Change the Default Search Engine on Windows

By Bill Hartzer · Updated 17 September 2026

Two answers, because Windows runs two systems

For Microsoft Edge: paste edge://settings/search into the address bar, press Enter, and change Search engine used in the address bar. For the search box on the taskbar and in the Start menu, there is no equivalent — Windows Search sends its web results to Bing, and Windows offers no supported setting that points it at another engine.

Checked against Microsoft's own support and policy documentation in September 2026; Microsoft's Edge article lists Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 as covered. The settings page is long enough that the menu route is worth having:

Open Edge and click Settings and more — the … button at the top right — then Settings.
In the left sidebar, click Privacy, search, and services.
Click Address bar and search. Microsoft's support article routes to it through a group it calls Search and connected services; on the shipping build the same entry sits at the foot of the page under Services. Both labels name the same destination.
Open the Search engine used in the address bar dropdown and choose an engine.
If the engine you want is absent, run one search from the address bar on that engine's own site and come back: Microsoft documents this as the way an engine joins the list, and requires the site to support OpenSearch. Edge also exposes Manage search engines with an Add dialog taking a name, a shortcut and a URL containing %s, which is not described in Microsoft's support article and is recorded here as unverified against it.

The change takes effect on the next thing you type. Nothing restarts, no tabs close, and your history, favourites and saved passwords are unaffected.

Edge's new-tab page has its own idea

Having changed the dropdown, many people type into the large search box on Edge's new-tab page, get Bing, and conclude the setting failed. It did not. That box is part of the new-tab page rather than part of the address bar, and it is governed by a separate control on the very same settings screen: Search on new tabs uses search box or address bar. Set it to Address bar and the new-tab box starts obeying your chosen engine; leave it on the search-box option and it keeps using Microsoft's. That control is not described in Microsoft's published support documentation, which covers only the address-bar dropdown, so the label and its behavior are recorded here as unverified against vendor documentation.

This is not an oversight. The new-tab page is an advertising and content surface for Microsoft, and its search box is one of the last places on a Windows machine that reliably still produces Bing queries after a user has switched. Knowing that it is a second switch, in the same place, is most of the fix.

Windows Search is a different product

The box on the taskbar, and the one that appears when you press the Windows key and start typing, are Windows Search. Its job is to find applications, settings, files and mail on the machine; the web results it mixes in come from Bing — Microsoft states plainly that web results and web search suggestions in Windows Search "will be powered by Bing" — and clicking one opens Edge. Neither half of that follows Edge's address-bar setting, because Windows Search is not a browser and does not read browser preferences.

There is no supported control that swaps Bing for another engine here. What Windows does offer is the ability to stop the web results appearing at all, so that the box returns to being a local search:

In Settings → Privacy & security → Search permissions, review the Cloud content search options, which control whether your Microsoft or work account personalizes results. Show search highlights lives here too, but it is a narrower control than it sounds: Microsoft's policy documentation describes search highlights as the illustrated content shown in the Start menu search box and in search home, not as the web results themselves. Turning it off does not stop the box searching the web.
On Windows editions that include the Group Policy Editor, Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Search contains the policy Don't search the web or display web results in Search. Microsoft's policy reference confirms the name and the location, and states that enabling it means queries will not be performed on the web and web results will not be displayed. This, rather than the highlights switch, is the control that removes web results.

Third-party utilities exist that intercept these searches and reroute them to another engine. They work by hooking a protocol Windows uses internally, they have been broken deliberately by Windows updates before, and they carry the ordinary risks of software that inserts itself between the shell and the browser. That trade-off is the reader's to make, but it should be made knowingly rather than by installing something described as a simple search changer.

In the European Economic Area the position is different, and Microsoft documents it for developers rather than in a consumer article: in the EEA, apps can implement a web search provider that returns web content and results inside Windows Search, users enable, disable and order the installed providers in Windows Settings and remove one through Settings → Apps → Installed apps, and results open through the protocol the provider registers, falling back to the default browser where that protocol is not registered. These are obligations arising from the Digital Markets Act rather than a Windows setting a user turns on, and they do not apply outside the EEA.

Chrome and Firefox on the same machine

Each installed browser stores its own engine, so a Windows PC commonly has three different answers running at once. In Chrome the control is Settings → Search engine, then Change under the "Search engine" heading. In Firefox it is ☰ → Settings → Search, where the drop-down under Default search engine holds the choice. Two things Firefox does not do, contrary to a widespread belief: Mozilla's documentation describes no separate default engine for private windows, only a switch for search suggestions in them, and it does not offer to add an engine from a site that publishes one — the Find more search engines link at the foot of the Search panel opens the Firefox Add-ons site instead.

