None of the solutions here worked for me. After hours of changes and testing, this is what DID work for me:
1) obviously backup your company FIRST
2) Go to View and turn on the top icon bar
3) go to View and uncheck the search bar ( in my case it was already unchecked, so I turned it on with a check then unchecked it again)
4) go to view and choose left icon bar ( or no icon bar if you prefer)
5) Close Quickbooks
6) create a backup copy of the QBW.INI file in C:\ProgramData\INTUIT\QuickBooksXXXX
7) open the original QBW.INI with a text editor ( I used NOTEPAD)
-> the top of my QBW.INI had the following:
[WINDOWSTATE]
LEFT=9
TOP=0
WIDTH=132
HEIGHT=385
STATE=1
[QUICKSTART]
QBSILENT=N
Etc .......
-> I deleted the [WINDOWSTATE] section (everything below it up to the next heading). In my case, I deleted:
[WINDOWSTATE]
LEFT=9
TOP=0
WIDTH=132
HEIGHT=385
STATE=1
->Now my QBW.INI file starts with :
[QUICKSTART]
QBSILENT=N
TIMESQBGOESTOBACKGROUND=10
DAYSSINCELAUNCH=7
[MISC]
IPNDEFAULT=1
Etc ..........
8) save and close
9) Start Quickbooks. I closed and restarted several times and the search bar was gone each time. It has not returned yet.....
Good Luck!
