In OneNote the Search bar has moved, How do I put it back to where it was?

I think Microsoft is trying to kill OneNote for some reason. Maybe they have some other AI garbage they want to shove down our throats.

I wish someone else would make a program similar to OneNote so we wouldn't have to keep dealing with Microsoft removing features and making OneNote as annoying to use as possible with their garbage AI "assistant" and covering up the note area with a useless and redundant Search box.

I just ended of rolling back to an earlier version of OneNote.

Here are the steps: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-revert-to-an-earlier-version-of-office-2bd5c457-a917-d57e-35a1-f709e3dda841

Basically download the Microsoft Office Deployment tool (and run it so it will expand the two files) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117

Paste the following into a Notepad document and save as Config.xml in same location as setup.exe of the Office Deployment tool. (18227.2016 will install the Jan 2025 version of Office)

Then open a command line with admin privileges. (Click Start, type cmd in search box, right-click cmd.exe, and click Run as administrator.) Go to where your

setup.exe /configure config.xml

Then start an Office program go to File > Account and select Install Updates. This will roll back your version of Office.

After updates run an Office program again and go to File > Account and select Disable Updates

Yes, I hate the new search bar location. It covers up the title of my pages, part of which I must copy and paste somewhere else. This is not a failure of one person, but a failure of countless people who sat by quietly while a committee decided that it was an improvement to relocate a function interface so that it obstructs the content upon which the user is working.

I merely want to add my voice to the many others who justifiably are frustrated and bewildered by this change. It is not an overreaction. My business is not computers. Errors such as these add up in interruption, distraction, and wasted time. This particular issue has been going on for quite some time now, and the tech support staff at Microsoft seem to be clueless about it.

I will CERTAINLY be giving this a try… thanks for posting 😉...

Update

Kept getting error message 😒

Unfortunately, that is not a viable option for two reasons.

First, is it doesn't just roll back OneNote, but would roll back ALL office apps, and you would have to turn off updates to keep the old version which mean no security updates either. You should not have to risk getting a virus or mal-ware for OneNote to work correctly.

Second, is I use OneNote at work, and my Windows/Office App updates are automatically installed by I.T. and I would not be able to roll back an update even if I wanted to.