindweaver]

I'm a little disappointed in some of the answers. I mean Microsoft has been adding Advertising to Windows 10 for a while now. On a new "OS install" if you just pick the default install it will add these "features". It's not as simple to remove as it should be. I would not just run the debloat script due to some useful things it removes like remote desktop. I have put a reg script below to removed any web search from the search bar like news posts or searching the web.. etc.. You can go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" in regedit and create a d-word 32bit value named "BingSearchEnabled" and set the value to "0". Then find the CortanaConsent key and set it to "0" if it's not already set. Then restart your pc. Also, I'm sure you know this but if you don't then be very careful making changes to the registry, and as always I'm not responsible if someone messes something up on their pc.. haha


Copy the text below and save it in notepad as disableBingSearch.reg and then just execute it by double-clicking it. Just remember to restart.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search]
"CortanaConsent"=dword:00000000
"BingSearchEnabled"=dword:00000000

EDIT: I meant to add lol to the disappointed part over the answers.. lol

 

[W1zzard]

Windows 10 Tweaks for VGA Benchmark

Updated for Windows 10 21H2 Update - Install without Internet, so you can create an offline user - name the user "TPU" (the user will be deleted at the end of the scripts and you're using "Administrator") - Install VGA driver, from USB, still without network, so Windows Update won't install a...

www.techpowerup.com

Text search for "search"

 

[Mindweaver]

Windows 10 Tweaks for VGA Benchmark

Updated for Windows 10 21H2 Update - Install without Internet, so you can create an offline user - name the user "TPU" (the user will be deleted at the end of the scripts and you're using "Administrator") - Install VGA driver, from USB, still without network, so Windows Update won't install a...

www.techpowerup.com

Text search for "search"

I like the added. I need to look over your list again.

reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v DisableSearchBoxSuggestions /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

 

[sam_86314]

Open Shell is the best way to fix Windows 10's shitty search function.

 

[abactuon]

I'm a little disappointed in some of the answers. I mean Microsoft has been adding Advertising to Windows 10 for a while now. On a new "OS install" if you just pick the default install it will add these "features".

# Disable Advertising ID
If (!(Test-Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AdvertisingInfo")) {
New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AdvertisingInfo" -Force
}
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AdvertisingInfo" -Name "DisabledByGroupPolicy" -Type DWord -Value 1
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AdvertisingInfo" -Name "Enabled" -Type DWord -Value 0

 

[Bill_Bright]

For the record, W10 is actually a great OS - if you define the purpose of operating systems as ensuring all the hardware designed for it works together properly, it facilitates the running of all the software designed for that OS while keeping you safe and secure from the bad guys - then W10 does that better than any previous version of Windows.

BUT...like many new things, it can take some time to get used to it.

If, like me, you gave it a fair chance but still you really miss the traditional Window 7 desktop and start menu, I would urge you to try Start10. This brings back the familiar W7 Start menu and desktop and for just a one-time cost of only $5 for a lifetime license, it is well worth it, IMO.

I have 5 computers here and Start10 is installed on this, my main computer, and my laptop. The other 3 still have the normal W10 UI and now that I have gotten used to it, I find it intuitive too - I just still prefer what Start10 brings back.

It even has a decent 30-day try before you buy trial period too that does uninstall cleaning if you decide not to use it. This is, IMO, the best W10 start button alternative.

 

[sam_86314]

For the record, W10 is actually a great OS - if you define the purpose of operating systems as ensuring all the hardware designed for it works together properly, it facilitates the running of all the software designed for that OS while keeping you safe and secure from the bad guys - then W10 does that better than any previous version of Windows.

BUT...like many new things, it can take some time to get used to it.

If, like me, you gave it a fair chance but still you really miss the traditional Window 7 desktop and start menu, I would urge you to try Start10. This brings back the familiar W7 Start menu and desktop and for just a one-time cost of only $5 for a lifetime license, it is well worth it, IMO.

