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Windows 11 | Windows 10 News on these iconic operating systems. => Windows 10 Help | How To & Fixes | Tips & Tricks => Topic started by: javajolt on October 04, 2014, 03:17:25 AM

Title: How to Hide the Stupid Search Button on the Windows 10 Taskbar
Post by: javajolt on October 04, 2014, 03:17:25 AM

(http://i57.tinypic.com/2ho9w6x.jpg)

You would think that Microsoft would have learned from their Windows 8 mistakes of forcing terrible features down people’s throats, but it looks like they’ve integrated a positively awful Search button / panel into the Taskbar. Here’s how to hide it, although we haven’t figured out how to completely remove it yet.

And again, this feature is terrible, and you should use the Feedback app to tell Microsoft just how dumb it is that you can’t turn this thing off.

Note: we did contact somebody at Microsoft who said that it’s not possible to disable it at this moment.

Update: a commenter has created an even better way to hide the button, which we’ll be testing and writing up for everybody if it does work, so stay tuned for an update.

Removing the Stupid Search Button

What we can do is use a quick script to force that button to hide itself, but so far we haven’t figured out how to make it collapse, so you’ll end up with some stupid whitespace. As soon as we figure that out, we’ll be sure to update with a better version.

(http://i57.tinypic.com/2drc2tf.jpg)

The first thing you’ll need to do is download and install AutoHotkey, which is luckily easy to install, extremely lightweight, and our script will not use up any memory since it runs, hides the button, and then closes itself.

Open up a file explorer window and type shell:startup into the address bar, and then right-click and create a New -> AutoHotkey Script.

(http://i61.tinypic.com/2v9zz9e.jpg)

Right-click and choose to edit the script, and paste this into the end:

Quote

Control, Hide, , Search, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd

Once you are done it should look like this:

(http://i57.tinypic.com/34h8mcz.jpg)

Save, exit, double-click on the script, and the Search button should be instantly gone. Sadly, the empty space will still be there.

htg