Improving Search with Start11

Three options is better than one

from Stardock Forums

Search is one of the most powerful tools of the modern age. Everyone reading this post has used Google or Bing at some point and likely many times just today.

When it comes to Windows, search is an integral part of the experience. You might use the search box on your taskbar, click the search bar in the Start menu, or hit the Windows key and start typing your query.

With Start11, we wanted to let you be in control of how your search results appear in Windows 10 - and, more specifically - in Windows 11. The reason why Windows 11 needed more attention is that the native experience opens a different panel than the Start menu and it can be a bit disjointed.

So we rebuilt the search experience along with the Windows 11 menu style so that it feels more integrated into the Start11 experience. But we didn’t stop there: you can also enable a Windows 7 style search experience, too.

This means you have three options for choosing how your search results appear with Start11 – you can keep the native option enabled, turn on our new search experience, or stick with the classic style from the Windows 7 era.

And if you are one of the many users who hit the Windows key to start your search journey, Start11 makes it possible to remove the search bar from the menu to reduce clutter and free up valuable space. Below is how I have my Start menu arranged for quick access to storage as well as frequently used apps.

As with everything we do with Start11, it’s all about providing more options. The key is that you are in control to break outside the defaults provided by Windows to make your desktop more personal and productive.

And we aren't done, either – while we have many more features planned for Start11, we will soon release version 1.0 of the application that will be the bedrock for adding new functionality to the application.

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28,848 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Start 11's search was great for the first month or so, now it takes an absolute AGE before ANY results appear.  I don't know what is gone so wrong for them, but they need to get it fixed.

As the article states "Search is one of the most powerful tools of the modern age", and it is failing badly I'm saddened to say.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

The search bar is missing one key component: I cannot limit the search to my computer only. It always wants to search the internet. But I want to limit the search to my computer only... where I have 100s of thousands of files. The Start11s search seems to just be a front for some other search engine. Please give us the control to limit the search to the local computer.

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting dangibson, reply 2

The search bar is missing one key component: I cannot limit the search to my computer only. It always wants to search the internet. But I want to limit the search to my computer only... where I have 100s of thousands of files. The Start11s search seems to just be a front for some other search engine. Please give us the control to limit the search to the local computer.

I think you might be talking about the Windows search bar, that is not a part of Start11

Paul Scroggins
Associate Technical Support Analyst

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks. That helped. Now I have located the correct search bar and it nicely says "Search programs and files."  Exciting. But how do I get it to search my harddrives other than C:?  Thanks in advance for any advice.