Web search results and suggestions cannot be disabled in 1803 Pro

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In 1709 and earlier, you can set the group policy “Allow Cortana” to disabled to disable Cortana and completely eliminate any Bing search results and suggestions when using Windows Search.

In 1803 Pro, this policy no longer has the effect of disabling web searches and suggestions. Enabling the additional policies “Do not allow web search” and “Don’t search the web or display web results in Search” has no effect on this either.

There is seemingly no official way to prevent web searches and suggestions from appearing in Pro. This has been the case in Home for the last few releases. Education and Enterprise are unaffected and can still make use of these policies.

Results previously: https://i.imgur.com/2HhhtwM.png

Results in SCU/1803: https://i.imgur.com/zS2Pqlx.png

4 users thanked author for this post.

JohnW, AlexEiffel, Ascaris, Elly

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/facepalm

That’s… disappointing, but I can’t really say shocking.  Once again, “pro” is anything but.

I can’t think of anything more useless or obnoxious than having web results mixed in with local results on a local search.  When I want to search the web, I use a browser to accomplish this… a web browser.  See how neatly that fits?  If I want web results, I use a web browser.

I have several search tools, and each has its own role.  I don’t use Windows search from the start menu in Windows 8.1, as the search function in Classic Shell does what I need.  For file searching, I use Everything.

If I were using 10, I would also be using Classic Start, but how long will that work, now that the crazy pace of Windows 10 development and breakage of Classic Start has driven the author of that important addon to give  up?  I know that Microsoft wants to push traffic toward Bing and the ads they can serve, but really, how low can they go to accomplish this?

/facepalm, again.

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JohnW, AlexEiffel, Wazhai

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….but really, how low can they go to accomplish this?

Are you sure you want to see Microsoft’s answer to your question? I’m not sure if I want to see it myself. The developers of ShutUp 10 and utilities like it probably have some interesting stories to tell (or other words) about their wrangling with Windows 10.

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Microsoft is making a clear move, backing up their ‘to the cloud’ focus… I actually appreciate that they are being so clear. I don’t have to waste my time on W10, because I want a locally based system, and it doesn’t do what I need it to do. Wish they would have been upfront about what the choice would be, back when GWX was first offered, because too many family and friends spent a lot of time trying to get the ‘new, free, and more secure’ W10 to work for them. It didn’t. Still doesn’t. Throw in the Facebook and other data breaches, and there are huge examples as to why ‘the cloud’ is not better for my personal computing. Microsoft has had to seduce, trick, push, and hide what they are up to, in order to get people to go in the direction they want. When people clearly see the direction… well, they are rolling back to the original operating system, or going to Linux. If it was good for us, a better system, met our needs… why, they would have more than met their expectations regarding W10 adoption. I have to think that the reason the Enterprise version has support required to be bundled with it, is because businesses would see right away that it isn’t meeting their needs. The personal computer user is more likely to blame themselves for not knowing, rather than seeing the OS as being a problem, and will go along with Microsoft.

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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JohnW, Ascaris, AlexEiffel

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I’m set to defer feature updates for 365 days until this is resolved and if it’s not, then I will have to use some other OS. Because sending every local search keystroke to Bing without an officially supported way to stop it is unacceptable for me. A registry hack still seems to stop it but that is not an acceptable workaround for me personally, on principle.

Some may argue there are alternative start menus, search widgets or a registry hack to fix this, but the general direction Microsoft is heading in is very concerning to me as a user of the OS. First they removed the easily accessible option in all editions to disable web searches and now they are gimping the “power-user edition” by ignoring these policies in Pro.

Despite everything that is wrong with Windows 10, it has been somewhat tolerable for me so far. But I find this beyond unreasonable and it may be the last straw for me if it’s not swiftly addressed.

(I may have posted this in the wrong forum. I saw there is a Windows 10 Betas section, but this section seems to be the most active.)

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AlexEiffel

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I couldn’t agree more with you people. This is a new low. Forcing my searches to reach bing if I use this critical included search function really upsets me. There is absolutely no place for user preference regarding the online outsourcing of your computer usage while working with very basic OS features.

So, basically, it is now your usage of Windows requires that you allow us to collect personnal information about you unless you don’t use some very basic Windows features. No thanks.

What next, a Microsoft Account is required to use Windows?

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AlexEiffel wrote: “What next, a Microsoft Account is required to use Windows?”

Probably 95%-98% of Win10 ‘users’ got sucked into setting up a MS account when they either got the ‘free’ upgrade, or fired up their newly purchased Win10 system.

As we know, setting up a local account on a new system was well hidden, and if a user didn’t have previous knowledge of how to skip that step and set up a local account, they got joined to the Borg. Probably 100% of those users have no idea of how to disconnect from an MS account and set up a local account after the fact.

The Windows 10 systems I set up for clients have mostly been ‘referbed’ systems, that either are shipped to me, or are picked up by me at the customers site BEFORE they turn them on…as I admonish them to NOT try to set them up, LOL.

However, there’s always that chance that MS will force any local accounts to a MS account at some point in the future, EG: to be able to get updates/upgrades to Win10. Let’s hope we can keep flying under the radar.

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AlexEiffel

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Well i’ll be skipping 1803, he says hopefully, this go around. Its likely, knowing M$ as we all do, there wont be all that many changes in the Registry or you could add a key. This shows you how or use this guys Windows Tweaking Software, if that don’t fix it he’ll get around to it. All the links are on the page. Despite referring to 1511 and 1607 it still works here as of 1709 ver.

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Yup! /facepalm for sure!

If MS doesn’t fix this, then 1709 will be last Windows 10 build that I use online.  I will use Windows in the future, but only as an offline tool to run necessary Windows applications.

There have been many annoyances with Win 10 so far, but I have wrangled most of them into submission.  Although I have other alternate OS tested and running, I have not been motivated to move my daily workflow over yet.  This may be it…

Because this here crosses a very hard line in the sand, IMHO.  I do not want my local searches pinging off the internet.  Period!

Fyi: related article yesterday by Martin Brinkmann at ghacks:  https://www.ghacks.net/2018/04/07/microsoft-breaks-disable-web-search-in-windows-10-version-1803/

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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AlexEiffel, Elly

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That article could have been much better. It makes no mention that this is a deliberate change and not accidentally broken, and doesn’t say much about the privacy issues and implications of this change. But anyway, I’m glad they wrote about it and I’ll take any publicity on this issue.

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JohnW

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