Questions tagged [windows-search]

Windows Search is the functionality built into the Windows OS for finding files, folders and programs on a PC or in connected storage.

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Why does a black opaque box cover the search window?

It happens ever so often. Sometimes it covers the entire thing, sometimes part of it. My system is up-to-date. It disappears when I click on it, but if I click anything else in the search window, it ...
0 votes
0 answers
90 views

Windows search not working

My start menu search and explorer search is not working. It is working normally in a test user account. I had problem with start menu earlier too but after this cumulative update it was resolved. ( ...
1 vote
0 answers
81 views

How can I automatically collapse the search box in the Windows taskbar when there are a lot of applications running?

I like the large search box in the taskbar. I often use it to launch applications, and it provides a much larger touchscreen target for tapping on it. However, there are some situations in which I'm ...
6 votes
3 answers
18k views

Trying to search filenames with special characters in windows explorer (Windows 10)

Through a very annoying person's mistake, thousands of my files have been copied, often multiple times. This has resulted in thousands of files named filename(2), filename(3), etc. My bright idea was ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Windows 10 search result shows no icon for Store apps?

After several automated updates since installation, my windows start menu search is broken. It couldn't show icons for any Windows 10 apps, but for regular legacy program the icon is displayed ...
2 votes
1 answer
6k views

Windows Explorer search command with exact file name match

How to filter the result to the single result item only, not "any" similar items. Using Windows Explorer Search syntax Sample file name: config.config Search string in Windows Explorer: name:config ...
1 vote
0 answers
77 views

Windows Search Indexer eating 5GB RAM (86% of total)

Sometimes Search Indexer is eating RAM like crazy, especially if I have JetBrains IDEs opened (PHPStorm, IntelliJ) but even when none of these are active and I'm only browsing the web this Indexer is ...
17 votes
8 answers
29k views

Trouble trying to use Windows Search to search for file with a question mark in the content

It seems that Windows Search is having trouble when I specify a question mark character as the content that I'm searching for within my files. I've tried: content:? content:"?" content:"\?" content:\...
0 votes
1 answer
430 views

SearchIndexer crashing repeatedly; Crashdump attached

I have a brand new server (2012 R2) we built and setup Windows Search to index two folders. We're stuck with Windows Search because of the integration with Windows, so another app isn't an option. ...
0 votes
1 answer
633 views

Windows Search Index Problems - with and without Outlook included

I'm having issues with Windows Search and have just about exhausted my troubleshooting skills on this one. I recently was forced to update to Win10 version 1703 by Windows Update, and so after it ...
1 vote
0 answers
155 views

Is "Start Menu" "Partial Search" disabled by default in Windows 10?

I can't make "partial searches" in windows 10 Start Menu. Is anyone having the same problem? In "indexing options" the "Start Menu" is in "Included Location" and has nothing "Excluded" (although the "...
0 votes
0 answers
381 views

Revert Windows 10 File Explorer to Previous Behaviour

Windows 10 Version 1909 introduced a new feature in File Explorer. Previously, when you searched in a File Explorer window, the contents of that folder/window would automatically change along with ...
6 votes
2 answers
6k views

Windows 10 search prompting "This is taking too long to load"

When searching using the search functionality embedded in the start menu of Windows 10 (when clicking the Windows icon in the left bottom), a screen is displayed saying "This is taking too long to ...
3 votes
1 answer
11k views

Can't disable Windows search

I'm trying to shut down Windows search, i.e. disable indexing. I tried to change it to manual or disabled, but after I restarted the service it is still switched on. I have an SSD, so I don't want it ...
34 votes
7 answers
101k views

Windows 7 search for file with a special character in the file name?

I'm trying to find files in Windows 7 that have a parenthesis in the file name. However, when I type ( or *(* or "(" or *"("* I get either nothing or every file. Microsoft's "advanced query syntax"...
0 votes
1 answer
274 views

Enable Internet-based features in Windows 10 Search

For some reason, internet-based features are not appearing for me in the Windows 10 search box (such as web searches, image recognition searches, etc., though email and contact search does work.). ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

How to add a folder to Windows Search Excluded Folders with PowerShell?

