The Windows 11 task bar/start menu changes are really baffling to me because they really do change a bunch of stuff and then provide no way to turn them off. Most egregiously, if you just want apps in your start menu and remove the "recommended" fluff, then you literally end up with a start menu block which is half empty, and in the "recommended" half, it gives you a helpful link to the settings to turn back on the "recommended" option you just turned off. It's almost like someone at Microsoft is having a joke at their users' expense.

The search is now also really hideous. Popping open random websites by default instead of files or applications on my own computer that are a better lexical match is incredibly annoying for a company that also makes VS Code, which almost always finds what you want when you type just a few letters of the thing.

The start menu search is just another instance of someone at MS trying to meet a KPI to drive search traffic to Bing. I believe there's a registry setting where you can turn the Bing search off and it'll go back to how search used to behave in the start menu.

And the ads/'recommended' apps are just another source of revenue from advertising. It's really strange to me. Windows isn't a free operating system, it still costs $140 retail for a Home license. But they sure treat their users like it is.

Thanks for the tip! If anyone else has found themselves annoyed by an exact internet search result hijacking a partial local result when you start typing and hit enter, the registry path is HKCU:\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer, set DisableSearchBoxSuggestions DWORD to 1.

I also find the ads in Windows unnecessary and redundant, considering I already paid for it. What I wonder is if a certain number of people have become so accustomed to seeing ads everywhere that they feel like a system is somehow less "exciting" or "helpful" when they aren't being bombarded with calls to action. This could explain why ads and other constructs like points, achievements etc seem to be getting shoehorned into interfaces that historically didn't need them.

I'm running Windows 11 preview and have the ability to turn off taskbar items in taskbar settings. I get the impression that they are still experimenting with the search box settings.

100% agree it is a ploy to drive Bing search.

Windows 11 does have the option to remove these items including search from the taskbar. The person asking the question wants to leave search on the taskbar but remove the text "Search" from within the entry field for the search widget.

Sorry, I'm bad at explaining myself, hah. I go on tangents.

My point was that with Windows 10 there usually was a toggle for the changes they make to the taskbar. But for some reason, there doesn't appear to be for this one.

It's just the label though, won't change anything functional. It's like asking for an option to remove "What's of your mind?" from Facebook status input box.