- Microsoft is applying a major fix to Windows 11 search
- Taskbar search box will no longer display web results as priority in some cases
- This was disconcerting behavior at times, and part of Bing and Edge’s promotion, so it’s good to see the practice end.
If you’ve ever muttered under your breath in annoyance at Windows 11’s bewildering search results, here’s some good news: Microsoft is fixing it so the operating system doesn’t display web results as a priority.
It’s a frustration that anyone who uses Windows 11 and has ever used the search box in the taskbar is surely familiar with. You want to find a file on your drive, or a system configuration for something, so you type that query and the first result you see is for something on the web that is totally irrelevant.
However, as Windows Latest points out, Microsoft has realized that this behavior (and often pushing Bing or its other services through these web results) is not acceptable and hinders the usability of the Windows 11 search feature.
In a Windows 11 preview released recently on the Experimental channel for testers, Microsoft said it is changing the taskbar search box to ensure that results are more relevant and that: “Files and apps appear more reliably before web suggestions when their content is better matched.”
Microsoft further notes that we can “expect to see additional relevance improvements” for search in the future.
That doesn’t mean web results will be completely removed from Windows 11 search, mind you, and that’s a prospect that seems unlikely.
Analysis: why did it take so long?
So files and apps (or settings) now take priority when you search for something through Windows 11’s search box, over anything Microsoft can point to on the web.
Windows Latest highlights how a search for a Windows 11 app used to return a movie from the web as the first result, and notes that now, even when deliberately searching for terms that also apply to famous movie titles, this no longer happens.
Of course, there is a theme here that runs through many of the changes that Microsoft is applying to Windows 11, namely that they should have been implemented from the beginning with the operating system.
Who the hell wants to search for files only to have meaningless web results cluttering the place? Microsoft, that’s who, for the clicks the company hopes to get as an excuse to bring up Bing (and Edge). To me, this is the equivalent of ‘spam’ infiltrating search results.
In any case, better late than never, as they say, and I’m still very happy to see this happen, although all this kind of tweaking reminds us why this is a campaign about Microsoft. fixation Windows 11 instead improving the operating system. And that it was Microsoft’s fault that it broke in the first place, of course, and that it stayed that way for so long until an AI rebellion finally made the company sit up and take notice.
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