New (test/Beta) Bing homepage won't remember my preferences.

Question

I've had the new version of Bing's homepage for a few days now and it's truly awful. The daily images are cropped to accommodate a large, white band for the "menu bar" (images, videos, etc.). The search bar seems to be too low on the screen, so it's sometimes necessary to scroll down to see all search options while typing. Instead of a hidden icon for the image information in the lower right corner, there's now a white box with a comment in the upper left corner of the image: the arrows for previous & next images are also in white boxes, just to the left of the "comment box". Previously, if news or trending on Bing were selected, they could be moved below the daily image: now, they're displayed over the image, and the image is blurred. Not that it matters with the search bar now blocking the images' focal points. (I just compared today's image on the old & new versions of Bing, and the new version has completely ruined the picture of an adorable baby elephant.)

Those are my complaints. My problem is that every time I go to the Bing homepage, I have to reselect the "show menu bar" option because Bing keeps turning it off. (The menu goes away, but I'm still stuck with the large, white band above the daily image.) I've used Feedback to let Microsoft know about this problem, but nothing has been done to fix the issue. Is anyone else having this problem with the new (test/Beta) version of Bing's homepage? If so, have you found a way to stop Bing from turning the menu bar off? I don't know if it matters, but I'm using Windows 7.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

The new Bing homepage stores layout preferences (such as showing or hiding the menu bar, news, and homepage image) as part of the homepage customization settings and/or browser data (like cookies). If those settings are not being remembered, the behavior is typically due to how the browser is storing or retaining those settings, not something that can be fixed from within Bing itself beyond using the built‑in customization controls.

On the Bing homepage, the available controls are:

1. In the upper-right corner of Bing, select the customization control (the icon that opens Customize your homepage).
2. Under Customize your homepage, verify the following are set as desired:
   • Show menu bar: On
   • Show news and interests: On or Off as preferred
   • Show homepage image: On
3. These options are what Bing exposes for controlling the menu bar and layout. If they revert on each visit, it indicates the preference is not being persisted correctly in the browser.

If the preference still does not persist after setting it there, the available documentation does not provide an additional Bing-side workaround beyond using those customization options. For broader Bing help topics, including homepage behavior and customization, see the Bing help index.

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References:

• Explore the homepage
• All Bing Help topics