Windows 11/10 operating system uses a range of measures to track your app launches in order to boost your start and search results. It can personalize your start menu based on the most used apps in the Start menu as well as Search results. In this way, App Launch Tracking is useful when you want to quickly access your favorite and frequently used apps in the Start menu and search results of your device.
However, in order to protect your privacy, Windows 11/10 provides users with the flexibility to control their privacy settings. Windows users can either prefer to enable the app launch tracking to improve the search menu and start menu results or prefer to disable the app launch tracking to prevent Windows operating system from tracing your apps that you launch to improve the privacy.
Enable or Disable App Launch Tracking in Windows 11/10
To turn off or turn on the app launch tracking, one may have to change the privacy control settings or one can make some tweaks in the registry. In this article, we explain how to control the app launch tracking in Windows 11/10.
1] Using Windows Settings
In Windows 10, navigate to Settings and click on Privacy. Under General Settings, toggle the option On for Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results on the right side of the page to enable App Launch tracking. Toggle the option Off for “ Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results” on the right side of the page to disable App Launch tracking. Close the Settings Window.
In Windows 11, you will see the setting here:
Open Windows 11 Settings > Privacy $ security > General > Turn off Let Windows improve Start and search results by tracking app launches.
It’s useful for you to bear in mind that, if you disable the app launch tracking, the “Show most used app” setting will be grayed out or Disabled in Windows. In order to fix this issue, you may want to re-enable the app launch tracker using the above-mentioned steps.
2] Using Windows Registry
Open Run, type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor. Next, navigate to the following key path-
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Right click on the Advanced folder and click on New to create a new 32-bit DWORD value. Name the new DWORD as “Start_TrackProgs“.
Set its value to ‘1‘ in order to enable the app launch tracking. To disable the app launch tracking set the value to’ 0′.
Click OK and Restart the system.
It’s worth noting that, the users need to create a 32-bit DWORD value even if they are using a 64-bit Windows version.