I have 5 computers here and Start10 is installed on this, my main computer, and my laptop. The other 3 still have the normal W10 UI and now that I have gotten used to it, I find it intuitive too - I just still prefer what Start10 brings back.

It even has a decent 30-day try before you buy trial period too that does uninstall cleaning if you decide not to use it. This is, IMO, the best W10 start button alternative.

Open Shell is just like Start10 (for start menu replacement), but it's completely free and open-source. It's extremely customizable and less resource-intensive than Windows' built-in start menu.

 

[neatfeatguy]

For the record, W10 is actually a great OS - if you define the purpose of operating systems as ensuring all the hardware designed for it works together properly, it facilitates the running of all the software designed for that OS while keeping you safe and secure from the bad guys - then W10 does that better than any previous version of Windows.

BUT...like many new things, it can take some time to get used to it.

If, like me, you gave it a fair chance but still you really miss the traditional Window 7 desktop and start menu, I would urge you to try Start10. This brings back the familiar W7 Start menu and desktop and for just a one-time cost of only $5 for a lifetime license, it is well worth it, IMO.

I have 5 computers here and Start10 is installed on this, my main computer, and my laptop. The other 3 still have the normal W10 UI and now that I have gotten used to it, I find it intuitive too - I just still prefer what Start10 brings back.

It even has a decent 30-day try before you buy trial period too that does uninstall cleaning if you decide not to use it. This is, IMO, the best W10 start button alternative.

Open Shell is just like Start10 (for start menu replacement), but it's completely free and open-source. It's extremely customizable and less resource-intensive than Windows' built-in start menu.

My issue isn't with the Start Menu per se - sure, I don't like it as much as Windows 7 or even Vista for that matter, but having used Vista/7 for the past decade and finally moving to Windows 10 at home (I do use windows 10 at work, but I don't do much on the computer at work other than utilize programs I need for work or web browsing, as I'm doing now) you certainly do notice the differences. I don't use the start menu much to begin with so this isn't really an issue with me.

My issue is the crap that populates if I click on the Cortana Search Bar with the mouse. If I simply just hit the windows key on my keyboard and start typing I don't see that oversized box with news and weather updates. I don't know why it does it when only clicking with the mouse on the search bar.

My plex server runs on Windows 10 and aside from Plex, CPUZ, the TV software for the antenna/TV capture dongle I use and Acronis - I have nothing else installed on there. The server is updated to the most recent version of Windows 10 (as the same with my computer) and it also has that giant Cortana search box that shows up when clicking on the Search Bar next to the start button. I haven't made any kind of adjustments in Windows settings, everything is at default. The only difference is that the giant Cortana search box doesn't have the forced news/weather updates.

I'll see if I can't get it figured out with the info suggested in some of the posts. I don't mind messing around with the registry if it'll fix my issue. I've had to scrub registries before for malicious software or broken software and make changes, so it's no sweat off my back playing around in there if it'll fix this irritating issue I have.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Yeah, I've used Open Shell (formally Classic Shell) too. And yes, it is nice as well. But Start10 seems to work better - at least for me. And it seems when Microsoft makes changes to Windows 10, Stardock (the makers of Start10) is faster at coming out with an updated Start10 to support those changes. I am not saying Open Shell takes too long to come out with updates, only that Stardock is faster.

If Start10 was not around, I would be using Open Shell.

And yes, "free" is always nice, but I don't think a one-time cost of $5 for a lifetime license will stop many from giving it a chance.

For the record, there's also StartIsBack and Pokki are two more popular start screen alternatives. StartIsBack is not free, but pretty close at $4. Note Pokki apparently has not been updated for Windows 10, but is reported to work (for now) in compatibility mode.

There are a couple others but for sure Start10 and Open Shell are the two best.