Which of them opens a link clicked in Outlook, Teams or a PDF is yet another setting, held by Windows rather than by any browser: Settings → Apps → Default apps, then select the browser and use the Set default button at the top of its page. Setting a default browser changes nothing about search engines; it changes which application the link is handed to, and that application then applies its own engine.

When the change does not survive a restart

Windows carries the largest genuine hijacking problem of any platform here, so it is worth separating the ordinary causes from the malicious ones.

Ordinary first. If the dropdown is greyed out and the browser says it is managed, a policy is in force — legitimately on a work machine, illegitimately if malware wrote the policy on a personal one. If an extension declared itself a search provider, the browser will say so and the fix is to remove the extension rather than to fight the dropdown. And if you changed Edge but keep typing into the new-tab box or the taskbar, nothing was ever wrong.

The Windows-specific one is the shortcut. A long-standing trick modifies the desktop or taskbar shortcut so that the browser is launched with a URL appended to its command line, which means the browser opens on a search page every time regardless of any setting inside it. Right-click the shortcut, choose Properties, and read the Target field: it should end at the executable name, with nothing after it. Anything else — a URL, a string of flags — is the cause, and correcting the Target field or deleting and recreating the shortcut ends it. Check every shortcut you actually use, including the pinned taskbar ones, because they are separate files.

Beyond that, look at scheduled tasks that relaunch a browser with arguments, and at unfamiliar entries in Settings → Apps → Installed apps dated to the day the behavior started. A search page you never chose, that reappears after removal, is malware rather than a preference, and resetting the browser's settings without removing the software that writes them only buys a few minutes.

What is actually on offer

Edge's dropdown and Chrome's list are short, and they contain fewer independent indexes than they contain names. Bing crawls and ranks its own; Google does; Yandex does in its own market. DuckDuckGo — the most common destination for Windows users leaving Bing — builds on Bing's results with its own privacy handling on top, which means a Windows user who switches to it changes who logs the query rather than which crawler found the pages.

Both Edge and Chrome accept a manually added engine, and that matters more on Windows than the preset list does, because it is the route to independently crawled options such as Mojeek and Brave Search, to subscription engines that carry no advertising, and to a self-hosted instance. The one thing no setting on Windows will do is take Bing out of the taskbar.

Frequently asked questions

How do I change the search engine in the Windows taskbar or Start menu?

You cannot change which engine it uses. Windows Search sends web results to Bing and opens them in Edge, and Windows exposes no supported setting to substitute another engine. The control that actually removes them is the Group Policy Don't search the web or display web results in Search, under Computer Configuration → Windows Components → Search. The Search permissions page in Settings governs SafeSearch, cloud content search and search highlights, none of which turns web results off.

Why does Edge still use Bing after I changed the search engine?

Almost always because the query went into the new-tab page search box rather than the address bar. Those are separate controls. On the same settings screen, set Search on new tabs uses search box or address bar to Address bar, and the new-tab box will start using the engine you selected in the dropdown above it.

Where is the search engine setting in Microsoft Edge?

Settings → Privacy, search, and services, then open Address bar and search — reached through a group Microsoft's article calls Search and connected services and the shipping build lists under Services. The dropdown is labeled Search engine used in the address bar. Typing edge://settings/search into the address bar goes straight there, which is quicker and does not change between Edge versions the way the sidebar layout occasionally does.

Can I add an engine that is not in Edge's list?

Microsoft's documented route is to run a search in the address bar on that engine's own site, after which it appears in the dropdown; Microsoft says the site must support OpenSearch. Edge also carries a Manage search engines screen with an Add dialog taking a name, a shortcut keyword and a URL with %s standing in for the query, which Microsoft's support article does not describe. Either way, an added engine can then be made the address-bar default like any built-in option.

Does changing my default browser change my search engine on Windows?

No. The default browser, set in Settings → Apps → Default apps, decides which application opens a link clicked outside a browser. The search engine is a preference inside each browser. Making Firefox the default browser leaves Edge configured exactly as it was, and Firefox uses whatever engine Firefox is set to.

My search engine changes back every time I restart Windows. Why?

Check three things in order: whether the browser reports being managed by an organization, which indicates a policy; whether an extension has declared itself the search provider; and whether the browser shortcut's Target field has a URL appended after the executable name. The last is a classic Windows hijack and no in-browser setting can override it.

Does Copilot in Windows follow my search engine setting?

No. Copilot is a Microsoft service reached through its own app and keyboard entry points, and it answers from Microsoft's systems regardless of which engine Edge or Chrome is set to. Like Windows Search, it is a separate surface, and changing a browser preference has no effect on what it queries.

How to change the default search engine on Windows