In Windows 10 version 1909 you can exclude folders from Windows search by going in: Settings > Searching Windows > Excluded Folders and add the excluded folders one by one. As a result of that, all ...
4 votes
2 answers
8k views

Windows explorer file search always returning "No items match your search"

When I try to search for a filename, I've recently started getting "No items match your search" when I try to find files with names that match. This used to work fine and I'm not sure when it stopped ...
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

How do I exclude an Outlook folder form Windows Search Index in Windows 7?

I have a pretty big (~30GB) email archive (Outlook + Exchange: .ost file) and I would like to use the Outlook Search Feature (Windows Search technology). I would like to exclude some folders from the ...
0 votes
0 answers
87 views

Windows 10's search does not find one specific folder

This question is about Windows Search not finding any files. Mine concerns only one folder. There is a "To read" folder in my Documents, which is never found by Windows Search when I type "to read" (...
1 vote
3 answers
334 views

Troubleshoot bad search index (Windows 10)

I'm experiencing some really weird issues with the search index in Windows 10 and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot them. This is a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro (build 18383.592, all updates ...
0 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to find a folder inside a specific parent folder with Windows 10 search engine without knowing the full path?

I only know that the folder is called Pictures and the parent folder is called Media (full path could be C:\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX\Media\Pictures. Is there anything I can type into the Win10 search engine ...
1 vote
0 answers
417 views

Windows 10 Immersive Search tweak

Windows has an unofficial feature called "Immersive Search," similar to Spotlight Search on macOS, that looks like this: It can be enabled with the following Registry Commands, either with regedit or ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Windows 10 settings not opening from Start menu

In my new laptop, the Windows 10 search for settings works, but when I click on one of those results nothing happens. For example, if I search for "touchpad": The item appears, however if I click on ...
3 votes
0 answers
81 views

Windows search box is black [duplicate]

My Windows 10 search box is black! It doesn't search anything. I remember that shortly before this happened, I was annoyed with Cortana and toyed with the idea of disabling it. I didn't actually ...
1 vote
0 answers
31 views

Start menu Search not showing anything, even after clean window install [duplicate]

I've tried every fix online, from a simple restart, End Cortana, Restart Explorer, check windows search in Services.msc, even install a new clean copy of Windows 10 (1903; 18362.356), and yet nothing ...
0 votes
1 answer
831 views

Windows search finds files that don't belong to me

My Windows 10 machine has several local user accounts. Each user has a home directory on a second drive -- each user's Documents library points there. When I log in as User A and use the Windows ...
0 votes
0 answers
155 views

Advanced Query Syntax - how to query only files in current directory only?

Is it possible to search within current directory only (i.e. to specify depth = 0 or relative path, without changing the search settings in the toolbar)? I tried multiple queries like: ./path or -...
4 votes
2 answers
5k views

Why does Windows Search "Indexing Options" select the wrong drive if it's cloned?

I cloned a Windows 10 HDD to a Samsung SSD using "Samsung Data Migration Software", then installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 on the SSD. The SSD is now C: and the HDD is D:. When in Control Panel > ...
0 votes
1 answer
55 views

How to make start menu search look for searched item throughout the entire system?

Start menu search option only searches the C:\ drive. I want it to search the entire computer (all drives), how do I do this in Windows 10?
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

WIndows 10 Start Search doesn't show indexed files from Appdata

I noticed that Windows 10 (build 18363) search didn't show the program .lnk shortcuts from the Start menu. Here's my experiment: I placed a test file in my "David" user folder and another one in ...
0 votes
1 answer
300 views

Stop Windows 10 search on mapped drives returing UNC results

If I search, e.g. T:\Tools which is mapped to \server\tools, for sometool.exe, search results come back as finding the searched for file in UNC format like \server\tools\sometool.exe This is a major ...
3 votes
2 answers
287 views

How do I efficiently pull up the most recently edited .TXT files?