BTW, I've heard that claim that Open Shell is less resource-intensive than Windows own start menu. Not sure I'm buying that as anything more than marketing fluff. It is not like it removes Windows own start menu. It doesn't even disable it. It runs on top of it. So if anything, more resources are being used. I expect that to be the same with any start menu alternative.

FWIW, just looking at this system, Windows Start menu process is consuming 28.5Mb of Memory - which is hardly anything. And its consuming 0% (that is, too little to even register) of everything else (CPU, Disk, Network, GPU). Start10 has two processes running, one using .3Mb and the other .5Mb for .8Mb (800Kb) total - essentially next to nothing.

I suspect Open Menu uses very little too.

My issue is the crap that populates if I click on the Cortana Search Bar with the mouse.

Well, for sure, Cortana is one of the first things I disable so I never used it - in part for the reasons you mention.

The fact is, most people don't like or use Cortana and so Cortana is going away. Why do you still use it?

 

[neatfeatguy]

Well, for sure, Cortana is one of the first things I disable so I never used it - in part for the reasons you mention.

The fact is, most people don't like or use Cortana and so Cortana is going away. Why do you still use it?

I've disabled all options in the settings I can find for Cortana - just like I did for the kids' Windows 10 laptops and none of the laptops have this stupid oversized cortana search box open when you click on the search bar.

I hate Cortana as much as I hate Bixby on my Samsung S8 (shitty software, bloated and intrusive). I won't purchase another Samsung phone until they stop using Bixby or at least don't force it to be used (actually give users a way to turn it off completely).

Change your permissions and history in search settings to Moderate, to filter out video links etc.

I went in here and found under SafeSearch - was set to Moderate.
In the same area for Permissions & History > Cloud content search: Microsoft account and Work or School account were set to on. I set both to off.
Under the Permissions & History > History: Search history on this device was set to on. I set this to off.

This seems to have resolved the news crap showing up if I clicked on the search bar, but the stupid oversized Cortana Search box is still there.....I don't know if it's a feature from some recent Windows update, but it sure is ugly. I can deal with that box, I just didn't want random things being shoved at me.

I'm a little disappointed in some of the answers. I mean Microsoft has been adding Advertising to Windows 10 for a while now. On a new "OS install" if you just pick the default install it will add these "features". It's not as simple to remove as it should be. I would not just run the debloat script due to some useful things it removes like remote desktop. I have put a reg script below to removed any web search from the search bar like news posts or searching the web.. etc.. You can go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" in regedit and create a d-word 32bit value named "BingSearchEnabled" and set the value to "0". Then find the CortanaConsent key and set it to "0" if it's not already set. Then restart your pc. Also, I'm sure you know this but if you don't then be very careful making changes to the registry, and as always I'm not responsible if someone messes something up on their pc.. haha


Copy the text below and save it in notepad as disableBingSearch.reg and then just execute it by double-clicking it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search]
"CortanaConsent"=dword:00000000
"BingSearchEnabled"=dword:00000000

EDIT: I meant to add lol to the disappointed part over the answers.. lol

I also went and added this in the registry for good measure.

I went through all the settings to make sure anything that says Cortana on it was disabled or set to off.

I guess I see if things stay or if the forced news/weather/app feeds show up.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Well, for sure, Cortana is one of the first things I disable so I never used it - in part for the reasons you mention.

The fact is, most people don't like or use Cortana and so Cortana is going away. Why do you still use it?

Cortana...yeah, that bitch doesn't come anywhere near me. Anything in relation to it I've always disabled. I hate it. Good riddance!

 

[SL2]

I never bothered checking this, but doesn't Start and Search Bar give the same results when searching?

The Search bar is just added to inform people that you can search, right? There's no point in using the Search bar or icon AFAIK.

I always hide the search bar/icon after install. I just click Start, or more likely, press the Windows key. It seems like a lot of people doesn't know that, same thing with Windows + Pause for instance, or to have internet disabled when installing Windows, just to get a chance to delete apps before they're downloaded.