Windows 11 Search may soon open on hover

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 15, 2023
Windows 11 News
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17

Windows 11 users may soon use the built-in Search of the operating system by just hovering over the search field on the taskbar. The change landed in the latest Windows 11 Dev build and is hidden by default in that build.

Earnings from sales of the Windows operating system have not been one of Microsoft's top priorities anymore in recent years. Cloud drives revenue and Microsoft hopes that the AI-infused Bing will contribute significantly to the company's earnings in the coming years.

With search increasing in importance, Microsoft started to integrate it deeper into Windows. The AI-powered Bing is now just a click away, but there is always room for improvement.

windows 11 search hover

Windows 11 Developer build 23435 includes a hidden setting that defines whether search activates on hover. Spotted by Twitter user PhantomOcean3, it is a new option under Personalization > Taskbar in the Windows 11 Settings.

If enabled, users display the main search interface by hovering the mouse cursor over the search field on the taskbar. The functionality is still in development and it is turned off by default at this time.

It would not be the first time that Microsoft enables a hover action by default on Windows 11. Previously, hovering over the Widgets icon would display the entire interface, and it took Microsoft some time to create a setting to turn off the action.

Windows 11 Developer build users who want to give it a try need to use the ViVeTool to enable certain features.

  1. Download the latest version of the open source ViVeTool from GitHub.
  2. Extract the archive on the local system, e.g. in the Downloads folder.
  3. Open Start, type cmd.exe and select Run as administrator; this launches an elevated command prompt window on the system.
  4. Navigate to the ViVeTool folder. If you extracted it to C:/Users/yourname/Downloads/ViVeTool, use CD C:/Users/yourname/Downloads/ViVeTool. Tip: you can copy the path in File Explorer and paste it into the Command Prompt window.
  5. Paste vivetool /enable /id:43572857 into the Command Prompt window and press the Enter-key to execute the command.
  6. Paste vivetool /enable /id:43572692 into the Command Prompt window and press the Enter-key to execute the command.
  7. Restart the computer.

The new Setting should now be available. You may launch the Settings app with the keyboard shortcut Windows-I.

The new feature is a work in progress, and there is a chance that it will never land in Stable builds of the Windows 11 operating system.

Closing Words

Hover actions have often the tendency to disrupt work. Most Windows 11 users may not become aware of the new option if Microsoft keeps it turned off by default. If not, and there is a chance of this happening, it could be very disruptive and searches for how to turn off the search field hover on Windows 11 may skyrocket.

Now You: hover or not, which do you prefer? (via Neowin)

Summary
Windows 11 Search may soon open on hover
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Windows 11 Search may soon open on hover
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Windows 11 users may soon use the built-in Search of the operating system by just hovering over the search field on the taskbar.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Allwynd said on April 16, 2023 at 10:26 am
    Reply

    After being on Windows 11 since summer of 2021, until a few days ago, I finally went back to Windows 10. Windows 11 might be less ugly than Windows 10, but everything in it is worse.

    For example, they removed the easy way to set up Default Programs. Where is this in Windows 11? : https://i.ibb.co/sjQ9Mj8/image.png

    Why did they remove it and made it so difficult to set up default programs?

    It has been so easy to set up default programs since Windows XP, why did they have to make it so difficult? I really wish Linux wasn’t a POS.

    1. John G. said on April 16, 2023 at 12:47 pm
      Reply

      @Allwynd, you are right in all your speech. W11 is the worst OS ever, everything is worse than W10. Default apps, default association of file extensions, taskbar, explorer menus, and too much other things has turn out the best build of W10 in an amazing fiasco that is useless for productivity.

  2. Microdumbos said on April 15, 2023 at 11:02 pm
    Reply

    More pointless features are added rather than the features that everyone asks for. The Windows development team is made up entirely of fools. For their stupid ideas, they ought to be publicly shamed.

    1. John Wold said on April 16, 2023 at 2:19 am
      Reply

      Not only pointless features, they also neglect to fix bugs and erros that have a lot of votes in the feedback hub.

