Can I exclude Outlook results from the Start Menu search in Windows 7?

Question

When I use the search from the Start Menu in Windows 7, results/mail from Outlook shows up.

How can I disable this? I only want to disable showing the mails when I search from the Start Menu - I don't want to do anything that affects indexing/searching mails from within Outlook itself.

Answer 1

I think removing outlook from Windows' search index does affect searching in Outlook.

But there's a way to remove this via policies. Just write this into a .reg file and "run" it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies]
"NoSearchCommInStartMenu"=dword:00000001

Answer 2

Search for "Indexing options" from the start menu. Open it.

• Click Modify
• Untick the checkbox next to Microsoft Office Outlook
• Click OK

You should not see search results from Outlook anymore.

Answer 3

If you just want to filter-out Outlook messages from your search results (e.g. so you only see stored documents, not also any emails with those docs attached to them), try including the following in your search string:

*from:NOT [yourname] to: NOT [yourname]

Putting my email name in the string excludes any emails I've sent or received, leaving just a list of docs.

It's not elegant but it gets rid of all the duplicate results that Win 7 Search throws up.