Windows 11 update added 'Search' label to taskbar search button – how to remove?
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My plan is to use Windows 10 as long as it's supported, then stop using Windows altogether which is already only for games. Then I can hopefully use a Steam Deck or a future 'Steam PC'.
I can see how MS might consider Windows to matter less with their infrastructure/services business, but anything that keeps users on Windows rather than switch to the Apple ecosystem has to be worth the effort to make Windows suck less rather than cashing out. I'm trying to see the long term strategy and it might be making MS an open-source services company around .NET (and a Linux distribution) along with proprietary cloud and apps (SharePoint etc).
I don’t care about their cosmetic change so I will do the same: hang to windows 10 until EOL and then pray to god that nvidia and wayland will have fixed their rough edges (night light, etc).
My intel igpu laptop is running Wayland full-time and it works perfectly. No tearing, night light works, xwayland is seamless, input stuff works*, and there's working sleep and resume, including sleep and throttling on low battery.
* You can't change the set of keyboard layouts without restarting Wayland, but you can switch layouts just fine.
This is what is frustrating. The core of windows and the shell is fine. It's just got a veneer of diarrhoea over everything.
I'm at a complete loss at the moment of how they manage to run the product like this.
> The Secret Ingredient: A New Memory Management System
> Windows 11 prioritizes apps and processes running in the foreground over background apps.
> Conclusion
> Windows 11 definitely feels faster and smoother compared to Windows 10. Much of this comes from the improved memory management system that Windows 11 is using. If you own an average computer in terms of specs, you’ll definitely notice the difference. The same is valid for old low-specs machines. Windows 11 feels a lot snappier, even on HDD machines. Overall, it runs better than its predecessor on many computers.
Windows 10 system requirements[0]:
* Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
* RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
Windows 11 system requirements[1]:
* 1 Ghz or faster with 2 or more cores and appearing on our list of approved CPUs.
* RAM: 4 GB.
Gee, they made it "feel" faster and all they had to do was quadruple the memory requirements and restrict it to whitelisted hardware. However do the wizards at Redmond perform such sorcery?
[0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-syste...
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-syste...
What do the system requirements have to do with the better performance for 11, if the tests were performed on the same hardware?
You yourself posted the reason why it's faster and it isn't because of the system requirements: "Windows 11 definitely feels faster and smoother compared to Windows 10. Much of this comes from the improved memory management system that Windows 11 is using. If you own an average computer in terms of specs, you’ll definitely notice the difference. The same is valid for old low-specs machines. Windows 11 feels a lot snappier, even on HDD machines. Overall, it runs better than its predecessor on many computers."
Also, Windows 10 was launched in 2015, while 11 launched in 2021, it can be understandable they advertise higher system requirements today vs 2015, as computing hardware has also evolved in that time frame and so have the demands of the apps people run on their system, and they wish their users to have the best experience and if they'd advertise lower system requirements, then some users would complain "it's slow". This way they make it clear on which hardware you can expect a decent experience, and it's in no way gonna be on a system with once CPU core and 2GB of RAM. Hell, even the 4GB required for Win 11 seem incredibly conservative.
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
> You yourself posted the reason why it's faster
First, note well that the article lacks benchmarks and is careful to only ever say Windows 11 "feels" faster.
If Windows 11 can preload 4 times as much in RAM that might be described as "improved memory management system" which would make it "feel faster". It is also an approach that is denied Windows 10 due to its minimum system requirements.
I find that spending some time turning off all the bloat that is enabled by default on any given Windows version results in an immediately responsive UI, such that feeling faster is not much of a selling point.
It is just amusing to me how each new version of Windows is billed as "the fastest ever!" while the minimum system requirements continue to balloon.
Maybe try disabling indexing or those web search feature.
Can't concur wit your PoV. Have not had any issues with it and the improvements in features and snappiness it brought over 10 was worth the upgrade.
You can read my list of improvements here (forgot to add Bluetooth improvements): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33870655
We have a bit under 3 years to get Linux's gaming support to match Windows without needing to delve into using KVM with a GPU passthrough as a crutch.
[0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows...
Though multiplayer games will remain a pain point for the foreseeable future, due to anti-cheat shenanigans.
(Also, sometimes the compat is there, but figuring out how to enable it is a pain. d3dx* being a good example; for me, it was selectable in winecfg menu, but wasn't installed until I figured out winetricks. Steam and Proton issues are much less obtuse.)
Off the top of my head, the biggest games not supporting Proton due to anti-cheat are Destiny 2* and Halo Master Chief Collection, and Halo MCC is actively being worked on by Valve & Microsoft.
