New Obnoxious Search Bar Feature and How to Turn Off

I just updated to the newest build of Windows 11 and I noticed little graphics appearing in the taskbar search bar. Today it was a garish basketball for March Madness and my suggested content spammed we with a bunch of March Madness articles. Why? Who at Microsoft thought this was a good idea? The workaround is to just turn off suggested content entirely and it goes away, but why is this even a thing? We still can't get a feature to fully customize the taskbar like you can do with Chrome extensions, but they just add this "feature" in...presumably to add links to media sites they get ad revenue from? I'm at a loss.

When it came up on mine last week, I wondered what idiot signed off on crap like that and promptly went about finding a way to get rid of it.

I eliminated the search bar in Task Bar Settings. (Right-Click on the Task Bar.) Whenever I need to search, I just tap my Windows Key and start typing.

z3r010 said:

When it came up on mine last week, I wondered what idiot signed off on crap like that and promptly went about finding a way to get rid of it.

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Probably someone in marketing. Feels like a very marketing department thing to do.

TraderGary said:

I eliminated the search bar in Task Bar Settings. (Right-Click on the Task Bar.) Whenever I need to search, I just tap my Windows Key and start typing.

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Thanks, I'll probably do that if they keep this sort of thing up.

This is all part of the Search Highlights feature.

Maybe I'm the only in this universe that likes the Search Highlights feature, I know that is useless but is fancy

MiguelAngel11 said:

Maybe I'm the only in this universe that likes the Search Highlights feature, I know that is useless but is fancy

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I'm sure you're not the only one.

Winuser said:

I'm sure you're not the only one.

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Good to know, really

MiguelAngel11 said:

Maybe I'm the only in this universe that likes the Search Highlights feature, I know that is useless but is fancy

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Yes... you ARE the only one.

Ghot said:

Yes... you ARE the only one.

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And in need of therapy....

Ghot said:

Yes... you ARE the only one.

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You're forgetting the MS team that came up with it.

Winuser said:

You're forgetting the MS team that came up with it.

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Naw... they don't like or use it either.

Ghot said:

Naw... they don't like or use it either.

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I bet their Mommies and Daddies use it.

Winuser said:

I bet their Mommies and Daddies use it.

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Nope. They just had to find something to do at the "let's add some useless stuff" party.

I don't have to Search..., I know where everything is!

Edwin said:

I don't have to Search..., I know where everything is!

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I very rarely use it. I also use just the magnifying glass icon.

Winuser said:

I very rarely use it. I also use just the magnifying glass icon.

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Same... just the magnifying glass icon.

Edwin said:

I don't have to Search..., I know where everything is!

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I know where everything is, but sometimes, typing what I want is faster than the 37 clicks required to get to the setting.

I just hid the search bar and voila!, it's gone!

BTW, mine was a slice of cherry pie!

Ghot said:

Nope. They just had to find something to do at the "let's add some useless stuff" party.

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They are getting much better at adding useless stuff.

Wynona said:

BTW, mine was a slice of cherry pie!

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Runnin a bit behind, aren't they!?!?!?