      But a feature request with 1 or 2 votes is implemented in the next version.

  3. Tachy said on April 15, 2023 at 6:42 pm
    Reply

    HOW TO HIDE THE BOTS ON GHACKS!

    Hey people. (Martin, Ashwin, and readers).

    I figured out how to make only the stories from Martin and Ashwin show in my feed.

    I use Protopage for my Homepage. You can put any link into a widget on it and it will try to create an RSS like feed.

    It just dawned on me to change the link in my Ghacks Widget..

    … from “https://www.ghacks.net/feed/”

    … to “https://www.ghacks.net/author/martin/” and it worked perfectly.

    I added “https://www.ghacks.net/author/ashwin/ on the second line in the widget and now I only see stories written by the two original people that brought us to Ghacks in the first place.

    1. VioletMoon said on April 16, 2023 at 12:33 am
      Reply

      @Tachy–Or use the filter created and passed along in Comments. Thanks to Tom and Shania:

      ! Block articles from any author other than : Martin Brinkmann | Mike Turcotte | Ashwin :
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Carol van Zyl)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Emre Çitak)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Eray Eliaçik)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Helena Bosnjak)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Jesus)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Kerem Gülen)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Leri Koen)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Onur Demirkol)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Priyanka Monteiro)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Russell Kidson)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Shaun)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Sponsored Content)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Trevor Monteiro)
      ghacks.net##:is(.hentry,a.home-posts):has-text(Zakhi Mgutshini)
      !

      It’s placed in the My Filters in uBlock Origin.

      From what I can tell, the other authors are merely fictitious names and the articles are generated with ChatGPT-4, maybe Jasper. Some of Martin’s articles show high AI generation by ZeroGPT.

      The site changes are permanent. The old gHacks is long gone. The comments from a few veterans provide enough fumes to keep the corpse alive.

      1. Cassette said on April 16, 2023 at 10:10 am
        Reply

        You could replace all of those filters with this one.

        ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))

      2. Tom Hawack said on April 16, 2023 at 5:25 pm
        Reply

        @Cassette, many thanks! Moreover prevents beyond treating.

        This said, if we all know the reasons of our annoyances regarding articles spotted as “AI-driven”, I personally still do not know three things : 1- Are the authors other than the three ones we know (withing the ‘keep only’ filter) real or bots?, 2- If real, are their articles always AI-driven?, 3- If real, may some of their articles be only partially AI-driven? Even if I do filter articles by authors on Ghacks (and will now replace the uBO filter with this one) I nevertheless intentionally continue to have a look on all articles via RSS and I’m facing an increasing doubt concerning author ‘Onur Demirkol’ whose articles seem to become quite human. I have a doubt and doubts must apply both ways.

      3. Tom Hawack said on April 16, 2023 at 5:43 pm
        Reply

        I forgot to mention this : many forums, blogs would simply censor comments such as ours when aiming the very administration of a Website or even kick-out temporarily/definitely their authors. There is/remains a freedom of speech here on Ghacks which must be emphasized, and I personally say it clearly : I appreciate that.

      4. VioletMoon said on April 16, 2023 at 4:45 pm
        Reply

        @Cassette–Thank you very much!

      5. John G. said on April 16, 2023 at 12:44 pm
        Reply

        @Cassette, thanks, it works fine here! :]

  4. TelV said on April 15, 2023 at 5:59 pm
    Reply

    Already disabled and replaced with Everything Search https://www.voidtools.com/

    1. John G. said on April 16, 2023 at 12:22 pm
      Reply

      +1

  5. kalmly said on April 15, 2023 at 5:42 pm
    Reply

    The latest irritation by MS.

    1. John G. said on April 15, 2023 at 6:49 pm
      Reply

      +1

  6. Seeprime said on April 15, 2023 at 3:50 pm
    Reply

    Hover should show a preview. Opening is what the mouse buttons are for.

    1. John G. said on April 15, 2023 at 4:01 pm
      Reply

      +1

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