Microsoft broke Windows 11 search by trying to fix it: Here's what happened

If you’re still running Windows 11 version 23H2 on your PC, there’s a chance your Start menu search is broken. Multiple users have reported that the Start menu shows blank search results that, strangely, are still clickable.

As recently highlighted by Microsoft in a Windows release health update, "An investigation determined that the problem coincided with a server-side Bing update designed to improve search performance. To mitigate the issue, the server-side Bing update was rolled back, and reports of search failures are steadily decreasing.”

While Microsoft says the issue isn't widespread, as it has affected only a small number of users since April 6, 2026, Bleeping Computer notes that users have been lodging complaints on social media about the same issue for months.

As highlighted above, Microsoft has rolled back the buggy Bing update, which could potentially reduce instances of the Start menu displaying blank search results.

Interestingly, the issue happened as Microsoft is seemingly ramping up its efforts to improve the Start menu's performance and predictability, as highlighted by the company's Windows design director, Diego Baca (via PCMag).

Earlier this week, similar sentiments were echoed by Microsoft's partner director of design, March Rogers, who indicated that, "we'll be releasing performance and reliability improvements incrementally over the next few months to improve Start, Search and quick settings load times" — comments prompted by a user who asked the company to fix speed and reliability issues with the Start menu.

Either way, this is another blow for Bing, which has recently been criticized for blocking some search results.

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