HACKER Q&A
📣 LelouBil

What algorithm does the windows start menu search uses?


Windows' start menu search famously doesn't show the best match at first for any search query, so what algorithm does it uses to rank the filenames based on the query ?

My latest example is :

Typing "St" top result is "Steam"

Typing "Ste" top result is "SteamVR"

Typing "Stea" top result is "Steam" again

  👤 codetrotter Accepted Answer ✓
URL completion in some browsers is similar.

My guess is that it might remember which completions you have chosen in the past

So for example

- You may have typed “St” several times in the past and chosen “Steam”

- You may have typed “Ste” in the past and chosen SteamVR.

And that combined with which is the “real” default that it would highlight would then make it a bit confusing.

But it can also be helpful in some ways.