Windows 10: Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job?

Discus and support Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job? in Cortana to solve the problem; The old thread... Discussion in 'Cortana' started by justinCTU, Feb 22, 2020.

  1. justinCTU Win User

    Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job?


    The old thread


    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_cortana-winpc/why-is-windows-10-search-so-bad-at-its-job/6041e4bf-c30c-4575-a52c-b6916a1e7326?


    I am still confused why the windows 10 search is so bad at it's job. I always thought it was because are SO many files. But our CPUs are still doubling in power every few years, and other 3rd party apps are killing it. Download something like "Everything" type in a name, and the results are fairly flying on to the screen WITHOUT endless indexing. I feel as if they have deliberately knee capped searching. Why? I don't know. I can't imagine this is the result of a genuine effort for windows to make a good search engine. Perhaps I'd rather believe there is a business development reasons behind this decision rather than incompetence.


    So Microsoft, I would really like an explanation as to why your search feature is so bad at searching? To recap some of the problems:


    1 Search is slow


    2 It returns poorly matched results


    3 It often cannot find exact matches, or ignores installed apps


    4 it often pressures the user to "Search the web" through the Bing search engine. This is difficult or impossible to disable, or redirect to a preferred search engine. In the attached image, I performed the following actions.

    -My intent is to search for a document called "Cats.txt" I am working on. It is on my desktop.

    -click on Windows icon

    -type cats

    -hit return

    -Edge opens, does a bing search for cats.

    -closes search window


    In NO OTHER SEARCH does hitting "return" end the search. Hitting return is how you START a search. And again, see #2. My document isn't even listed.


    5 It often returns or prioritizes a rarely used result. For example, if I search for uninstall, the top result is often an app buried deep in my apps folder, rather than the obvious Uninstall Control Panel [ note, I just tried this, and returned better search results. This could be because I have Everything running now, or perhaps this was fixed ]


    6 Advanced search parameters are either over simplified or overly complicated. The advanced search is different from pretty much all other methods, either commonly used ones of even internal. Why does the search use "kind" parameter when "type" is what is used in every windows folder I have? Want to have fun? try a search for kind=photo. Oh you confused picture and photo? How stupid of you. Rather than get a syntax error, you get an ENDLESS search. Open a folder and under TYPE you see JPGs... Try searching Type=JPG. Nothing returned. I know I'm using it wrong, but I shouldn't have to learn a non-intuitive syntax that is inconsistent with the syntax already provided to me by Windows for what, 15 years now? I'm not against changing the syntax, but then you need to spend some time educating me, and I don't mean a tutorial, or some website written by some guy. You need to embed it in your OS and change how I think and work.


    Can you PLEASE explain the decision making process behind the windows search, and address these issues I have listed above, as well as the many that people will list below.



    Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job? 82f2fde1-4df1-4024-a0b3-785acfe06d6b?upload=true.jpg



    Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job? 371ad627-516b-4c2e-b13c-33394e6fbc02?upload=true.jpg

    :)
     
    justinCTU, Feb 22, 2020
    #1
  2. O John Win User

    Why is Windows 10 Search So Bad At It's Job?

    Windows 10 search is horrible. It cannot find what is on my computer. It is so bad I assumed for a year that search was off. It was on, just does not work.

    Windows 10 is pretty bad. It is juts that after 8, we are grateful for something that is not terrible.
     
    O John, Feb 22, 2020
    #2
  3. Ahhzz Win User
    Windows 10 Tweaks

    Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

    Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

    • Open a new Explorer window.
    • Click View in the ribbon.
    • Click Options.
    • Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
    • Click OK


    credit to Lifehacker.
     
    Ahhzz, Feb 22, 2020
    #3
  4. enso Win User

    Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job?

    Quick Access not searching Pictures folder

    Summary, that last suggestion didn't work.

    • I moved the pictures to another folder temporarily.


    • 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.
     
Thema:

Why is Windows 10 Search Still So Bad At It's Job?

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