Windows 10: Windows search not working, both in Start Menu and File explorer. SearchUI.exe process is...

I´m a Windows Insider user, OS is:

• Edition: Windows 10 Home
• Version: 2004
• OS Build: 19041.264
• Installed on: 4/16/2020
• Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2202.130.0

Everything was working fine till yesterday, when search suddenly stopped working. Can´t type when opening Start Menu, when clicking the Taskbar Search Icon, can´t search in File Explorer.

I´ve never signed in to Cortana.


What i've tried so far to solve the problem:

• Running the Search and Indexing troubleshooter: During the first run a warning or error was fixed, but search was not restored. On subsequent tries, no problem was found
• Rebuilding the Search Index -> no effect
• Tried restarting 'SearchUI.exe' in TaskManager as suggested here, but it´s no where to be found. Tried searching for the file with NTFS Search, but only deleted files appear.
• Tried reinstalling Cortana with the following command, as suggested by several articles:

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.Windows.Cortana Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$$_.InstallLocation\AppXManifest.xml”}

Did not work. Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers *Cortana* did´t return any results.

• Tried sfc /scannow -> no issues found, no effect
• Tried: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth and DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth, no effect
• Also tried fixing with: "ResetWindowsSearchBox.ps1" as suggested here, but no effect.

I search the Event Viewer for the first ocurring of the problem and also the error for the recurring error.
First error:









Recurring error:






Please help, would really want to avoid doing a restore or reset of the OS.

:)

 

EXE files and Start menu

Nice try :-(

Unfortunately, Windows 10 displays massive problems with .exe-files within the start menu. Neither searching for them nor pinning them to the start menu work.

Just have a look in those threads:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...7-6c3339465037


http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...5-ebfeadf0d82e


http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...d-131dd2e15981


Can't search for .exe files in start menu? : Windows10

Regards

 

File Explorer Search Not Working


I am trying to search in File Explorer (Windows Explorer, My Computer) and it will not find anything. I can copy text from a name in the list and paste it in the search box and it still finds nothing. I have looked at the suggestions that have been posted and nothing I find that is relative to this works. Anyone have any suggestions? I am running Win 10 Pro on an I3 coustom desktop computer.

 

EXE files and Start menu

You can only put shortcuts on the menu.

Ztruker's suggestion should work fine.

Here's a tip (unrelated to the issue):
Create a new folder on your desktop named dtIcons (any name will do),
then drag all of the icons on your Desktop to that folder.
Once you have the icons in the folder, you can leave it on your desktop (moving any new icons to that folder as they are created ) - you'll have to open the folder to access the icons of course
-- OR --
move the folder (as long as the file name chosen does not already exist in the location - rename it if necessary) off of your desktop to your User folder (any location you choose)
then create a new toolbar on your Taskbar and point that to the folder holding your icons.
this gives you a drop down menu of your icons that were cluttering up your Desktop.
You can manually add shortcuts to the menu list (left hand pane).
There are some considerations if you manually added the item to either All users menu > All apps or your personal menu > All apps. Win8 / Win10 menu keeps track of items on the menu. The easiest way to tell Windows that a new item is placed there is to create a shortcut anywhere BUT All apps and copy that shortcut to All apps.

You can also use PowerShell to 'touch' the object.

The PowerShell cmdlet below uses the non-existent contoso.lnk as an example.
If your shortcut is in your personal menu, you will have to change the environment variable
from
$envrogramdata
to
$env:appdata
AND
Change the file name of the shortcut from contoso.lnk to the file name of the shortcut you want to update

(ls "$envrogramdata\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\contoso.lnk").lastwritetime = get-date
It really is easier to just create a new shortcut and copy it to the menu you want.
There are a few instances where people have disabled UAC and that causes more headaches than it's worth. Set UAC to the default if it has been changed.




Search and Indexing are tightly tied together - if you've modified your index locations, you'll need to revisit your settings. Make sure Start is included as a location in the index.
If the object is not in an indexed location - Search might not find it.
Search from Explorer will find it regardless of the index status.

Search for file names (Q1 report) or extensions xls
If you search for Q1 report.xls - your results will not be what you expect.
Lastly try this
Press the WinKey [ *Start ] on your keyboard and start typing our search query
The input box doesn't appear until you type the first character and the results are filtered as you type.