It doesn’t look like this month’s “optional, non-security” update for Win10 version 1903 or 1909, KB 4532695, has triggered the change - Goldberg is running it, I’m not. We’ve already ruled out the announced change in Office 365 ProPlus, which hijacks the Chrome browser’s search engine - none of our test machines use Office 365 ProPlus. Second, the build number for the Win10 19 Search box changes without any interaction with the machine’s owner. First, the Search text changes on some 1909 machines to “Start a web search” for no apparent reason. So we’re left with two unsolved mysteries. There was no "Check for Updates," no notification that updates had been installed, and the change doesn’t appear in any of the Update history entries (Start > Settings > Update & Security, on the right click View update history).Īs you can see from the screenshot, my main machine still says “Type here to search.” I have no idea why or how the build changed. You can see the build number on your own Win10 machine by clicking once inside the Search box, then clicking the three dots in the upper right corner. After rebooting, the build number for the Search box increased from 2020.928 to 2020.943 (screenshot). I saw the behavior on my main machine this morning. Apparently Microsoft updates the Search bar without asking for permission. That sparked a discussion that culminated in a revelation that’s news to me. The search bar is still finding my local files, etc., the behavior is the same (as far as I can tell), but the text has changed and it’s bugging me. I’ve compared the search and Cortana settings on both systems for any differences, and I can find none. On the other computer, the search bar now has the text “Start a web search” On one computer, the search bar has the text, “Type here to search,” which I believe has always been the default text in the box. Running two systems side by side, both Win 18363.628 (all patches, including the ones released this week). Over the weekend, Howard Goldberg reported a startling change in his Win10 Search bar: