How to permanently delete MS Edge Search Bar from the desktop

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[Bob99]

For the last three or four updates, MS seems to have insisted on enabling the new Edge Search Bar on my desktop and in my taskbar’s notification area every time that an update has been installed for Edge. My installed version currently sits at 113.0.1774.42, with Edge’s WebView2 runtime sitting at 113.0.1774.35.

Each time, I’ve gone into its settings to turn off the persnickety thing, and it doesn’t show back up at all…until Edge is updated, at which time it’s baaack.

After being deleted, if I go into the taskbar’s settings, and go to the part where you can see what’s allowed to show up in the taskbar’s notification area, Edge Search bar is listed, but it’s set to not be allowed to be shown, its’ slider is set to the “off” position.

SO, is there a way to stop this thing from being shown with every update to Edge?? A Group Policy setting, perhaps, since I am running the Pro version of 10, specifically 19045.2846 x64?

Thanks In Advance for any guidance that can be offered!

P.S. Edge is NOT my default browser, Firefox is. I keep Edge around for sites that don’t “like” Firefox’s privacy controls and so don’t display properly in it. Luckily, that’s very few sites!

UPDATE: I have found a pair of posts from @Rick-Corbett that describe just how to do what I was looking for. It’s a registry entry that has to be created, and he tried to post it in a .reg file that was rejected by the forum software for some strange reason. His posts can be found here and here. The first one shows a description of what the file is supposed to do, the second one shows the actual contents of the file.

Either creating a .REG file from the contents as listed in the second post, or using regedit on your own to go to the exact location and creating the entry yourself is a viable option.

NOW, is there a corresponding entry in Group Policy to make thing easier for those running Windows 10 (or even 11) Pro? Although I’ve marked this topic as “Resolved”, an answer to this question would help folks in the future.

Thanks Again!

• This topic was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by Bob99.
• This topic was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by Bob99.

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See paragraph labeled “UPDATE” in post above. Would still be nice to know if there’s a corresponding entry in Group Policy for those who don’t like going directly into the registry to make changes, even with the help of .REG files, but who do have the Pro version of Windows 10 or 11.

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I don’t see a local group policy.

But I do see:

Click/tap on the Settings and more (Alt+F) 3 dots button, and click/tap on Settings.

Turn On or Off (default) Automatically open Edge bar when the computer starts for what you want

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Click/tap on the Settings and more (Alt+F) 3 dots button, and click/tap on Settings. Turn On or Off (default) Automatically open Edge bar when the computer starts for what you want

Just where is that? I can’t find it in Edge 114, nor in the Settings area of Windows 10 22H2 with the May update installed.

Is it perhaps in Windows 11 instead of 10?

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Bob99 wrote:

Would still be nice to know if there’s a corresponding entry in Group Policy

Look again at the .REG file I provided:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Created by: Shawn Brink
; Created on: March 16, 2023
; Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorial-test/203448-disable-microsoft-edge-desktop-search-bar-startup-windows-10-a.html

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge]
"WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup"=dword:00000000

This IS a Group Policy, just not in the Local Group Policy Editor console that you were hoping for. That’s all LGPE is… a GUI front end to the registry.

I doubt that there will be an update to the current GP template as the pace of Edge development shows no sign of slowing.

Also, let’s face it – it’s not likely that Microsoft will deliberately annoy with one hand yet also give an easy method to smote that annoyance with the other? I suspect the REG setting that Shawn Brink published was due to an immediate and very adverse reaction from industry…. and the fact that the REG file appeared so quickly after the first appearance of this nonsense shows that Microsoft were well aware that it may be a contentious change.

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I took things a bit farther than the registry value that you mentioned. I saw Shawn Brink’s article at the url mentioned in your post detailing the actual registry change you were trying to post in a .reg file, but below that article was a link to another article written by him on how to permanently disable the search bar from appearing at all, no matter what. The registry location is identical, but the name of the dword is “WebWidgetAllowed” instead of “WebWidgetIsEnabledOn Startup”.

