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Please help me understand what I don't understand in the below picture:

enter image description here

Why do I still see recommendations if I turned them off?

Is there a bug or some kind of weird feature where Microsoft knows better what I need or want?

Is there any way to permanently turn off Start Menu's recommendations and either have this part of Start Menu totally removed (invisible) or at least always empty?

TylerH
  • 631
trejder
  • 12,105

3 Answers3

1

The setting you see is just for new Apps, not for all Apps.

There is no overall setting for the Windows 11 Start Menu to not show "Recommended Apps" .

You can remove individual items by right clicking on it. You can issue feedback on the recommendation if you wish.

I tend to ignore this except for those times when I need to conveniently get to an App which is otherwise buried deep in the menu or requires typing a few characters to activate.

Windows 11 is not an ultimately configurable desktop interface.

1

There is no built-in way to remove the entire Recommended section. However, there are a couple of built-in ways to empty the section, so at least you don't show any items. This does, technically speaking, "turn off" recommendations as you asked, even though having an empty section will still look a little annoying.

  1. Create a new DWORD registry value of 1 at the following key location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

    Screenshot of Windows Registry with the relevant registry section and registry setting highlighted

  2. In SE (education) editions of Windows 11, you can enable a group policy that disables this feature (requires a restart after setting). Open gpedit.msc, and then go to "Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar", and enable the policy called "Remove Recommended section from Start Menu":

    Screenshot of group policy editor policy that disables recommended section

With either of these settings set, your Recommended section in the Start Menu will look like this:

screenshot of empty Recommended section

For custom solutions, there are myriad free or paid options to replace the Start Menu and Taskbar in part or in whole, like ExplorerPatcher, StartAllBack, or Start11.

TylerH
  • 631
1

This seems to be a common bug in certain versions of Windows 11.

  1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter
  2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
  3. In the right pane, right-click > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value
  4. Name the new value: Start_TrackProgs
  5. Double-click it and set the Value data to 0
  6. Close Registry Editor and restart your PC

After the restart, the frequently used apps section should no longer appear in your Start Menu.

Hope this helps!

Bydzen
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