Every time I tap into the Start Menu search, Windows tries a little too hard to be helpful. Instead of just looking on my own machine, it fires off a Bing query and drags in web content, even when all I am after is a local file or app. This idea dates back to Windows 10 and remains active in Windows 11. The Start menu is not content with opening Excel anymore. It wants to tell you the weather, show you stock tickers, surface trending news, and sprinkle in Bing results for good measure. While this may sound feature-rich, it significantly slows the search experience, which is why I stopped using the Windows Start menu for a while.
I did try to rein it in using the built-in settings. In Windows 11, under Privacy & security –> Search, there is a toggle for “Show search highlights.” I flipped it off, fully expecting peace — unfortunately, no such luck. The Start menu kept chatting with the web in the background. At that point, it was clear there was no friendly way to turn off “search the web.” So I went looking for something a little more underground. That is how I stumbled into the registry tweak that finally did the job.
You can force Windows to stick to local results with a simple registry tweak
One DWORD value stands between you and instant search results
I’m not typically someone who dives into the registry for every minor annoyance, but this particular fix delivers such immediate and dramatic results that it’s worth recommending. I should mention that this tweak does come with one obvious trade-off: you’ll lose the ability to perform web searches directly from the Start Menu. For me, that is a non-issue. If I want to search the web, I’d rather open my browser. But if you actually rely on that feature, keep that in the back of your mind before you go any further.
With that disclaimer out of the way, here is exactly what I did on my Windows 11 machine.
- Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog, which is just one of several ways to open the Registry Editor. Type regedit and hit Enter. You’ll likely see a User Account Control prompt requesting permission; click Yes.
-
In the left-hand sidebar, you need to drill down through the folders (keys) to find this specific path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
If you get to the Windows folder and don’t see an Explorer folder inside it, you’ll need to make one. Just right-click the Windows folder, select New –> Key, and name it Explorer.
- With the Explorer folder selected, right-click anywhere in the empty white space on the right side of the window. Select New –> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
- Name this new value exactly DisableSearchBoxSuggestions. Once you’ve created it, double-click it to open its properties. In the Value data field, change the 0 to a 1 and click OK.
- For the changes to take effect, it’s best to restart your computer.
That single entry instructs Windows to stop fetching and displaying web-based suggestions in the Start Menu search box, keeping the experience strictly local and noticeably faster.
If the idea of touching the registry makes you sweat a little, I understand the caution. Modifying registry settings is typically intended for advanced users, and serious problems can occur if done incorrectly. It also helps to know how to back up and restore the Windows Registry, just in case anything goes wrong. That said, this particular change is about as low-risk as registry edits get. You’re creating a single new value in a safe location, not deleting or modifying existing system-critical entries. If you ever want to reverse it, you can delete the DisableSearchBoxSuggestions entry or change its value back to 0.
Related
I changed one registry value and my Windows PC feels instantly faster
This registry change fixed the sluggishness I’d learned to tolerate.
You can also enforce this change with a reliable policy rule
Why hack the registry when you can just set a rule?
If you are running the Pro or Enterprise version of Windows, you have access to a tool that is far more robust than the Registry Editor: the Group Policy Editor. While the registry tweak is essentially a manual override, a Group Policy is an official instruction to the operating system. You might prefer using this method because it feels less like “hacking” and more like “administering.” It also tends to survive Windows updates a little better, which is a nice bonus.
To be clear, this achieves the same result as the registry edit above. It specifically targets the “Search Box Suggestions” that inject web content into your Start Menu. The difference is that you get to do it through a tidy, menu-driven interface.
To get started, press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and hit Enter to launch the Local Group Policy Editor. The interface looks somewhat bureaucratic (lots of folders, lots of serious-sounding labels), but the setting we need is straightforward to find.
Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search. In that folder, locate a policy called “Don’t search the web or display web results in Search” and double-click it. Setting this to Enabled does exactly what it promises: it turns off web search integration in the Start Menu.
After clicking Apply and OK, open Command Prompt and run gpupdate /force to apply the policy without waiting for the next automatic refresh.
Sometimes the best features are the ones you disable
My Start Menu feels lighter, more responsive, and finally focused on my own system instead of the wider web. So, if your Windows search feels like it is thinking too hard about the internet, this might be the nudge it needs to remember that your PC should come first.