Using Windows is there a command-line string I can execute to show the most recently edited notepad files? Many times, I don't know the name of the file I need... but I know that I edited it within ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

What is the shortcut key to jump to the Windows Search search box in Explorer in Windows 10?

Is there a shortcut key to jump to the windows search box in Windows 10 when running Explorer.exe?
3 votes
1 answer
17k views

What does Windows indexing do?

What does Windows Indexing do? I run Windows XP SP3 Home at my place and was wondering what is special in Windows 7 and what does it do? I know it helps searching but how?
6 votes
4 answers
3k views

Disable / Turn Off Windows 7 Search Prompt / Warning Banner About Indexing

Whenever a search is performed in Windows 7 on a folder that is not indexed, Windows throws up a banner at the top of the Explorer window (below the address bar) blabbing about Indexing and asking you ...
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

Search files by extension in windows

I want to search only svg files in a folder containing svg and svgz files. I typed "*svg" in the search bar but I get all the files begining with the svg extension including svgz. How do I exclude ...
1 vote
0 answers
130 views

Windows 10 Search - Multiple shortcuts with different command line arguments

I want to open a program with command line arguments via shortcut by typing into the start menu to search for it, and pressing <Enter> on it. (Since it's a folder, I don't want to create a ...
1 vote
1 answer
516 views

searching a string in multiple docs and note pad documents

I have multiple files in docx format and notepad .txt files. I want to search for a particular string like #search string# it might be present in any of the multiple docx or .txt or .rtf files. Is ...
4 votes
1 answer
5k views

Windows search folders only one level

I have, in a Windows 10 machine, about 600 projects folder, and each of these folders have two folders: current and old_releases. All projects together have about 1TB. To free space on the server, I ...
3 votes
2 answers
8k views

How can I search photos by EXIF tags?

I want to be able to find a specific photo in my huge archive, so I put some tags in the EXIF header. The problem is: How can I search for a file that contains a specific tag (eg. "sky")? Can ...
0 votes
2 answers
137 views

How to search for more than one file at a time using Windows? [duplicate]

I have 1,015 images in a folder and these images is classified into seven categories of medical diagnoses of skin cancer, and the same images are classified in the Excel file by number (the number of ...
0 votes
0 answers
26 views

Search windows by default application

Is there a way to search for files in windows explorer according to the application they open with; I want to find all files that open with Excel by default, as well as all that open with Notepad++
3 votes
0 answers
1k views

Start Menu search is no longer functional and the Cortana (SearchUI.exe) process is using a lot of resources

Recently I moved my desktop PC to a new place and for some reason the Windows start menu search is no longer functional. I usually tap the Windows key and type to open up most programs. Now, after I ...
1 vote
1 answer
677 views

Change Windows' definition of what a "gigantic" file is

I once tried to organize my files grouping by file size, and discovered that Windows 7 have a very antique thinking of file sizes. There are 6 categories of sizes that shows up here, from very small (...
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Win 10 Remove cortana but not search windows feature?

Is there a way to remove the cortana application but leave the search bar that is the replacement to cortana?
3 votes
2 answers
3k views

Windows 10 instant search in Start menu doesn't work

Got a new PC on my work and Windows was preinstalled and configured. There is a lack of Windows menu search feature. I got used to push Windows button on a keyboard and then just type what I want. ...
0 votes
1 answer
188 views

Windows Search Does Not Find Text in PDFs (Applies to Callouts, Text Boxes, and Typewriter Text Boxes)

What settings or steps, if any, can I use so that "annotation" types of text are found when using Windows to search PDFs for a specific word or words? Environment Windows 10 Acrobat 10 (Acrobat X) ...
28 votes
3 answers
142k views

can I use CMD to search for files in windows?

I want a command to search for a file in a directory and all sub directories in windows using the command line. I saw all the available commands but I couldn't find any suitable command to do this ...
1 vote
0 answers
4k views

How to disable web results from Windows Search (Windows 10 Home)?

Whenever I search anything in Windows 10 (⊞ > Start Typing), Windows shows web results (from Bing) on the top, even if I have a file with the exact name as the search term, or the search term matches ...

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