Part of our upgrade requirement is to hide the search box on the navigation menu as we are not using it. It must be easy to do, right? Well yes and no. Yes, if you know where to go, and No, if you don't. It will just take some time to dig around to find the right place to turn it off (Hide it).

To hide the search box navigate to:
Root >> PeopleTools >> Portal >> General Settings. Locate the second box on the page and there you should see a check box that says "Display search in navigation". Uncheck it, clear cache and sign back in. Voila, search box is gone.

Notice the adjacent check box "Display search in header", if you check this one, then the search box would be moved from the left menu (default location) to the Header. Give it a try to see how would that look. Using the search box on the header instead of the left navigation menu might save you some space!