Hi Teagan Lance
Welcome to Microsoft Community.
Based on your description, I understand that you have a very slow startup when you open the Windows search menu, and I understand very well how you feel!
You have tried some solutions and commend your problem solving skills and thinking!
I will give you some solutions that will hopefully solve your problem successfully! However, this first reply may not be able to solve your problem due to the lack of information and the fact that the problem requires different aspects of troubleshooting, so please understand and provide me with more information (pictures would be great!) in your reply. Thank you very much!
I've seen that there seem to be other users with similar issues, so hopefully these solutions will help as well, but it's possible that they won't work due to the different environments in which they're used.
Option 1: I've had this problem on my own private computer, although I have Windows 10, but I think you could try using this as well.
Since I personally don't use the web search feature in Windows Search very much, Window Search works very smoothly when I turn it off.
If you don't use the web search feature often, you can do the same as me and turn it off by following these steps.
(1) “Windows Logo Key + R” open “Run” -> type “regedit” and open it
(2) Navigate to “Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search”
(3) Right click on “Search” -> Create a new “Dword (32 bit) value”
(4) Name it “BingSearchEnabled”
(5) Double click the named value and set the data to “0”
(6) Reboot the computer to take effect
At this point the web search results will no longer be displayed. If you want to re-enable it, just delete this Dword value.
Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or work group is intended for advanced users, administrators, and IT Professionals. It can help fix some problems, however, serious problems might not be possible. It can help fix some problems, however, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully For further protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.
Option 2: If you have Windows 11 Professional or Enterprise, you can disable web search in Windows search by following these steps.
(1) “Windows Logo Key + R” to open “Run” -> Type “gpedit.msc” and open it.
(2) Left sidebar step by step into “Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Search”
(3) In the right pane, find the “Do not allow web searches” policy
(4) Double-click it to open and set it to Enable
(5) Apply and OK
(6) Find the “Do not search for networks or show network results in searches” policy again (they should be close to each other)
(7) Double-click it to open it and set it to Enable
(8) Reboot the computer to take effect
(9) After enabling these two policies, you can also disable network search.
If you want to use web search again, just disable these two policies and restart your computer.
Option 3: Let's say you need to use web search (although you've made it clear that it doesn't matter if you have web search or not).
I think it's possible that the indexes are causing the problem, perhaps because some of them have become corrupted or don't work as they've grown in use.
The steps to recreate the index are:
(1) Open Settings with “Windows Logo Key + i” -> select “Pirvacy & security” -> “Searching Windows” on the left sidebar.
(2) “Advanced indexing options”
(3) “Advanced”
(4) Rebuild the indexes
Please note: The rebuilding of the indexes takes a long time and you may have to wait for a while for them to be made. (The time depends on the capacity of your computer)
Option 4: Other than that, I think it is possible that the problem is caused by too much history after our usual use.
You can try to clear the search history according to the following steps:
(1) “Windows Logo Key + i” to open Settings -> select “Pirvacy & security” -> “Search permissions” on the left sidebar.
(2) Scroll down to the bottom and click “Clear device search history”.
This step is kind of like how we usually clear the cache to improve performance.
I sincerely hope that the above solution will solve your problem. Please feel free to contact me if you have any problems or still can't solve them. (Photos related to the question would be great!).
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Best Regards
Arthur Sheng | Microsoft Community Support Specialist
