Windows 11 Will Soon Let You Disable Bing Search With A Single Toggle
Microsoft appears to finally be getting the message. At a Windows Insider meetup in San Francisco earlier this month, the development team previewed a sweeping cleanup of Windows 11 Search, with the headline feature being a simple, single toggle to shut off web integration entirely.
Right now, the only real way to strip Bing results from taskbar search is to dig into the Windows Registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows and manually push policies through. It works, but it's a ridiculous ask for what should be a basic user preference. The new toggle will live under Settings > Privacy & Security > Search. Alongside it, Microsoft is adding a separate switch to disable Microsoft Store suggestions. That means the OS stops pitching apps a person doesn't own when they're just trying to find software already sitting on their SSD.
Beyond the cleanup, the search engine's underlying mechanics are getting some worthwhile attention too, and some of those improvements are already rolling out. One is the two-character fix, which shipped to regular users in late May via optional update KB5089573. Previously, typing just two characters would most likely default to a generic web query if a local match wasn't immediate, but Search will now prioritize local results even on minimal input.
Another mechanic, called substring matching, is currently live in Windows Insider Preview builds, and it addresses one of the longest-standing annoyances with the indexer. Finding a file used to require knowing the exact beginning of the filename, but a file named MeetingNotesApril is now discoverable by typing "april" or "notes," which is how people have come to expect search to work.
Taken together, these changes represent what feels like a genuine course correction for a core OS feature that Microsoft let drift dangerously into frustrating territory. Stripping out web clutter won't fix every legacy bug in the indexer, but treating local storage as the priority rather than an afterthought is what users have been asking for. The Bing toggle is expected to reach Windows Insider preview branches before a wider rollout, likely as part of the Windows 11 25H2 update in the second half of 2026.
