If you’re a Windows user, you know the drill: You type a word or phrase into the text field of an Explorer window and Windows suggests it to you. But what if you don’t want to be suggested every time? There are a few ways to improve the auto-suggest feature in Windows Explorer. One way is to set up your computer so that it never suggests any words or phrases to you. Another way is to change how often Explorer suggests new items. You can also try using a different browser, or disabling certain features in Windows Explorer.
How to Delete Specific Typed Paths From the Auto-Suggest Box
If you manually enter paths into the Windows Explorer address bar, it can become filled with suggestions that were only used once or twice. Heres a quick registry hack to delete the ones that you don’t use often.
Press the Windows Key and R to bring up a run box and type regedit, then hit enter.
When the registry editor opens, navigate to the following path:
On the right hand side you will see a bunch of “url” string values that have the typed path in the Data column, you can just right click on the string and select delete to stop it from being auto-suggested.
Note: If you delete a common path such as Computer it may still show in auto-suggest.
How to Disable Auto-Suggest
If you don’t want to use the auto-suggest feature you can disable it with the following hack.
Press the Windows Key and R to bring up a run box and type regedit, then hit enter.
When the registry editor opens, navigate to the following path:
Expand the Explorer key, then right click on it and create a new key called AutoComplete.
Once the key has been created and you have named it, on the right hand side you will need to create a new string value called AutoSuggest.
Open the string and in the Data Value field type no.
