25H2 - Microsoft Store recommendations in search

I'm noticing the same behavior, even though I'm not enrolled in 25H2. I have 24H2 with OS Build 26100.7171. It's just crept up, even though the last window update was 2025-11 Security Update (KB5068861) (26100.7171)

This is my first Google result for searching this issue, so I'm copying a very easy solution which worked for me today 17/01/26 on 25H2, buried in this thread: How to remove the “Store” results from the Start Menu?

1. Search 'Microsoft Store', then open the app settings for it.
2. On the app settings window, under 'background component permissions', set 'let this system component run in the background' to never.
3. Scroll farther down, find and click the Terminate button, then Reset.

VulgarAscetic said:

This is my first Google result for searching this issue, so I'm copying a very easy solution which worked for me today 17/01/26 on 25H2, buried in this thread: How to remove the “Store” results from the Start Menu?

1. Search 'Microsoft Store', then open the app settings for it.
2. On the app settings window, under 'background component permissions', set 'let this system component run in the background' to never.
3. Scroll farther down, find and click the Terminate button, then Reset.

Click to expand...

While I don't doubt this works, but it might have unintended consequences for users who do use the Store.

Suppose you're downloading a new app in the Store (or updating old apps), and it will take a while for the app(s) to download/install. When you background the Store app, this wouldn't allow the Store to finish its work.

UWP apps have strict rules about whether they're allowed to run in the background or not. This comes from the time when they originated with Windows Mobile and laptop support, where you don't want background apps to drain battery power.

I would think this trick works well if you're not an active Store app user.

garlin said:

I would think this trick works well if you're not an active Store app user.

Click to expand...

Agree, but if something fouls up, can't you go back into settings again and turn it back on?

Thanks

True. But it might be annoying for users to flip the settings back & forth if they're about to use the Store.

garlin said:

True. But it might be annoying for users to flip the settings back & forth if they're about to use the Store.

Click to expand...

Agree. Too bad there isn't a way to have a toggle link to it, back & forth.

VulgarAscetic said:

This is my first Google result for searching this issue, so I'm copying a very easy solution which worked for me today 17/01/26 on 25H2, buried in this thread: How to remove the “Store” results from the Start Menu?

1. Search 'Microsoft Store', then open the app settings for it.
2. On the app settings window, under 'background component permissions', set 'let this system component run in the background' to never.
3. Scroll farther down, find and click the Terminate button, then Reset.

Click to expand...

If I may add to all of the above my own experience with the issue.

Nothing has worked for me so far, on win 11 25H2 OS Build 26220.
Registry settings have been there forever, did not work.
WinToys worked the first time I typed something in the StartMenu, and then Store "results" started appearing again.

I have not tested O&O ShutUp10+ yet, although I have used it in the past.

But modifying the Store app settings seems to work just fine.
And apparently store downloads/updates work too.

So thank you to all. You've been very helpful.

aj2390 said:

for anyone using wintoys, enable the digital markets act, the store recommendations will go away

Click to expand...

Man, i made an account just to thank you. O my god.. i've been at it for 4+ hours. I was not going to sleep until this store recommendation was gone. Thank you! This must be added to all Windows debloat tools going forward.

Microsoft store still works fine, but it seems to initialize downloads waaaay slower than on my other PC that didn't have to enable DMA, which is Win 11 23H2. But still not a big deal, since I almost never use it.

aj2390 said:

for anyone using wintoys, enable the digital markets act, the store recommendations will go away

Click to expand...

And what if you don't have Wintoys? What if you don't want Wintoys? What then?

Can you temporarily install Wintoys for this purpose and then uninstall it? Will it save that setting?

~

To be honetThis should be a setting in the Windows OS, itself.

cheaterslick said:

And what if you don't have Wintoys? What if you don't want Wintoys? What then?

Can you temporarily install Wintoys for this purpose and then uninstall it? Will it save that setting?

~

To be honetThis should be a setting in the Windows OS, itself.

Click to expand...

Yes you can uninstall. I use Revo to uninstall, so I left behind the registry files behind just in case and it's working fine.

cheaterslick said:

And what if you don't have Wintoys? What if you don't want Wintoys? What then?

Can you temporarily install Wintoys for this purpose and then uninstall it? Will it save that setting?

~

To be honetThis should be a setting in the Windows OS, itself.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately the previous methods mentioned no longer work. There's a bypass you can make without having to go through the OOBE, but it will set your "Device Setup Region" to the European Economic Area (specifically The Netherlands, IIRC Ireland is ..00044 for example), so consider if you would want that.

With that out of the way, there's an excellent writeup here:
The TL;DR of it is that in 25H2 Microsoft made a change that "protects" a device from unwanted changes, like setting the device region setup.

Fortunately for us, that change only monitors the default PowerShell path, so it's trivial to create a copy of the binary and execute the changes from that.

Copy-Item -Path "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -Destination "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershellcopy.exe"; Start-Process "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershellcopy.exe" -Wait -ArgumentList '-Command "REG ADD \"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\DeviceRegion\" /V \"DeviceRegion\" /T REG_DWORD /D 0x00000b0 /F"'; Remove-Item "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershellcopy.exe"

There's an alternative to edit the store.db file described here, but that won't fly in our enterprise setting (because the implications for screwing up are too big) and this is the best I could do without Enterprise licensing.