Microsoft has begun rolling out the new Search Highlights experience to Windows Insiders running Windows 10 in the Release Preview channel. This feature was first announced alongside Windows 11 build 22572 last week, but Microsoft made it clear right away that it would be coming to Windows 10 as well. The feature is arriving along with Windows 10 build 19044.1618.

Search Highlights is a new experience for the search bar built into the Windows 10 taskbar. When you open Search, if you don't type anything, you'll be greeted with a new experience that highlights fun facts and trivia depending on what day it is. In the example Microsoft shows, you can see that Search will let you know April 22nd is Earth Day, and along with that you also see suggestions for outdoor activities you can try. There's also a link to historic events that happened on that day.

Windows 10 Search Highlights for personal accounts

This page also surfaces other kinds of information like a "word of the day", new Microsoft Rewards offers, and trending searches for that day. Plus, on the left side of the search pane, you'll see a longer list of your recent apps and files so it's easier to find something you were working on recently.

For users with work or school accounts, Search Highlights will be a bit different. Instead of random trivia, users will see relevant information from their organization. For example, relevant contacts, other users who report to the same manager as you, recently opened files, and so on. You can also search directly within your organization for files and people.

If this doesn't interest you, you can disable the experience by right-clicking the taskbar, going to Search, and un-checking the Show search highlights option.

Aside from the big new feature, Windows 10 build 19044.1618 comes with a few other improvements. Most notably, app notifications can now use a different color for notification toast buttons, so they can more easily convey success or errors in an operation, for example. Additionally, apps can now show up to three fully-expanded notifications in the Action Center. You can find the full list of changes and fixes below:

This update will only be available to users that don't have a machine capable of upgrading to Windows 11. Otherwise, joining the Release Preview channel will cause you to upgrade to Windows 11 the next time you check for updates.

Since it's now available in the Release Preview channel, you can expect Search Highlights to come to most Windows 10 (and Windows 11) users soon. Most likely, it will arrive as part of this month's optional cumulative update, and then it'll be rolled into the Patch Tuesday updates for April.


Source: Microsoft