Microsoft is so keen on pushing its own search engine, Bing, to the face of Windows users. It started as the default search engine for Microsoft Edge, but now a portion of the search result appears on the Windows Start menu — and it’s kind of unnecessary.
Most of the time we might only be looking for local files or apps on our device, but the ‘Search the Web‘ section keeps showing results from the internet, drawing a few hundred kilobytes every time you search for something, even when you did not click any of them.
While Microsoft at this point still hasn’t provided a proper way to turn off the feature, a little modification on the system registry could do the work. Here’s the step-by-step on how to do that.
1. Find and launch Registry Editor via Windows Start Menu.
2. Copy and paste this directory HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search to the address bar and hit Enter.
3. Then, right-click on the blank area, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. Rename it to BingSearchEnabled and press Enter.
5. Double-click on BingSearchEnabled.
6. Be sure the value data is 0 and then click OK.
7. Try searching for something and see if the search suggestions have been eliminated.
If you changed your mind, the BingSearchEnabled can be deleted.
This method is tested on Windows 10 Build 19042.1110, but other versions should be able to get the same result nonetheless.
