If you were affected recently by the failure of the search in Windows 10 – where you were presented by an empty black box as shown – you may be asking yourself what on earth is going on
The fact that your search – primarily for local apps on your machine could be hijacked and rendered useless by online components might make you consider breaking the link.
So first I have to say – you do this at your own risk – other effects may arise. You won’t get the options that search presents when linked ! As always back up the registry before you start.
If you want to stop the linkage on search
- Run Regedit.exe
- Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
- Look for ‘BingSearchEnabled’, if you don’t see it you will need to create it (right-click in a blank area, pick ‘New DWORD’ 32 bit. Type in ‘BingSearchEnabled’
- Open BingSearchEnabled, set it to 0, press OK.
- Look for ‘CortanaConsent’, again create it if you don’t have it using the method above. Also set it to 0.
- Reboot.