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KB5048685 Update Breaks Start Search

Justin Herman 20 Reputation points
2024-12-18T18:59:21.0433333+00:00

After getting December 10, 2024 KB5048685 on Windows 11 23H2, we could no longer search within the Start menu.

I discovered that a test system in its own OU that had Inheritance disabled, was still able to search. I put that in a production OU and then the search ability broke. Put it back in the disabled inheritance OU and after about 3 reboots, I could search again.

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  1. Justin Herman 20 Reputation points
    2024-12-18T19:02:17.2766667+00:00

    After testing Computer Configuration policies under Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar as well as Windows Components \ Search, I found that Windows Components\Search"Don't search the web or display web results in Search" was set to Enabled and broke the ability to search. Disabling or Not Configuring that policy allows search results.

    Justin

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  2. Kurt Bugeja 0 Reputation points
    2025-01-21T06:44:25.5233333+00:00

    Hi,

    I can say that this is definitely a windows update issue. While on the latest cumulative update, I decided to upgrade to 24H2 from 23H1. The issue wasn't there after the update. As soon as I installed CU KB5050009, start search stopped working again. I have these registry & GP settings which didn't have an effect when removed/changed:User's image User's image Thanks.

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  3. Justin Herman 20 Reputation points
    2025-01-17T15:55:25.7266667+00:00

    I finally found the answer to the broken Start menu search in Windows 11. Bing Search cannot be disabled. We used Group Policy to disable Bing Search via User Configuration\Preferences\Windows Settings\Registry. The registry key was HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search -ValueName BingSearchEnabled -ValueType REG_DWORD -ValueData 0x0

    I first tested the delinking of the policy (a test GPO with just this one entry). This removed the registry from HKCU, but the entries stayed in all users' registry SIDs of HKU down the same path. I then edited the GPO, right-clicked on the registry entry named BingSearchEnabled > Properties > selected the Common tab > and selected 'Remove this item when no longer applied', which also changes the action from Update to Replace. I ran a gpupdate on the test system and rebooted. After logging in, ran gpresult and confirmed that the GPO changed the registry entry to Replace mode instead of Update. I went back to GPMC and delinked the GPO > ran gpupdate /force /boot on test machine > tested the Start menu search and it worked > ran gpresult ensuring the registry entry was removed > and finally confirmed the changes in the registry.

    If doing this through GPMC, this will be a two step process. The registry entry properties must be changed to 'Remove this item when it is no longer applied' which also changes the Action to replace. You will need to give your system time to replicate that out to all systems and users. This could take weeks depending on size and how many employees you have and how many are out of the office, et cetera. Once you feel comfortable about the propagation, then the entry can be deleted. Even then, there will probably be clean up left over.

    The fastest fix is to change the entry from 0x0 to 0x1. This will still take time to propagate and will not apply until users log off of the system and then log back in. Down the road, this registry entry can be removed altogether because the above proves the default is to have Bing search enabled.

    There are other settings to manage cloud search. Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Search and User Configurations\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Search.

    Best of luck, Justin.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-12-20T01:25:04.28+00:00

    Hello,Glad to hear that you have solved the issue and share the information for others.

    It' a good idea to check and isolate Group Policies.

    Isolate the policy/policies that could be affecting the Start menu search. To do this, you could create a new OU with inheritance disabled and then selectively link one policy at a time to this OU, followed by testing the search functionality after each policy is applied.

    Best Regards,

    Hania

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