Windows 10 Search Showing ‘Blank Box’ Fix 

This is a major problem right now Windows 10 Search Shows Blank 05/02/2020 I have the FIX.

I had a very similar issue. There was a box covering the bottom 5/6 space of the search box, so there was only a single row on top visible. I could overcome this by clicking into that small space but I had to do that every time so I just searched for a solution. And it worked even for me, in March 2021. Thank you a lot!

*Microsoft watches the video* Also Microsoft: *Write that down, write that down!*

You can also try right-clicking on Cortana in the Start Menu->More-App Settings->Reset...worked for me.

I've tried a PowerShell script that rebuilds the search box. I've tried to restart explorer.exe. I've tried to troubleshoot the problem only to find out that I don't have permission even tho I have full access. I've tried to repair and scan in the cmd. Lastly, I tried to create a new profile/account on my computer, which worked, but all my personalization and files are gone. This, my good sir, is the only thing that has worked without me having to do anything extra! Thank you!

PERFECT FIX! You really don't come across tips like this and actually work. Fixed my bug in the Windows Media Player at the same time. Thank you.

I have been trying to find a solution for this all day for many computers. Thanks for the fix, I just hope that Microsoft fix this with a patch imminently.

I thought I was the only one having this issue :pp edit : restarting "explorer.exe" fixed the issue for me

Same problem in my job today. Fixed with a powershell script from microsoft. Thank you Britec for the info!

Win 10 pro, version 1903, installed on 1/12/2020. I have not had any of the bugs that you have been describing in your videos. Is it possible that it's a U.K. build problem, as I am in the U.S.? Not sure if this makes any sense, but I thought I'd throw it out there. P.s. love what you do for us.

In the Win 10 registry, unlike previous version of windows, you can just paste the full path you want to navigate to above, hit enter, and it'll take you there. No need to navigate through the swamp.

Thanks man! You saved me having to wait for, who knows how long, before MS addresses the problem! For what it's worth, the problem started for me on Feb 5 2020, immediately after the "FEATURE UPDATE TO WINDOWS 10, VERSION 1909". Soooooo.... looks like disabling the search box is a feature!! Cool! But still, I can't help wondering how many techs it took program the removal of the feature - LOL

Widows 10 has many bugs I'm afraid. They never finished it off like windows 7. Windows 10 was good at first until they keep messing around with it. Thanks for the videos, always keen to learn

Nice. Tried the restart the indexing service, then rebuilt the index option first before messing with the Registry. But if my easier fix does not work and solve this problem, I will definitely try your RegEdit method which was also stated very clearly and efficiently in your video with much thanks! Sadly and notably, this problem is now dogging Windows 11 too.

6/2/2020 Thank you so much, It work 100% solve my problem Window 10 search showing 'Blank box'. It same problem, I got that problem yersterday after i'm upgrade my CPU with HHD. Now my problem already solved with your help. Thank you again, this video easy to understand and give good info to help me solve the problem.

In a recent installation of win 10 I had this problem. What I did is : Task manager > Details > searchUI in the list and right click, then End task. A new instance of searchUI it will be there in a sec runing ok. Maybe the english translation of commands is not the correct, my system is in spanish.

I did everything in the video. Finally I just shut down, turned power supply off and on, and turned back on the machine. It worked for me.

Man, you dont know how frustrated i was. Thank you for the vid! it really helped me out and other people too.

Thank you so much for this video, works like a xharm! I have subscribed to your channel, will keep myself updated with your videos in the future!

Thanks! Worked for me. I just restarted Cortana (task manager) instead of restarting the system.

thanks man i tried everything and nothing worked... then i did exactly as you showed and it worked! Great video fast to the point calm clear voice everything perfect! thanks alot

Thanks Brian, I didn't even realise I had this problem until I saw your video and checked (I don't use the search box much). Where did this bug come from as I haven't had an update for some time?

It works man thanks!! You got a new subscriber here

This works also if your windows settings is not working! Thankyou mate! I am very happy now :)

THANK YOU!! This has been driving me crazy the last couple weeks!

Thanks a lot! This really solved my problem! I immediatly subscribed!

The PowerShell command fixed my issue. Thanks for the vid.

just got this problem yesterday, thought it was happening only on mine but seems out it is happening on many PCs. thanks for the fix man😊😊😊👍👍👍

Thank you very much. This should help in large organizations via domain group policy. It's so stressful when dozens or hundreds of PCs have a silly issue like this...

