Microsoft changes search feature in Windows 10 v1511 using sneaky background delivery options – this is Microsoft “Searchgate”!

So in Windows 10 1511 and 1607 I have an issue with searching for internet shortcuts as outlined in this blog post. For Windows 10 1607 things seemed to get worse. But, then I noticed in Windows 10 version 1511 as well that all of a sudden “Search my stuff” was gone although it had been there before! The investigation reveals some interesting stuff and magic things happening in the background!

SHORT SUMMARY: Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 1607 (Current Branch) search features to Windows 10 2015 LTSB and Windows 10 1511 (Current Branch for Business) silently and in the background without any announcements made.

Search in 1511 (as when Windows 10 entered Current Branch for Business and as long it has not been connected to the Internet):

Investigation

1. I installed Windows 10 1511 (media updated in april 2016) in a VM – with no Internet connection. Note: system language is set to Sweden (Swedish) during install.
2. I logged in and noticed that “Search my stuff” was there.
3. I then thought I’d connect the machine to Windows Update to get the latest CU and see what happens after that. But before I knew it, “Search my stuff” vanished just after connecting the machine to the Internet. Now, things are getting interesting!

Further investigation

1. I installed Windows 10 1511 (media updated in april 2016) once again in a VM – with no internet and system language set to Sweden (Swedish).
2. I logged in and noticed that “Search my stuff” was there.
3. Checkpoint created in Hyper-V :)
4. Fired up good old Resource Monitor.
5. Connected the VM to Internet.
6. AS SOON AS I CLICKED THE WINDOWS FLAG IN WINDOWS  – things started to happen in the background!
A process named BackgroundTransferHost.exe started to download new packages, including what seemed to be new and updated code for the Shell and Cortana!

7. When it finished downloading – Voílà – the search box in Windows 10 1511 looks very much a lot like in 1607 and yes, the option “Search my stuff” is gone.

Conclusion

This raises more than a few questions:

What else is changed using this background delivery manager? Can we expect the start menu in 1511 to look like 1607?

Is background delivery the reason why MS always writes “No new operating system features are being introduced in this update” on any CU:s released? I mean, “no new features are introduced in the CUs but we will gladly publish (new and) changed features unannounced using other delivery technologies than Windows Software Update packages (CUs)”. (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12387/windows-10-update-history )

I thought the whole idea of different builds (1507, 1511 and 1607) would mean no feature changes and especially no new feature changes which are completely unannounced or did I miss this announcement in feature change?

Is Windows 10 LTSB affected by this as well? UPDATE! Windows 10 2015 LTSB is affected by this as well which should be troublesome for Microsoft as Cortana is not supposed to be there and it is supposed to be feature locked.

Does this mean you can easily deploy a feature change/fix to my machine so that internet shortcuts are returned in the search results?

No further questions on this – I’m still shocked!!!