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If you are running Windows 11 on your computer and were previously running Windows 10, you have most likely noticed the lack of customization options for things such as the start menu and taskbar compared to Windows 10. Many Windows 11 users resort to third party apps such as Start11, ThisIsWin11 and WindHawk.
One Windows 11 tweak that many people want to do is remove the Recommended section from the start menu. You can disable files and apps from showing up in this area, but you cannot remove the section altogether without doing a little tweaking. In this article, we will be showing you how to completely remove the Recommended section from the Windows 11 start menu. One thing to note is that this will only work for Windows 11 Professional and Education versions.
The image below shows the Windows 11 start menu with the Recommended section enabled.
As you can see, there are not recommended files or apps because that has been disabled in the Windows settings under the Personalization options where it shows Show recommended files in Start, recent file in File Explorer, and in Jump Lists.
But turning this setting off will not remove the Recommended section itself from the start menu.
To remove the Recommended section from the Windows 11 start menu, we will be performing a simple registry edit. The text below shows the changes\additions to the Windows registry.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
“HideRecommendedSection”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Education]
“IsEducationEnvironment”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Start]
“HideRecommendedSection”=dword:00000001
We have provided two files for this process, one to remove the Recommended section and one to add it back if you change your mind. You can download both files here, so you do not need to make the changes manually.
Once you download the registry files, you can double click the file called HideRecommended.reg to import the changes into the Windows registry. You will first be presented with a UAC prompt, and you will need to click the Yes button here. You will need to be an administrator on the computer to make this change or at least have the credentials for an administrative account.
Then you will be told that the information from the registry file will be added to the Windows registry, and you can click the Yes button to confirm.
Then you can click the OK button at the next prompt to complete the process.
Now you can either reboot your computer or restart Windows Explorer from Task Manager to have the changes take effect.
Then you will see that the Recommended section has been removed from the start menu, and you have more space for additional shortcuts on the start menu itself.
To reverse the change and get the Recommended section back on the start menu, you can do the same process with the ShowReccommended.reg file.
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