Microsoft continue to put Bing search on desktop

Topic

New Reply

Microsoft continue to put Bing search on desktop after Edge updates.
Couldn’t find a setting to disable this intrusion.

Reply | Quote

Replies

Group Policy > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge

Disable Enable the search bar

When enabled, users can use the search bar to search the web from their desktop or from an application. If you disable this policy, the search bar will be disabled for all profiles.

Disable Allow the search bar at Windows startup

When enabled, the Search bar will start running at Windows startup by default. If you disable this policy, the Search bar will not start at Windows startup for all profiles

For those without Group Policy the equivalent registry entries are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
WebWidgetAllowed = 0  (DWORD)
WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup = 0 (DWORD)

I disabled these 2 policies on my PC back when MS first added that feature to Edge and it hasn’t reappear during any of my Edge updates since then; including this mornings update to 116.0.1938.81.

Reply | Quote

Can’t find such settings on my W10 Pro 22H2

Reply | Quote

Then I’d suggest you add the two registry entries.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

Can’t find such settings on my W10 Pro 22H2

I don’t have those settings in Group Policy either, because I haven’t installed the Edge-specific set of Group Policy templates that are available on the same page as the download links to the 32 and 64 bit versions of Edge’s full installation executable.

To see if you have the GP template specific to Edge, go into GPEdit and look under Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates. If you see a folder with the words “Microsoft Edge” on it, click on it and you should then see a plethora of policies dealing specifically with Edge. If you don’t see a folder labeled “Microsoft Edge”, then you don’t have the template installed, or you have it in the wrong location for GPedit to use.

So, Alex, I guess if you want to avoid having the Bing search icon on your desktop, follow @n0ads ‘ guidance above, and create the registry entry or entries. That’s exactly what I did.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

Reply | Quote

Don’t see it on my desktop.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

Reply | Quote

Microsoft made some changes in how disabling the desktop search bar works in the new version of Edge!

From the 117.0.2045.31 release notes.

New policies

SearchbarAllowed – Enable the Search bar
SearchbarIsEnabledOnStartup – Allow the Search bar at Windows startup

Deprecated policies

WebWidgetAllowed – Enable the Search bar
WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup – Allow the Search bar at Windows startup

So, while the Group Policy “names” stayed the same, the WebWidgetAllowed & WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup registry entries no longer work!

The new equivalent registry entries are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
SearchbarAllowed = 0 (DWORD)
SearchbarIsEnabledOnStartup = 0 (DWORD)

Note: the old Group Policy names are still present but now say “(depreciated)” at the end.

BTW, my Edge was updated just now and the new settings do still prevent the desktop search bar from displaying.

1 user thanked author for this post.

b

Reply | Quote