Code change:
'type': 'string', 'enum': ['hide', 'filter'], 'enumDescriptions': [ <del> nls.localize('settingsSearchTocBehavior.hide', "Hide the Table of Contents while searching. The search results will not be grouped by category, and instead will be sorted by similarity to the query, with exact keyword matches coming first."), nls.localize('settingsSearchTocBehavior.filter', "Filter the Table of Contents to just categories that have matching settings. Clicking a category will filter the results to that category. The search results will be grouped by category."), </del> <ins> nls.localize('settingsSearchTocBehavior.hide', "Hide the Table of Contents while searching."), nls.localize('settingsSearchTocBehavior.filter', "Filter the Table of Contents to just categories that have matching settings. Clicking on a category will filter the results to that category."), </ins> ], 'description': nls.localize('settingsSearchTocBehavior', "Controls the behavior of the Settings editor Table of Contents while searching. If this setting is being changed in the Settings editor, the setting will take effect after the search query is modified."), 'default': 'filter',

Related discussion:
text: Pinging authors of the issues above along with those who I have seen express interest in reverting the behaviour:
Another idea I have rather than doing a full revert is to use table of contents order as a last resort sorting key for the keyword matches. Therefore, keyword matches in the title could come before keyword matches in the description, and the settings that all have a description-only keyword match could be sorted amongst themselves by table of contents order. With this concept, some extension settings could preserve their order, but an extension setting found by keyword matching would still always come before an extension setting found by a similarity algorithm.
To revert the search results in the Settings editor to order by keyword matches first in the Visual Studio Code extension, you can follow these steps Open the Settings editor: You can do this by pressing the Ctrl+, (Windows, Linux) or Cmd+, (macOS) keyboard shortcut, or by clicking on the gear icon in the Activity Bar and selecting "Settings" from the dropdown menu. Search for the "workbench.settings.settingsSearchTocBehavior" setting: In the search bar at the top of the Settings editor, type "workbench.settings.settingsSearchTocBehavior". Change the value of the setting to "hide": Click on the dropdown menu next to the setting and select "hide". This will disable the table of contents ordering and prioritize keyword matches. Restart Visual Studio Code: To apply the changes, you need to restart Visual Studio Code. Once you restart, the search results in the Settings editor will be ordered by keyword matches first.
that behaviour was implemented as part of , and yes, it is a workaround in a sense. This proposal is on ordering results by keyword matches first even when the table of contents is shown.
Try doing this way In the file, add the following property to the contributes section: { "name": "revert-settings-search-to-keyword-matches-first", "version": "1.0.0", "description": "Reverts settings search in the Settings editor to order results by keyword matches first.