Windows 10: How to search W10 for function in your PC

It used to be the case that when I entered a word or phrase in the search box in the taskbar in W10 it would lead me to that function eg "file explorer" would lead me to the file explorer.


Now, when I click in the search box to make it 'active' a cortana window opens in the space above it. When I start typing in the search box this disappears and is replaced with a blank white box above the search box and when I enter retutn at the end of my typng nothing happens. The search tool is broken


How do I fix this ? If you need screenshots I would be happy to provide them if I can figure out how to make a screenshot in Windows 10.


This one of many examples of something that every internet search tells you how to something, but on my W10 computer it does not look like as described.


EdWD

12.June.2019

:)

 

Edge Search Does Not Permit Change of Region


I got these suggestions from the Microsoft Community forum.No. 1 worked for me:

Thank you for posting the query on Microsoft Community. I am glad to assist you on this.
We have reproduce the issue here and we are able to access non-regional search for google using Microsoft Edge.
I would suggest you to try the below steps and check if it helps.
Step 1:
Clear browsing data option of Microsoft Edge and check if you face the issue. To do so perform the steps below.

1. Click on the More actions icon next to the feedback icon present on top right corner of the Project Spartan homepage.
2. Select Settings and click on Choose what to clear.
3. Check the boxes Browsing history, Cookies and saved website data and Cached data and files and click on Clear.

Step 2:
I suggest you to create a new user account and check if the issue occurs.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Choose Accounts and then select Family and other users.
3. Select add someone else on this PC.
4. Enter a user name and hit next.
5. Click on Finish.
6. Sign out from the current Account and Log into the new account.

Step 3:
It could also happen because of network issue. I suggest you to try with different network connection and check if it helps.

 

search function

Hello,

A possible cause of this issue is a corrupted index. To help you resolve the issue, we suggest rebuilding the
Windows Search Index. Rebuilding the
Windows Search Index will get rid of corruptions. For the steps on how to perform this procedure, please follow the steps below.

• Click the Start button.
• Type Indexing Options.
• Select Indexing Options.
• Click Advanced. Click Yes, if prompted or enter the administrative password.
• Go to Index Settings tab.
• Click Rebuild.
• Wait for the process to finish.

The process may take a while to finish depending on your PC.

Please respond back with the results.

 

Quick Access not searching Pictures folder


Summary, that last suggestion didn't work.

• I moved the pictures to another folder temporarily.

• Then I tried to remove the Pictures folder with option one at Add or Remove Folders from This PC in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials. Even after rebooting, the Pictures folder remained.
• So I tried using option two. Same thing: reboot >> Pictures folder still there.

• Since there were no troubleshooting steps for this scenario, just for the heck of it, I ran through the restore steps. Copied some pictures into the Pictures folder, ran a Quick Access search and initial problem remains: Searching all of QA doesn't find any files in Pictures folder, running search on just the Pictures folder does. I want to run a global search and find matching files in any/all of the Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.

That article dates from 2015 and I'm guessing is out of date. I hope it didn't create potential future problems in my registry.

Bottom line: I'm still looking for a fix.