Windows 10: Unable to access windows settings or the search bar

When i try to access the settings menu or use the search bar, i am unable to access either of them. Any suggestions?

:)

 

Unable to access Cortana, Search box, Settings on Windows 10

Hi Darius,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community, we appreciate your interest in Windows 10.

I understand the inconvenience caused to in accessing the Cortana, Search box and Settings in Windows 10.

Do let us know the following to assist you better:

• Have you made any changes to the operating system prior to this issue?
• Is this issue persists on Microsoft account/ local account?
• What is the Windows troubleshooter you have deployed to resolve the issue?
• What is the exact error code/ error message of this issue as we are unable to access the links provided?

Try few of the below troubleshooting steps if not yet tried and check if it helps.

Step 1: I suggest you to log-out from the current user account, restart the device, log-in with Microsoft account and check if the issue persists.

Step 2: I suggest you to install all the pending updates after upgrade to Windows 10.

1. Connect to the internet.

2. Press
Windows key and type updates.

3. Click on
Check for updates.

4. Under
Windows Updates, click on Check for updates.

5. Try to install the updates being shown.

Hope it helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of this issue and required information, we will be happy to help you further.

 

HyperSLI (Enabling SLI on non-sli motherboards)

To turn off windows updates in windows 7 follow these steps:

Click the start button, in the search box type in 'windows updates', click on 'windows update'
in the search results list, in the left side of the windows update window click 'change settings'
then in the option bar select 'Never check for updates'.

 

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.