[SOLVED] No results when searching programs and files in Windows Search bar.

[tling]

When I search for a program or file in Windows Search bar, I get no results. This happens for anything I am trying to search for.

 

[Digerati]

See if anything here helps.

 

[tling]

Unfortunately none of that worked. I did a rebuild on the indexing and nothing changed.

Just to explain the situation again, when I go to the start menu and type (for example) cmd in the search bar, nothing shows up. "No items match your search" is the only thing that shows. This goes for anything program I type into the search bar. There are no updates available for the PC. It is a Windows 7 Pro 32-bit.

 

[tling]

I have found the solution to the problem. Just took a little more digging. I guess the Windows Search was uninstalled and when that happens, two values in the registry are set to zero value. When Windows Search is reinstalled, it does not restore the values to 1 which enables it. I'm not sure why the user would have uninstalled Windows Search unless a third-party software that was installed took over and disabled it. The only change I've made was uninstalling some Anti-Virus.

The two values in the registry are located in:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

The two values are:

Start_SearchFiles
Start_SearchPrograms

Both of those values need to be set to 1. Here is the link to the fix for more information in regards to it.

 

[Digerati]

Interesting. Thanks for coming back and posting the solution.