Very nicely done sir, but that search box occupies too much space on the taskbar. How can I make it appear only as a small icon with that magnifying glass on it? It should expand only when I click on it...

Hi Brian thank you so much I didn't know about this because I haven't turned on my computer for a while as I say keep up the good work like always. Thanks, Brian thumbs up for you👍👍👍👍😊

Hey Brit tech guy... Off topic...but, why doesn't the Control Panel have a search function? It's annoying to have to visually scan all those little icons.

thanks @britec09 you helped me fix the issue for me totally tried few other fixes but your was the one thanks alot man

Great video Brian thank you i didnt notice my search box wasnt working tilli saw your video thanks to you its back and running.I was wondering if other things stop working after updates because now i cant get into the bios from windows like i used to after going into the recovery page and clicking on advanced options the option of going into the bios as gone any thoughts

Every single one of my newly windows 10 updated today has this problem. You are mystic meg

Thanks a lot. This really saved me from a lot of frustration. I really can't control myself if I see an update button and I need to be careful with windows update.

thanks for the video i had this problem yesterday i went through many solutions yesterday and none of them worked except for your solution, thank you so much

5th fix worked like magic...you're a star! much thanks

This happened to me on my other Laptop today after an update. I rebooted my PC and it was working ok after that. This is nice to know so if it does it again I will have to do this on it. Thanks for sharing and have a nice day.

U the best.. I spent 5 hours without fix.. U did now ❤️❤️

Another right on time video. My laptop has this issue.

I don't like to use Bing. I use Google. A few minutes ago the search box (next to the Windows START icon) turns black when I try to type a search term in the box - can't see what I'm typing. If I type anyway and hit enter, Bing takes over the browser. How do I return it to Google and get rid of the black search box?

I face this problem and come to youtube and search the solution then i see someone is posted about this 19 hours ago 😅😅 Btw its working thankyou.

Nicely done video. Could you set the search engine to say Yahoo or another one besides bing if you didn't care to use use bing?

This started for me today, and now a recommended video. Thank you!

Hi there. Why is that at 3:53, there is a 'blank' space between the search window and on the left side of it? Mine has a blank space also, which I don't have PRIOR to customizing my desktop. Before, when I click the start menu and then type on searchbox, the tall bar from the 'start' was still there. But now, my search box is similar to yours, with 'blank' space. Do you know how to fix this?

For anyone wandering in the comments thinking whether this works or not, it does. Thanks Bro!

Cheers mate :) It worked! That's probably the first time I had a problem like this and the first video I opened fixed it!

omg it worked. TYSM!! It was really a major problem for me but now its all fixed.

Oh ma god ... thank you soo much dude I've been trying to fix this for soo long watching so many videos was driving me crazy ... I'm greatful

Excellent! That was driving me absolutely crazy, Brian. Cheers.

FOUND A QUICK FIX FOR ANYONE THAT IS FINDING THE CURRENT VIDEO DOESNT HELP. FOUND THIS OUT RIGHT NOW AND IT HELPED ME BIG TIME AFTER MONTHS! OPEN TASK MANAGER AND AFTER ITS OPENED RIGHT CLICK ON THE WINDOWS SEARCH BAR AN IT WILL SAY (LOCK SEARCH BAR) MAKE SURE THAT IS UNTICKED... THANK ME LATER ;-)

Thank you Brian. The date above is incorrect. "windows 10 bug on 05-02-2020" should be 02/05/2020 I do believe. What actually caused this bug? Was it one of the Windows 10 updates? Geo

If I do not use Bing as my search engine, can the REG_DWORD be GoogleSearchenabled and the search box work correctly ??????????

UGHH every win 10 machine is blank search!! Thanks for the FIX!!!!!

I have an entry in that section that you do not seem to have? SearchboxTaskbarMode with a value of 2

Thanks so much man, such an annoying problem but worked perfectly the way you explained it !!!

i have the same issue with my search, but instead of blank box, my search bar is not responding when i clicked on it, just looks like a force close

Thanks alot for the video. My PC had this and I couldn't find any solution. This worked.

i thought there was something wrong with my pc but its windows fault (btw THX for the fix :D)

I don't have the problem but then Microsoft won't let my machine upgrade to Windows 10, version 1903. I have tried every solution on RU-vid but install always complains that it cannot determine free disk space.

Great video! I assume that's after installing the optional cumulative update because I don't have that problem with search it's working great for me.

But why did it happen?

