Hide or Show Search Box or Search Icon on Taskbar in Windows 10  

Registry option does not work for Win10 2004.

Brink said:

Hello metamorphosis,

I just tested option 2 on my v2004 system to see if anything may have changed, but they still work for me.

Just to verify, did you use the .bat files in option 2, or manually made the registry changes?

If you manually made the registry changes, you would need to restart the explorer.exe process to apply afterwards. The .bat files do this for you.

I run the registry change from within a batch file which also restarts explorer.exe. However, when the computer restarts the search box is visible again. Many others have reported this issue with 2004. This did not occur with 1909. I process multiple machines per week with this.

metamorphosis said:

... I process multiple machines per week with this.

The .bat from option two works on my 2004 Pro machine and it is still hidden after a restart.

If you are processing multiple machines, would this be in a work environment? If so, after the restart is it the same user who is signing in? This registry setting is in HKCU so it is set individually for each user.

Update: I can confirm this was being re-enabled by O&O Shutup10 being run later in the same script (GitHub - mattreecebentley/win10_simplifier: Windows 10 Simplifier - A script for automating simplifications and maintenance).
So it works. Hooray!