Everyone’s favourite Big Tech company, Microsoft, announced yesterday that it is “rolling out several improvements to Windows Search Box” for Windows Insiders. Apparently, the company is only now hearing from its users that they’ve “been asking for search that is faster, more relevant, and easier to use,” so it’s started by “making results more dependable, easier to scan, and clearer.” That seems like a good start.
Cleaning up your Windows
For starters, it’s worth noting that the Windows Search box and the Windows Start menu are different things. The latter is what pops up when you hit the Windows key on your keyboard (usually between Left Control and Left Alt) or when you click the Windows icon in your taskbar. The former, the one getting some action, is the search box that may or may not also appear in your taskbar, but otherwise should be at the top of your Start menu.
If you’ve spent any time with Windows 11, you probably mistakenly thought the Windows Search box was for searching through your files or apps, as the name would imply. It’s only after the first few times trying to use it that you’ll discover it’s actually the place to go to see Microsoft ads or recommendations. Well, that could change if the Insiders do their jobs.
One of the biggest changes is a revamp to the Search home screen. Instead of recommended searches or promotional content, you’ll now see your previous searches. Web results from your searches are also being cleaned up, and you should now see the “most relevant answer” first. What a fun change.
Elsewhere, Microsoft is decluttering and also making it easier to see where a result comes from, such as from a local app, settings, a file, a web result, or a Store suggestion. It will also prioritise results from your local files, apps, and settings, saying those will “more reliably appear” in front of everything else. Testers can also switch off web and Store recommendations entirely from the Settings menu.
Again, this is only available to Windows Insiders on the Experimental channel for now, with no word on when the changes will make their way to all users. They can’t come soon enough.