Wonderful, thank you! I was just about to factory rest my pc, this video saved me.

Thank you so much man..watch so many videos but your method was phenomenal and it really works. I have another issue on my laptop that is automatically inspected in browser when I open this! can you fix this problem?

Thank you for this video. I tried a few things that Microsoft on their own website recommended but nothing worked. Its funny that Microsoft is abled to screw such a thing as a searchbar up and can't even help us fix it while you can. Anyways thanks again.

I use chrome, I use Google search, I do not use Cortana. I have the exact problem you describe here. My file explorer search won't work either. I followed your instructions until you said type in Bing.

THANKS a lot that fix my problem. I just noticed this problem yesterday. Well thanks to you I don't have this problem anymore.

Thank you sir for the video. Another solution that worked for me is RESTARTING explorer.exe for all people who want to tray it. Simply go to Task bar and right click on it and open Task Manager. If the window is not fully open press More Details then scroll down until u find explorer.exe, left click on it and on the right side press restart. should work now :)

I solved the my problem instantly, thank you very much for this simple solution buddy...!!!

I actually just had this issue happen to me today. Thanks for the video!!

Many thanks for the fix Brian 😀

i did everything what u did but when i entered search registry key there was only deaflut i tought that it isnt the problem so i did everything what u did but when i restarted and opened it still didnt work :(

25/11/2021, I tried this and it worked, thanks!

I have this problem on a computer where the last version of Windows 10 is installed since a week. But this solution did not fix the problem. Any other solutions?

Happening here in Tennessee! Thanks, Brian! You're the best!

My laptop has it where I type words there but nothing shows up but there's a loading thing on the top, is this similar or different from the problem in the video

i did get it back but now it only shows 4 recent activities, used to show like 8, how to fix that ? m so used to open apps through that!

Hello; Is there an easier way for beginners? This seems like a lot of steps. Thanks

It worked thanks! But i have 1 question why do we need to type "BingSearchEnabled"? How did it work again by typing that?

I'm on the latest winver 1347 21H2 but my windows 10 search on taskbar keeps reverting to light mode and displaying broken program icons , any remedies?

is there a fix for the search bar window being too big? its taking up half my screen

You can restart explorer.exe instead of rebooting once you have done the registry fix. (Open CMD -> Enter 'taskkill /f /im explorer.exe' and you will notice the taskbar disappear, then do 'explorer.exe' to start it up again, issue should be fixed.)

That's weird. I noticed the problem earlier on today but didn't do anything about it. I didn't do this fix but now it is working again. Has Microsoft been doing something in the background?

Thank you Britec, sadly the public are the testers of Windows. I had the search box hidden and didn't even know. Without a Windows update, how does it happen? Hey everyone, Bing is finally disabled on all systems. =D I'm kidding, thanks for the fix.

I'm having an annoying bug with start menu. I click on start, type to research whatever I want eg. "Control Panel" and then I can't click on it.. It's locked I can close the start menu by clicking on it again, bit I can't go to whatever I've searched. This is random, it happens sometimes, other times it works perfect.

Broke out of the blue - not only do I get Black Box, also can't type in Search. Search works fine from Explorer window. Tried to use PS to add back apps,Get-AppXPackage -allusers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"} -- but that errors with files in use. Only possible solution I see is creating new user and copying files, but that is a pain. Have you seen this variant? BTW, I did upgrade to Latest EDGE browser thinking that might help, but no joy.

M your new subscriber mate!

I did exactly the same thing but still it's not working. Why?? How to resolve it?

My Search box won't even let my type anything. The whole box is greyed out. I tried this fix and it didn't work. Any other ideas?

Fixed it right away, thank you for this informative video.

Followed directions and Fix did Not Work Win 10 64 bit with all MS updates current. Will MS eventually Fix this or is there a New Fix you have?

Thanks for the great video I followed your instructions nice and easy fix

My proplem is that if I type a website it does not pop up in my windows box and it does not show anymore

My problem is similar, the search window opens but I cannot type anything on the search bar Any ideas?

Ok but mine can't do anything it just crashes. Any video for that?

Hey, i have problem when i turn my PC i can't do anything unless i click few times with left click. It's not loading anything and icons are white. Is it mine problem or just Windows 10 bugs?

Amazing this fixed my PC even now in July 2022 :)

Mine freezes and crashes when when I type Also task manager not responding since the lastest update

Thank you very much fo your insgtruction. I did exactally what you said step by step and now it works fines. Thanks again