How to avoid Proxy authentication errors in web access by searchapp

Question

I am using Win10 in an environment that accesses the Internet via a proxy that requires authentication (authentication is linked to Active Directory).

A number of Proxy Authentication Errors (407) have been logged for the following User-Agents accessing th.bing.com.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; Cortana 1.14.15.19041; 10.0.0.0.19045.4780) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.102 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.19045

Resetting credentials does not solve the problem.

The 407 proxy authentication required has been occurring when the AD password has been changed, and this has been resolved by resetting the credentials.

I uninstalled Cortana, which was in the UA string, but that does not also solve the problem.

Using Fiddler, we found the followings,

• A process "searchapp" uses this User-Agent to access the Web.
• The “searchapp” process runs on a regular basis.
• When I start Office for Microsoft365 Apps for enterprise, the "searchapp" process starts.

Could you please teach us the followings,

• What is “searchapp” and why is it running regularly?
• What is the reason for accessing th.bing.com?
• How to stop searchapp from accessing th.bing.com on a regular basis.

Best regards,

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A.

Based on the description, I understand your question is related to avoid Proxy authentication errors in web access by searchapp.

Open the Group Policy Editor. Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Search. Locate and enable the policy Do not allow web search. Also, enable the policy Don't search the web or display web results in Search.

Open Group Policy Editor: Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. Navigate to Search Policies: Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Search.

Double-click on Do not allow web search and set it to Enabled. Double-click on Don't search the web or display web results in Search and set it to Enabled. Click Apply and OK. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Have a nice day.

Best Regards,

Molly

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