*despite running BattlEye now, the Destiny devs have a deep-seated trauma from their game being derailed by cheaters for the years prior before BattlEye, and thus make very obtuse choices like not allowing overlays or not flipping the BattlEye Proton switch and allowing Destiny 2 to run on Proton
[1]https://nitter.unixfox.eu/thebattleye/status/144147781631129...
[2]https://areweanticheatyet.com/
[3]https://nitter.unixfox.eu/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149051919491...
I did install startallback so I can have vertical taskbar and modified registry to bring the Windows 10 right click menu back (which to be fair to Microsoft wouldn't be needed if my other software would use the win 11 APIs to add options to the menu)
Generally my experience after 2 weeks is good.
(Though ironically, the biggest users of this feature I'm aware of are Linux VFIO enthusiasts trying to run multiplayer games in a VM.)
It also has better HDR support and feels faster to me.
I also largely avoided Win 8, staying on 7 almost until 10 was released, which was a tolerable 'fix' of 8's experimental features.
It's nice to feel like you really own your software.
You can make everything less hostile quickly by removing the search bar, and removing the "search web" feature in start menu etc in a couple of minutes.
Win11 isn't too bad, but the increases in effectively advertorial software, ads in search results and breaking twice on me, my desktop is on my Linux drive most of the time, and I'll probably remove my Windows drive altogether (nvme/pcie adapter) for a 10gb nic.
WSLg added support for Windows 10 recently. Run `wsl --update` to get the latest version.
Windows 11 actually understands that this is a single audio device and handles bluetooth mode switching for you. This removed a mahor painpoint for me.
Otherwise, in my opinion, its a normal mixed bad - something is better, something is worse. Meh.
That said, there is one thing that really bothers me. They only added support for the 6GHz Wi-Fi protocol in 11 (as part of WiFi 6e). So I can't use the 6 GHz channel on my desktop. It's really annoying.
I have seen Uni student buy Apple laptops after their Windows laptops have automatically upgraded or by mistake and they hated the experience.
Connected OS to your MS account, gear up for operating system level Ads and counter productive UI. I think this will finally have me buy a Mac and use Unity for VMware if I need to run something Windows related. Thanks Microsoft.
I'm personally hoping steam/proton/anti-cheat etc improves so that I can dump the entire mess...
Apart from some cosmetic changes I have no opinion on, a few new and changed features (mostly good), the biggest difference I see is the new explorer context menu which is awful since you 98% of the time need an extra click to reach the item you need.
But apart from that, it feels like a solid version. Just the usual hardware support improvements alone make it an acceptable upgrade. It also feels slightly more clever in the MacOS way when it comes to switching between audio devices etc.
The latest W11 is still obviously Windows 10 version 10.0.22621.1037, and that's on the beta channel where the comment is "Updated the search box on the taskbar with more rounded corners."
My theory is that MS never expected macOS to stop being OSX (version 10) and once Apple came out with MacOS 11, Microsoft had to follow suit.
WSLg, although it was developed on Windows 10 and only 'requires' Windows 11 by way of anti-feature.
(You can use other X11 display servers on Windows 10 but the UX sucks compared to WSLg, even though WSLg is a bit of a buggy mess.)
Then no, there's no reason to 'upgrade' at all.
Does this not work in Windows 11?
It's a shame because it could be better if they actually stopped the marketoids and CXO class from interfering in the product engineering decisions.
I rely heavily on taskbar features so ExplorerPatcher has been my savior and the only way I stil have Win11 installed on that machine. It was a little rough in the early days but it's gotten much more reliable, especially if you're not taking bleeding edge Win11 Insider builds from Microsoft.
Taking another look at StartIsBack I'm somewhat surprised that I preferred donating to ExplorerPatched over buying StartIsBack, I guess I didn't want to get used to something that I could not install on any new computer encounter without money getting involved. That, and the massive Google results dominance StartIsBack enjoyed while I was desperately looking for an 11-fix: at a certain level of SEO success the trust heuristics in my brain start screaming "scam" no matter what. In an objective level I really don't believe that StartIsBack is anything close to malware (doesn't even require admin, apparently (1)), but the SEO success and intense layman appeal of the site triggers all my fight or flight reflexes. Far too reminiscent of those old system cleaner tool traps.
((1) not that "no admin" would be a panacea: that might have been a difference back in the day when "taking over the system" was the only thing to really be concerned about, but these days on a typical personal computer there's plenty of valuable identity stuff that a piece of malware could harvest without ever escalating beyond user)
Its portable and gives your taskbar look of Windows 98 -> Vista.
I find that one ugly and inconvenient (I think around XP was the time I tried alternate window managers because the default look was so ugly). The modern look with the icons and icon-actions is perfect for a vertical taskbar
I know that there are probably different teams for the Shell, and each app but I would hope that there would be a person that drives the overall "vision" of the Operating System.
