Remove website recommendations from Start — via Microsoft Learn

The easy way

1. No policy needed: Settings → Personalization → Start → turn off Show websites from your browsing history.

Group Policy

Open gpedit.msc (Pro, Enterprise and Education only) and go to:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > Remove Personalized Website Recommendations from the Recommended section in the Start Menu

Registry equivalent

Double-click a .reg file and confirm to merge it. Right-click → Edit first if you want to read it, which is always a good idea with any .reg file from the internet.

Apply

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: Remove website recommendations from Start

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
"HideRecommendedPersonalizedSites"=dword:00000001

Undo

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: undo Remove website recommendations from Start

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
"HideRecommendedPersonalizedSites"=-

Same thing from a command prompt

Run in a normal (non-admin) Command Prompt or Terminal.

reg add "HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" /v "HideRecommendedPersonalizedSites" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Undo:

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" /v "HideRecommendedPersonalizedSites" /f