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The regular way to start a program in Windows-10 (Version 22H2 (OS Build 19045.3086)) is by pressing the START button, waiting for the list of programs to appear and choose one of them.

I do it another way:
I press the start button and start typing the name of my program ("snip" for the snipping tool, "paint" for MS-Paint, ...). This causes my computer to start a search for those programs and once they are found, I can choose it.

This seems not to be working anymore: when I press the start button and start typing the name of a program, I don't see anything anymore.

I believe that some other "search engine" is added to my START button, and as this newly added search engine does not work, the others are blocked too.

Am I correct and how can I remove that newly added "search engine" from my start menu or is there another way to solve this? Which one?

For your information: between the last time this worked and the first time it didn't work, no updates have been executed.

Hereby a screenshot of what it looks like:
enter image description here

After hiding the "Search window" as proposed by Harrymc:

When I hide the "Search window", the behaviour does not really change: after that, I press the START button, start typing "notepad", but nothing is done and after some seconds that black square disappears:

enter image description here

Dominique
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  • What is this "search engine", and if it has caused a problem then uninstall it. – harrymc Jul 06 '23 at 09:15
  • I have no idea what it is. As you see the word "paint" is added to that small box in my taskbar, I believe this box is some kind of search window, launching different "search engines". I have the impression that some "search engine" has been added to this search window but I don't know where they are or how to remove them. – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 09:36
  • This is only the Search box of Windows. You may hide it by right-click on the taskbar and selecting *Search > Hidden*. The Start Button is separate, so this might solve the problem. Let us know what happens. – harrymc Jul 06 '23 at 09:45
  • @harrymc: that doesn't change anything, as I mentioned in the latest edit of my question. – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 09:52
  • Try installing KB5027293 it supposedly fixes a start menu issue. Are you looking to disable web search results within the start menu? – Ramhound Jul 06 '23 at 11:20
  • @Destroy666: I tried but that did nothing. – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 11:44
  • @Ramhound: honestly, I don't see the sense of searching the entire web when I want to open a program on my PC :-) So, yes, disabling web searches within the start menu would be great. – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 11:44
  • Try installing the update I suggested. Disabling the web search start menu resulted is trivial but the start menu has to work. – Ramhound Jul 06 '23 at 11:46
  • @Ramhound: it's not that trivial: I used the group policy (gpedit.msc) in order to enable "Turn off display of recent search entries in the File Explorer search box", as explained in "https://pureinfotech.com/disable-search-web-results-windows-11/#:~:text=To%20disable%20web%20search%20in,File%20Explorer%20search%20box%E2%80%9D%20policy." (I needed to restart my Windows explorer afterwards in the task manager). You can write this in an answer, I'll accept it. – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 12:02
  • @Dominique - I have already submitted that answer many moons ago to an existing question. 36 months ago in fact – Ramhound Jul 06 '23 at 12:10
  • @Ramhound: which answer was that? You seem to have given already 1536 answers and the duplicate, mentioned in the "close" justification is not correct (the issue is not to be solved using the registry, but using "gpedit.msc"). – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 12:15
  • @Dominique - The indicated that enabling, `urn off display of recent search entries in the File Explorer search box` worked which can be acomplished by setting `DisableSearchBoxSuggestions` to `1` which my existing answer documented 3 years ago. – Ramhound Jul 06 '23 at 14:11

1 Answers1

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General Start Menu fixes :

  • Test Windows integrity by running the commands Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and then sfc /scannow

  • Re-register the Start Menu by running PowerShell as Administrator and entering the following command, then reboot:

    Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

  • If all fails, you might consider using a more stable Start Menu replacement such as Open-Shell or its alternatives.

harrymc
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  • Thanks for your advice, but I solved the issue, described in "https://pureinfotech.com/disable-search-web-results-windows-11/#:~:text=To%20disable%20web%20search%20in,File%20Explorer%20search%20box%E2%80%9D%20policy.". I asked Ramhound to write this into an answer and I'll accept it (if you're faster than him or her, you might run away with the reputation :-) ). – Dominique Jul 06 '23 at 12:04
  • I'll wait for @Ramhound to answer. – harrymc Jul 06 '23 at 12:05