Windows 11 Start menu gets a mysterious new feature – but you’ll have to search for it
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Windows 11 just got a few big new additions with the latest patch, although these flew under the radar as they are hidden and need to be enabled with a dedicated configuration tool.
Newwin (opens in new tab) reported that PhantomOcean3, an avid Windows tester and leaker on Twitter, posted about the hidden search features that come with Windows 11’s KB5022303 patch (which just rolled out for January).
Shouldn’t be surprising, but ViVeTool allows you to search new in the taskbar and even enable the unannounced new start menu search in .1105. That doesn’t mean you should, but you can 🙂 IDs: 40887771 for a new taskbar search, 38937525 for a new launch search. You also need 39281392 pic.twitter.com/dFjUH7uOqzJanuary 10, 2023
They consist of a search bar at the top of the Start menu and a taskbar search box (Windows 10 style, as already seen in Windows 11 preview builds).
Not only does the taskbar search box let you enable it, but there are some options you can choose from, such as the full box or just an icon.
As mentioned, you won’t see these extra search features in Windows 11 because they lurk behind the scenes. However, they can be enabled using the Windows configuration utility ViVeTool, as Neowin describes. However, it’s probably best not to turn these things on just yet, as we’ll discuss next.
Analysis: Features are hidden for a reason
So why not enable these search features? For starters, you need to be a bit tech savvy to use ViVeTool (it’s not particularly difficult to enable a hidden feature using the assigned ID in the tool, but less confident computer types might feel a bit intimidated by the process) .
But once you enable these features, they can start behaving strangely and messing with your Windows 11 environment, and you don’t want that on your main PC. Remember, these features are tucked away for a reason: they’re not ready for release yet and can cause problems. As PhantomOcean3 points out in their tweet, you may be able to enable them, but that doesn’t mean you should.
What this does show us is that Microsoft is probably about to introduce these features in Windows 11 soon enough. However, as always, there are no guarantees that anything in testing or still behind the scenes will make the final cut for inclusion in the operating system.