How to Solve Searching Issues in Windows 10

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Category: Tutorials

Published on Friday, 08 May 2020 05:10

Written by Ben

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Introduction

The dymamic search feature of Windows has been a long anticipated one. unlike in older versions of Windows where one had to press the F3 key trying to find a specific file, folder or an app while waiting for the searching engine to find the file, now it is possible to just hit the Start button and do the same by using a prebuilt file and folder index. but what happens when this index stops working? this often happens, apparatnly after upgrading to the new Windows 1909 update. This article is going instruct how to solve searching issues in Windows 10

Symptoms:

When attempting to search for files or applications through the Start menu by typing the word/s and/or letter/s their names contain, no results seem to appear in the Start menu.

Resolutions:

Resolution#1 – Killing Explorer.exe process and running it again:

Steps:

Killing Explorer.exe:

1. Go to the Task Manager by hitting the keyboard combination of CTRL+ATL+DELETE.
2. Once the key combination is done, you will be presented with a blue screen with a menu in the middle.
3. Click the Task Manager option.

Another way to go to Task Manager would be by right clicking the Start menu and clicking on Task Manager in the pop-up menu:

• Go to the Details tab, usually it is the second one from the left:

• Make sure the list of is sorted by Name. This can be verified by making sure an arrow is apparent in the top cell, next to the Name header:

• Browse through the list until you find Explorer.exe process. You can also find it by marking one the processes on the list and repeatedly hitting the E key on the keyboard until Task Manager finds Explorer.exe

• Once Explorer.exe is found, mark it by clicking it once using the left mouse key and click the End Task button on the bottom right corner of the Task Manager's window

• Within the new pop-up confirmation window click the End Process button to finally kill the Explorer.exe task. Keep Task Manager open afterwards.

Running Explorer.exe again:

• From within the Task Manager, go to File and go to Run New Task:

• Within the new pop-up window, type: explorer.exe, and click OK or just hit the Enter key on your keyboard

• Explorer.exe should be running again now. Make sure that is the case by looking for it within the Details tab of the Task Manager using the described method mentioned in the previous paragraph.
• Try to look for files and applications again from the Start menu. If it still can't find files and applications, try the next resolution method next.

Resolution#2 – Rebuilding Windows Search Index:

It seems that rebuilding Windows' Search Index solves this problem. In some cases, after the rebuilding is done and the problem persists, killing the Explorer.exe process and re-running it again solves it entirely.

Steps:

1. Go to Control Panel preferably from the Run window
   1. hit the Start button + R key on the keyboard (Hold the Start keyboard button and hit the R keyboard button
   2. In the Run window type Control.exe and click the OK button or hit the Enter key on your keyboard

3. Open Indexing Options

4. Click the Modify button on the bottom part of the window

5. Click the Show All Locations button on the bottom part of the window

6. Check ALL of the locations within the Change Selected Locations box and click the OK button

7. Click the Advanced button on the bottom part of the window

8. Click the Rebuild button

9. You will be presented with a pop-up window, click the OK button within it.

10. After clicking OK, you will notice that the number of indexed items has dropped and is now incrementing again and the searching icon next to that number has started animating. This means that the indexing process has begun and file and folder are being indexed in the background:

10. WAIT and be patient while Windows rebuilds its searching index. This could take from a while to a very long while which depends on the amount of files and folders you have on your various storage devices. It is best to leave the computer be while the indexing process is being done in the background for faster results since when Windows detects a user activity, it actually reduces the intesity of the indexing process in favor or overall performance:

11. An indication that the indexing process is done could be seen within the Indexing Options window as a sentence that says “Indexing Complete”. 

12. Once the process is done, try to search for files and application. if that fails, kill and reload the Explorer.exe process and try to search for files and folders again. If that fails, reboot your computer and try searching for files and folders again.

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