Windows 10: How to remove the moronic search and task view...

Agreed. first thing I tried to get rid of and guess what? No settings for the Trending Now, I cannot delete it or change focus on stuff that I would find interesting. Trending Now is controlled externally. I bet that it could easily be used for advertising by MS in the future. That advertising will be involved is that a web page talking about MS targeted advertising USED to show up when clicking on the settings icon. Today, nothing happens when I try to click on it.

 

It's not just trending, search settings as well...

The bing search had been integrated into W8.x; however, one could limit its scope or just don't use the search charm. Seemingly, it had changed in W10 and it is integrated into the OS at every level. The attached file shows the processes, captured via Sysinternalsuite's TCPView and Procexp, that make connections to MS servers. It's doubtful that this will change in the RTM version.

Notes:

• The "svchost.exe" is not identified as a service, at least I didn't find it yet...
• The "searchui.exe" is located in folder C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Cortana_1.2.0.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe and no, administrators don't have access to this folder by default *sarc
• The "explorer.exe" makes the connection, weather it is open or not

 

Another benefit of using a VM; you can do your searches from the Host PC (in my case, LM17).

 

LOL...

Off topic I know but FYI - Been doing some test dev on Win10 with Modern apps... Each app gets added to Start menu (can uninstall from there)... kinda cool, I think *Smile