I have never had the widget appear after any updates that have been installed using Windows Update, but, instead, every time a new full version of Edge has been installed, so I mis-spoke in my initial post on this topic. My apologies for any misunderstanding I may have created.

After implementing the registry change, I have now noticed that the option to turn on the search bar within Edge is now greyed out and there is a locked padlock next to its entry in the menus within Edge. Hooray, I hope. This is still the case after both a reboot using the “Restart” function on the Start menu as well as shutting the computer down with a full power off and then starting it the next day.

The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes, so I’ll see just what happens the next time I get Edge updated from version 113 to version 114! 🤞

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Rick Corbett wrote:

This IS a Group Policy, just not in the Local Group Policy Editor console that you were hoping for. That’s all LGPE is… a GUI front end to the registry.

Completely agree. However, I was (and still am) looking to see if there’s an actual corresponding entry in the Group Policy entries that are tailor-made for Edge (and that don’t come by default with Windows 10 Pro, you have to d/l them separately).

After all, although I don’t have a problem going into the registry to get my hands dirty, there are folks out there who want nothing to do with knowingly changing the registry, but who have no problem making policy changes with a GUI such as GPEdit.

One person comes to mind who should be able to answer this question: @bigal67 (alejr). He has the separate Edge-specific Group Policy entries on his machine, and would be able to tell us if there’s a corresponding Group Policy entry. According to Microsoft, the location within GP is supposed to be Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Microsoft Edge and the specific policy name is “WebWidgetAllowed”. For the startup setting, the location in GP is the same, but the specific item’s name is “WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup”.

The page I got the registry policy info from is https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#webwidgetallowed for allowing it or not in the first place and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup for allowing it to run on startup or not if you allowed it in the first place.

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UPDATE: Just to check, I’ve just manually run Windows Update twice on my test laptop, rebooting each time. The Microsoft Edge Desktop Search Bar has definitely gone. Yay, Sean!

I’ve also realised the reason behind something that has been bugging me… When I opened Settings and chose Windows update the page appeared with just the header text, nothing more. I noticed that the drive activity light showed full activity. As I watched, after several minutes the News and Interests ‘gleam’ changed’ to a new image… and all of a sudden the Windows Update page was populated.

I assume the disk thrashing was the download of News and Interests content in the background. It won’t happen again… I’ll disable News and Interests even on my test laptop

Oh, and whilst I was typing this I saw flash of a CMD console. Seconds later my test laptop screen went black. Even though I had carried out a reboot after the first Windows Update, Redmond apparently felt it necessary to sign me out. It returned with the same lock screen image but the timeout has obviously been changed to a shorter period.

 

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Bob99 wrote:

One person comes to mind who should be able to answer this question: @bigal67 (alejr). He has the separate Edge-specific Group Policy entries on his machine, and would be able to tell us if there’s a corresponding Group Policy entry. According to Microsoft, the location within GP is supposed to be Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Microsoft Edge and the specific policy name is “WebWidgetAllowed”. For the startup setting, the location in GP is the same, but the specific item’s name is “WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup”.

Yes there are Group Policy settings for these but their “Policy Names” are not WebWidgetAllowed and WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup.

WebWidgetAllowed is:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge > Enable the Search bar

If you disable this policy: The search bar will be disabled for all profiles. The option to launch the search bar from Microsoft Edge “More tools” menu will be disabled. The option to launch the search bar from Microsoft Edge jump list menu will be disabled.

WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup is:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge > Allow the Search bar at Windows startup

If you disable this policy: The Search bar will not start at Windows startup for all profiles. The option to start the Edge bar at Windows startup will be disabled and toggled off in Microsoft Edge settings.

A  full list all the policies with both their “Policy Names” and “Registry Names” is available at Microsoft’s “official” Microsoft Edge – Policies page.

BTW, it’s not just Edge where Policy Names don’t match the Registry Names. A lot of Group Policy names don’t match the names used in the registry!

3 users thanked author for this post.

Rick Corbett, oldfry, b

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