When Microsoft adds something like this, to the very valuable visual prime real estate taskbar, which is always visible at all times, why do they not include the option to remove it?
Do they simply not think about it, or is it a cold calculated choice in order to promote use of the new feature?
At least, I can't figure out how to get rid of it. I never use it.
That is not a realistic option.
(Also, as an ex-Microsoft employee, it's clear to me they only reason they're doing this stuff is to drive more 'organic' search traffic to Bing so they can have better numbers to show advertisers)
It's possible with Windows 11 they simply haven't done the extra effort to make this change toggleable?
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.
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.
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.
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.
100% agree it is a ploy to drive Bing search.
Really good design can only exist where you’re building to the vision of someone with good and opinionated taste. Building to only metrics is why trash like sign up gates on Twitter/Pinterest etc exist.
I think that is an oxymoron. Opinionated is just an euphemism for dogmatic and hard to work with person.
E.g. the Go formater that enforces no-tabs or whatever. I don't want the tool to force stuff on me, ever.
Pushing a stupid button and refusing to make the users able to remove it is a typical opinionated design choice.
Un-opinionated people will just do what they're told and design trash.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hide-and-unhide-...
The question is about keeping the search box and hiding the search label.
Which is a sort of silly thing to complain about, but Windows 11 has a lot of taskbar feature regressions. You can't even pin the thing to the left or right edge anymore. So I understand why users are frustrated.
This all represents a philosophical shift in Windows ("the taskbar is Microsoft's, not yours") and it will be a painful adjustment for power users.
What if only 0.05% of users do that? Is it really worth all that entropy in code and test matrix for such a low usage feature?
My theory is simpler: it was too hard to add new features to the taskbar (like wide search bars and now text fields) when you had to think about a tall and a wide configuration. So they cut the tall way. Now they can cram all sorts of features into your taskbar.
It represents a shift in MS philosophy, closer to how Apple mandates progress in their OS.
I also run software last compiled in 1997, but Windows 11 looks a whole lot different than Windows 95 where that software was compiled.
If I have a program that emits a painful audio bit every time the user does X and only 0.05% of users disable it by going to a configuration value they need to search for through dozens of (my own) SEO'd results, that doesn't mean that only 0.05% of users want it disabled, it just means that only 0.05% of users were able to figure out how to stop my program from doing X.
I work on a product where our power user base is known for requesting registry options to change/disable feature x/y, and our market research has consistently shown a registry value doesn't enter most people's minds; to further this point, our user base is specifically IT persons. Even our Linux user base (actual day to day linux users) don't consider asking if we have a config file to edit somewhere in any overwhelming way.
The point I take from this data (which I know is anecdata for you) is that most users assume software "out of the box" is what you see is what you get. Making these changes and options and not including a way to remove them is not a good way of tracking interest since the sample size that is actually willing to take the time to complain and post compared to those that just look at other software entirely are far different. You're dealing with a complete unknown in the Power User space; regular users are even less inclined to see how to disable it and hiding it behind registry edits is actually a dissuasion.
I doubt that they removed the side taskbar option without very extensive testing and discussions. In fact, it's a well repeated criticism of Microsoft, that they have TOO MANY options, not too few:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/11/21/choices-headaches/
And yet Windows 11 adoption remains low.
The nonsense UI changes to the taskbar are the primary reason I am still using Windows 10.
The issue with having so many features is that people use those features and become reliant upon them. Removing those features means that the product is not as good as its predecessor and thus fewer people move to the new version.
I suspect the TPM 2.0 requirement is the bigger reason. Let's face it, most Windows users are unaware of what exact version they are running. If it prompted to auto-update to Windows 11 they would click yes.
I am sure that may be true for some users, but certainly not for all.
My computer meets TPM 2.0 requirements, but I turn down every Windows 11 upgrade offer.
The business I work for buys new PCs to replace old ones, but the company OS image is still Windows 10.
You were talking about % of users using an option and the cost of using it, to which I argued that it's quite difficult even with perfect telemetry to know whether people are not using an option because they don't want to use it or they just cannot find it. Telemetry data like this just tells you N% of users do X; you don't know why just from the fact that they do it. The user base for my product does X which is contrary to the intended design all the time, and we don't know why until we get to one on one discussions as to why they tried it that way, and even that is very difficult data to get.
Your article here is not really related, it's about choices in UI that are confusing (and also cannot be enabled/disabled from the UI), and in fact I even understand this point to undermine the first; even if Microsoft continues to do large amounts of user testing, are they doing anything meaningful with the data if they continue to have too many choices?
