Configure Windows Search to search Startmenu only - via GPO - Windows 10 clients, 2016 server

Question

Hi there,

I would like to create a GPO that configures Windows Search in a way so that it searches the Startmenu only, nothing else, no filesystem paths, no web. I can do this on a single machine via the GUI, but how can I do it with a GPO?

I am looking at the options in: Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Search

While there are options to prevent web search and some other things like Outlook etc., I wonder how to exlcude all filesystem paths except Startmenu?

Update1:
I realised, that my settings (e.g. disabling web search) do not take effect, even after running gpupdate on the client, rebooting the client and other measures (it gets aplied, I checked with gpresult). Interestingly it seems to take effect only for local users, not for domain users. So I tried to link the GPO not only to all the computers but also all the users in the domain, but no luck. If I look under User Configuration\Policies instead of Computer Configuration\Policies there is only a very limited set of options, missing one to set web-search.

Could it be, that a default profile, which I deployed maaaaany years ago (hardly can remember) interfers with this gpo?

Update2: it seems to have been the default profile. After renaming the folder on the domain controller where it resides, it works, at least for newly created userprofiles.

Of course it would be interesting, how this could be made so that it aplies also to existing users, with already existing userprofiles on some machines.

Answer 1

Hello,

You can control the path exclusion in Windows Searchthrough the next GPO:

Registry Hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Registry Path SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\DefaultExcludedPaths

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Answer 2

Sure, the question is: what is the Syntax to exclude ALL filesystem and UNC paths?