Microsoft has recently kicked off a campaign to resolve all sorts of issues people have had with how Windows 11 works. The latest feature in that list is the main search tool in the operating system. They've already released a beta version of these changes to certain users, so what can the rest of us expect to see soon?
Anyone that has used the Windows 11 search won't have failed to notice it is sometimes reluctant to give you what you're after. It can often prioritise searches of the internet (via Bing, obviously) over the machine setting or document you're actually looking for.
It's this sort of thing that has been targetted in the refresh. For a start, it will be much easier to turn off web results altogether if you want. If you do leave them included, they will no longer prioritise promotional content above the results you actually want. Results relating to your machine rather than a wider search of the internet will be prioritised where these are a better match for your search.
There's a few additional refinements. The whole search panel has been simplified to make it easier to read. This includes much clearer indications of where each item on the list has come from (app, internet, document etc). It will also be more forgiving of typos ("xcel" would still return "Excel").
These changes are with Microsoft's main group of public testers now (known as "Windows Insiders"), so we should expect to see these changes rolling out more generally over the next couple of months or so.