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Windows 11, like its predecessors, integrates Bing search directly into the Start menu. Every time you search for an app, file, or folder, you also search Bing. There isn’t even an option to disable it in the Settings app. Fortunately, you can do this with a registry hack.
Warning: Remember, whenever you edit the Windows Registry, you must be careful. Randomly changing values or deleting registry keys can make programs or Windows itself unstable or inoperable. Follow the instructions carefully.
You can edit the Registry manually, if you’re comfortable with that, or you can use our pre-made REG files which will handle it for you automatically.
Disable Bing with Registry Editor
Disabling Bing using the Registry Editor (Regedit) is quite simple. Unlike some registry hacks, this one only involves changing a single value.
Click the Start button, type “regedit” in the search bar, then click “Open” or press Enter.
You have to navigate to:
ComputerHKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindows
Note: If there is a key called “Explorer” under the “Windows” key, you don’t need to try to create another one. Just skip to the “Create a DWORD to disable Bing” section.
Right-click “Windows,” hover over “New,” and then click “Key.” Type “Explorer” in the name box, then hit Enter when done.
If you did everything correctly, you should see this:
Create a DWORD to disable Bing
We need to create a new DWORD, which is just a data type that you can put in a registry key. Right-click the “Explorer” registry key, hover your mouse over “New”, and then click “DWORD (32-bit) Value”.
As soon as you create a DWORD, it will automatically be selected and you can type a name. name it DisableSearchBoxSuggestions.
Double-click “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions,” set the value to 1, and then click “OK.”
Once you have created the DWORD and set its value, you must restart Explorer.exe. If you don’t want to do it manually, you can simply restart your PC.
RELATED: How to restart Windows Explorer.exe (along with the taskbar and Start menu)
Disable Bing with our registry hack
Messing around with the Registry can be tedious. If you don’t want to do it yourself, we’ve created two REG files that will handle everything for you. One of them, “Disable Bing Searchs.reg”, disables Bing search. The other restores Bing search to the start menu if you decide you want it back.
Disable Bing in the Start menu
Note: In general, you should not trust random REG files that you download from the Internet. You need to open a REG file in a plain text editor and check if it is safe.
Open the ZIP file with any file storage program you like. If you don’t have one, don’t worry: Windows 11 can open ZIP files natively, without third-party apps.
RELATED: The best file archiving program for Windows
Double-click the REG file named “Disable Bing Searches.reg.”
A popup will appear warning you that REG files may be harmful to your computer; go ahead and click “Yes”.
Then all you have to do is restart Explorer.exe. You can manually restart it in Task Manager if you want, but restarting the entire computer will accomplish the same thing. You will have a start menu without Bing once it finishes restarting.
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