The new search feature in Windows 7 has been enhanced greatly in this version of Windows, and by default it saves recent searches. If you’re annoyed by this and want to turn it off, we will show you how using Group Policy Editor.

Note: This method uses Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7

Notice that when you go to the search box and start entering in something, the last three searches you’ve done appear. It can get old looking at mistyped words or seeing a search term that is old.

To turn that feature off we need to go into Local Group Policy Editor. Type gpedit.msc into the start search box and hit Enter.

Navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Windows Explorer then double click on “Turn off display of recent search entries in the Windows Explorer search box”.

Set it to Enabled then hit Apply then OK and close out of Group Policy Editor.

That’s it! Now when you start searching for something there is no longer the search history popping up to annoy you.

This won’t improve performance in your system, but is a quick tweak to get rid of an annoyance if it bothers you.