I’ve been running Windows 11 insider builds for a long time now and have enjoyed getting an insight into what’s coming for the mainstream consumers, ahead of time.
After running updates on my PC overnight, I now have Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview version 22H2, build 25120.1000. After logging I seen something new, a search bar on the desktop.
I generally hide desktop icons to run a clean display, so having anything overlayed on the wallpaper was certainly jarring. I like to imagine that product features are generally added in an effort to provide value to users, so I gave it a go.
The prompt invites you to enter a search phrase or a URL and after running a search, a new browser window launched with the search already completed. On the surface, this looks like a potential time saving, at least when you first launch into Windows as you’ll typically have application windows hiding the desktop.
I was surprised when I found the browser window that launched was actually an Edge window, despite my default browser being set to Google Chrome.
In this context, it seems this new feature may be a little more focused on boosting usage numbers for Microsoft’s own browser, than delivering an improved user experience.
What do you think about Microsoft adding a search bar to the desktop? Now, what do you think about it when I tell you there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn it off?