Windows 11 shows the recent search history when you hover your mouse cursor over the Taskbar search icon. If you do not want the Search icon to show your recent search history, you can disable it. This guide will help you learn how to enable and disable the recent history on hovering over the Search icon in Windows 11 by using the Settings or Registry Editor.
Hide or Show Recent searches history when you hover over Search icon
Enable or Disable Recent Search icon History in Windows 11
To hide Recent Search History when you hover over the Windows 11 Search Icon in the Taskbar via Settings:
- Press the WinKey+I to open Settings
- Click on Personalization on the left
- Click on Taskbar on the right
- Select Taskbar behaviors
- Uncheck Show recent searches when I hover over the search icon to turn off Search History.
You can also use the Registry Editor. The process explained below includes modification to some registry keys.
The Registry in Windows OS is the hierarchical database that contains essential information and data required for the proper functioning of the Windows operating system. Hence, you should be careful while editing the Windows Registry and make sure that you are editing the right key with the correct value. Any incorrect modification can lead to serious errors in your system. Therefore, we recommend you create a backup of your Windows Registry so that you can revert the changes by restoring the Registry if any problem occurs.
The steps are as follows:
- Launch the Registry Editor.
- Navigate to this \Explorer path in the Registry Editor.
- Locate the TaskbarSh value on the right pane.
- To disable and enable the Search icon’s recent search history, set the TaskbarSh Value Data accordingly.
Let’s see these instructions in detail.
Press Win + R keys to launch the Run command box. Now, type regedit and click OK. Click yes if you receive a UAC prompt.
In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following path.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
To avoid inconvenience, copy the above path and paste it into the address bar of the Registry Editor, and hit Enter.
Now, expand the Explorer key and select the Advanced subkey.
Next, locate the TaskbarSh value on the right side. If this value is not available in your Registry Editor, you have to create it. For this, right-click in the empty space on the right pane and go to “New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.”
Name the newly created value as TaskbarSh. For this, right-click on it and select Rename.
Now, double-click on the TaskbarSh value. A new popup window will open in which you have to enter 0 in the Value Data to disable the Search icon’s recent search history. Click OK to save the changes.
After that, the Search icon will not show you the search history when you hover your mouse cursor over it. If you want to enable this feature again, simply change the Value Data of TaskbarSh from 0 to 1 and click OK to save the changes.
Though Windows 11 applies the changes immediately after you modify the above-mentioned Registry key, sometimes, a restart is required for the WIndows to apply changes. Hence, if the Search icon’s recent search history is not enabled or disabled immediately after modifying the registry key, restart your computer.
How do I turn off recommendations in Windows 11?
The upper section of the Windows 11 Start Menu shows the pinned apps and the lower section shows the recommended files and apps. If you do not want to see the Recommended section in Windows 11 Start Menu, you can disable it.
You can turn off the recommendations in Windows 11 via the Settings app, Group Policy Editor, and Registry Editor. If you turn off the recommendations from the Settings app, any other user can turn it on easily. If you want to prevent the users from turning the recommendations on, you have to disable it permanently. For this, you have to use either the Group Policy Editor or the Registry Editor. This method is useful for users who have a shared computer.
Do note that, to access the Group Policy Editor and the Registry Editor, you should have to sign in with your administrative account.
How do I change the Start menu in Windows 11?
You can easily customize the Start Menu in Windows 11. Here are some of the changes that you can make in the Start Menu:
- You can change the position of the Start menu.
- You can make the Start Menu dark or apply your favorite color to it.
- Windows 11 also lets you pin your favorite apps on the Start menu.
- There is also a recommended section in the Start Menu that shows you the recommended apps and files. You can also turn this section on or off.
That’s it.
