A former Microsoft software engineer, Andy Young, recently criticized the performance of the Start menu Windows 11, calling them “comically cheesy.” If, regardless of the hardware configuration of your PCs, you are dealing with a menu Start lento in Windows 10 as in Windows 11, know that you are in good company.
The best way to search for information in Windows, system features and installed applications to run, is to press the Windows key (the well-known “flag” on the keyboard, located between the keys CTRL e ALT) e start typing. For example, if you started writing go in the search boxWindows 10 and Windows 11 could presumably launch the Google Chrome browser, but also show other applications that contain the same string, system settings (for example access to the functionality Windows To Go), personal documents and photos.
Start menu slows down from searching for web information with Bing
As we have highlighted several times in the past, however, Windows 10 and 11 do not simply show information resulting from one local search. Typically, you need to wait a few seconds to give Windows time to extend the search for information published on the Web. The search is done, by default, using the search engine Bing.
Although Microsoft has promised the ability to uninstall Edge and remove Bing officially (deleting Edge is already possible with a tool unofficial which however uses the method directly supported by the Redmond company, recently introduced in Windows 10 and 11), when the Start menu is slow you can intervene with a simple change in the system registry.
By adding a DWORD value called DisableSearchBoxSuggestionsit’s possible deactivate i search suggestions. This significantly speeds up the Start menu, forcing Windows to no longer search for information on the Web but to limit itself to local searches.
For many, in fact, it is very annoying that Windows extends the search to the Web. For example, even just by typing the name of an application incorrectly or when you want to locate the name or contents of a file stored locally.
How to turn off search suggestions in the Start menu in Windows 10 and Windows 11
Without even having to use the Registry Editor, to get rid of the search suggestions, just apply the same advice we presented to eliminate Bing from the Start menu. We therefore suggest writing cmd in the Start menu search box, then choose Run as administrator.
At this point, you can enter the following three instructions:
reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v DisableSearchBoxSuggestions /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe
As can be seen from the reference HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER), the change applies exclusively to theuser accounts in use. That is, for the one returned by typing the command whoami at the prompt, regardless of whether you’re using a Microsoft account or a local account.
Undo the change and restore web search to the Start menu
If you want to undo the change and have Windows 10 and Windows 11 show search suggestions in the Start menu again, simply type the following (always at the command prompt opened with administrative rights):
reg delete HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v DisableSearchBoxSuggestions /f
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe
The intervention that allows you to speed up a slow Start menu by deactivating search suggestions is part of the “package” of changes contained in our scripts to speed up Windows 11 and to optimize Windows 10, even on machines equipped with a not particularly brilliant hardware configuration .
Opening image credit: Open the Start menu (Microsoft).