Windows 10: Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking in Windows 10

How to: Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking in Windows 10

How to Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking in Windows 10


Windows can personalize your Start menu based on the apps that you launch. This allows you to quickly have access to your list of Most used apps both in the Start menu and when you search your device.

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off app launch tracking to improve Start and search results for your account in Windows 10.

*note If you turn off app launch tracking, it will gray out the Show most used apps setting.

*note Turning off app launch tracking will also clear and disable the AutoSuggest history for apps in the drop down list of Run (Win+R) and File Explorer (Win+E) address bar. This does not affect file, folder, drive, network, and URL paths in AutoSuggest.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking in Settings
• Option Two: To Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking using a REG file

OPTION ONE [/i] To Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking in Settings
1. Open Settings, and click/tap on the Privacy icon.

2. Click/tap on General on the left side, and turn on (default) or off Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results on the right side for what you want. (see screenshot below)

*note If the Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search results setting is grayed out, then you will need to enable app launch tracking.

3. You can now close Settings if you like.









OPTION TWO [/i] To Turn On or Off App Launch Tracking using a REG file

*note The downloadable .reg files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Start_TrackProgs DWORD

0 = Off
1 = On


1. Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you want to do.


2. To Turn On App Launch Tracking
*note This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_On_app_launch_tracking.reg

Download

3. To Turn Off App Launch Tracking
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_Off_app_launch_tracking.reg

Download
4. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6. When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7. sign in to fully apply.

8. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Enable or Disable App Launch Tracking in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable AutoSuggest in Explorer address bar and Run dialog in Windows
• How to Add or Remove Most Used apps on Start Menu in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Let Apps use Advertising ID for Relevant Ads in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Website Access of Language List in Windows 10

:)

 

Unable to add searchable commands to start menu

it learns, provided you have not turned off all the privacy settings.

check settings -> privacy -> General

make sure that 'let windows track app launches.....' is turned on

you may have to type it out in full once or twice (ie runemacs.exe), but after a couple of times typing rune will be enough

 

Win 10 Home Ed. Group Policy Editor

I don't have a recently used programs in my Start. I am on Ver 1703.

The closest thing I can think of is Recently added apps and this can be turned off -

Settings,

Personalisation,

Start,

Show recently added apps - set to Off

Or perhaps you mean the Show most used apps setting in the same group. If it is greyed out then you need to enable Settings, Privacy, General, Let Windows track app launches.

Denis

 

Hello AmigaRoots, *Smile

Are you joined to a domain?

If so, the domain administrator may have a policy set disabling this.

 

Thank you Brink, it's a simple home PC with no domains involved. I'm guessing some esoteric setting has been messed up, or it's a Windows 10 bug.

 

Since you have Windows 10 Pro, have you already checked to see if you have any group policies configured that may be related?

*Arrow See Applied Group Policies in Windows 10 General Tips Tutorials

 

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\All Settings: these are the changed ones:





I compared the above with my other PC, and they are exactly the same. On that PC however, App Launch Tracking works normally and can be enabled/disabled.

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\All Settings: all is 'Not configured'

I couldn't find something relevant in the Resultant Set of Policy.

 

In that case, go ahead and post a screenshot showing the Settings\Privacy\General page to see if anything else may stand out to help ID the cause.

In addition, what build is this for?

 

It is version 1709, build 16299.192

 

I'll do some playing and see if I may be able to track it down.

 

I found another person with the same issue below. Did you use any 3rd party programs to disable features in Windows 10?

*Arrow Let Windows track app launches to improve Start and search - Microsoft Community

 

If you wanted to enable the Let apps use advertising ID to make ads more interesting to you based on your app usage privacy setting, then see if using Option Five in the tutorial below may ungray it.

*Arrow Enable or Disable Advertising ID for Relevant Ads in Windows 10 General Tips Tutorials

 

Option 5 did unblock the advertising ID setting. I enabled it and restarted, but the other two settings remain blocked ('track app launches' and 'show most used apps').

I've used a couple of the known privacy tools and start menu replacements in the past, but nothing too radical. The same stuff I use on my other PC which does not have the issue. I wouldn't exclude they might have messed something up, although this could also be related to a recent Windows 10 update or some other program. Who knows...

 

If this has just happened, you could do a system restore using a restore point dated before the setting was grayed out to undo it.

Since you show any configured policies responsible for this in your Local Group Policy Editor, the unknown policy may have been manually set via registry instead.

 

It's going on for some time and System Restore can't help unfortunately. I just noticed there's an additional "Administrator" account present. The main user account has admin rights. I logged in that Admin account and it went through the initial setup ("This may take some time..."). The two settings are still blocked there, too. I'll go through the Group Policy settings later and also try to delete that account.