I don't think there's a lot of sense to speculate on why Microsoft made a choice unless they publish a claim as to why they made a choice; we can point to data and anecdata endlessly to support positions but it doesn't actually make a case for the affirmative in either way.
What I am to say is that even with user testing, countless options, and so on, at best you can say that on a vanilla installation, N% of a sample group did X. With extrapolating statistical math, you can assume with a margin of error that if N% of users from Z sample set did X, then Y% of users will likely do the same with some margin of error.
From anecdata I can know from other persons who call themselves Windows power users and/or technical persons, I know that the common response to most Windows changes is not that it's good or bad, but that you just learn to deal with it after awhile. Personally I take this as more negative, that is it's not active adoption it's begrudging acceptance, but that's a personal take.
But remove any of the shutdown options, and someone who uses it will complain saying that it's the perfect one for them.
> know that the common response to most Windows changes is not that it's good or bad, but that you just learn to deal with it after awhile.
So what's the alternative, not changing nothing ever? We would still have the Windows 3.1 interface (no taskbar) according to this logic, I'm sure the transition from the 3.1 model to the Windows 95 model was extremely disrupting to Windows 3.1 users who had muscle memory for it. Yet in retrospect it was the correct choice. Should Windows 95 kept as an alternative the Windows 3.1 interface? Forever? Should it still be present in Windows 11 just because there are 10 users who loved it?
I got your point about hidden features and removing them, I sometimes discover wonderful features in software I've been using for years, but at the same time, I accept that progress also means losing things sometimes. You get 10 new features or improvements, you lose 2. Other say "no, I can't lose nothing, I will chose the existing 2 features versus the 10 new ones". That's ok too, they can keep using Windows 10.
Sure, you had to use O&O ShutUp (1) and block ads via hosts table (2) and turn off DNS Caching (3) or it would take like 10 minutes to find your internet connection again every time you re-booted... but I felt like they were going in the right direction, and I could mute all the crap I hated.
And then Windows 11 came out. And it has zilch in the way of any new features, and they keep pushing more and more of the annoying crap. Like a "search" button that forces Bing, and weather than forces Bing, and "online" that forces Teams and whatever else. And you can turn stuff off, for the most part...
But I just feel like they're constantly trying to find new ways to spam their crap on me, and force their other products or services -- many of which I've already told them numerous times I hate. I hate Bing. I hate Teams. I hate all that schlock they're peddling. And they keep making it more pervasive, and harder to turn off.
And look, there's no UX improvements I enjoy, there's no features I need... Windows 11, and all of Microsoft's new features for Windows are just garbage. And it was hard to install, I had to do some hacky stuff to get my motherboard to spoof some settings so I could even put Windows 11 on what was at the time a 2-year-old computer.
If I had one wish for Microsoft, it would be to stop trying to sell me things via the OS. Just build a good OS, and stop all the other crap. It's not making me say, "Gosh, I love all your new features!" It's making me actively look for alternatives.
(1) https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
(2) https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
(3) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/47441/ho...
But then how will MSN News drive up their engagement metrics?
the problem is, i choose apple, i know i am getting into a walled garden where people are expected to follow the way apple wants them to. kde is on the opposite end. Windows until win7 at least or as late as win10 was more towards kde than apple but it is trying to transition....
the problem is, people who use windows "expect" windows to be customizable and that is giving them grief. i'd stay people are having trouble adjusting to the Microsoft vision of moving to the apple side (because of actual nefarious purpose at least)
Windows is not Linux, you can't customize every bit of text you see on screen. Every Windows instance kind of looks and behaves like every other one. For some that's actually a good thing, some people just want to get work done instead of spending days customizing every little pixel on the screen.
Are there any alternatives anyone knows of that are user friendly, reliable, don't keep hiding options...?
I'd really like to move off windows but so far it doesn't feel like I can.
I use Gnome myself because I like the hot corners, and I like it well enough but I’m currently trying to figure out AwesomeWM. I did borrow some of the shortcut ideas from it for gnome like windows key + enter for a console.
a) isn't buggy and
b) is designed by people who understand a GUI isn't an end in itself but a means for someone to get their work done.
I need both and gnome... wasn't it.
It is the default of xubuntu, which imho is a good first desktop linux, mostly because of the extensive documentation and tutorials for it.
And instead just use WinKey+F as a keyboard shortcut.
https://twitter.com/reactos follow to see the progress
> how to remove?
Consider switching to Linux.
A drastic solution, for sure.
Either don't use an MS OS (there are at least two alternatives) or stop complaining about trivial things.
> Either don't use an MS OS (there are at least two alternatives) or stop complaining about trivial things.
Are you seriously arguing that entirely switching OSs is the correct approach to solving this as opposed to asking how to remove the undesired behavior? Are you totally against individual customization of a user’s OS or sonething?