Search Highlight is a feature in Windows 11 (Enterprise\Multi-session) that highlights search results in the Start menu and taskbar search box. While this feature can be helpful for some users, others may find it distracting or unnecessary. Fortunately, it is possible to disable the Search Highlight feature in Windows 11 using Microsoft Intune. Plenty of information is available on disabling the Windows 11 Search Highlight using Group policy, Registry and UI. However, we will leverage Custom OMA-URI settings from Microsoft Intune in this blog post.
Search – CSP Details
The Search – Policy configuration service provider enables the enterprise to configure policies on Windows 11. Following are the details on the one we are using for disabling the search highlights:
How to disable Search Highlights in Microsoft Endpoint Manager
To disable the Search Highlight feature in Windows 11 (Enterprise/Multi-session) using Microsoft Intune, follow these steps:
- Login to the MEM Portal – https://endpoint.microsoft.com/
- Select Devices > Configuration Profiles > Create Profile.
- For Platform, select Windows 10 and later.
- For Profile type, select Templates > Custom and select Create.
- Enter a Name – DisableSearchHighlight and description and choose Next
- Under the OMA-URI Settings, clicks on Add
- Enter the Name, Description, and OMA-URI fetched in the references from the MS CSP link below. The value is an integer based on the documentation, and as we disable the setting, the value is 0.
- Remember the MS documentation called out this setting only applies to Devices. In the case of Assignments, we will target Windows 365 Device Group and Azure Virtual Desktop Session Host Pools.
- Click on Review and Save
Validate the Policy is applying
After 10-15 mins of waiting, go into the newly configured configuration profiles policy, and you will start seeing it getting applied to the targeted devices (MEM Portal > Devices > Configuration Profiles > DisableSearchHighlights)
Cloud PC – Within Windows 11
Login to the Windows 365 Cloud PC, and now when you click on Search, the advertisements and search highlights are gone.
References & Useful Links
I hope you will find this helpful information towards disabling the annoying Search Highlights on Windows 365, AVD environment and physical endpoints using Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Please let me know if I have missed any steps or details, and I will be happy to update the post.
Thanks,
Aresh Sarkari
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