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Windows 10 Search does not index .exe files

Hi,

Windows 10 search does not find .exe files. To reproduce:

1) Download an .exe file and save it to the desktop.

    In my case i have downloaded "pushVNC7-0.1.1.exe" and saved it on my desktop.

2) Press the magnifying glass to the right of the Start button, enter "pushVNC" in the search box.

3) No results show up.

It does find other folders that i have placed on the desktop. For example i have a folder called "Baretail". Search finds the folder, but it does not find the "baretail.exe" file stored within the "Baretail" folder.

I have tried reindexing 3 times. This does not help.

I have made sure that "exe" is checked in Control Panel -> Indexing options -> Advanced -> Filetypes.

I have also tried adding a new extension "exe" and ".exe".

Nothing of the 3 tried have helped.

Is this a bug i've hit? or is there a possibility to make .exe files include in the search results?

ps. No matter which .exe file i try to search for i get no results.

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I have this issue too. Back in Win 8.1 I could press Start and type 'putty' and my putty.exe file would appear.

Doing this in Windows 10 fails...

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I downloaded Battle.net program so I can play games and it's litteraly there in the Start Menu but search won't find it. I have to manually look for it. It can't find any .exe files aswell. I'm not sure wether this is happening only to some people or to everyone.

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Same problem in this thread: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_cortana/windows-10-start-menu-search-not-finding-shortcuts/256fabae-e83b-413d-8447-6c3339465037

Unfortunately, no more replies from Microsoft....

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This worked for me:

  1. Open the Task manager.  Here’s a tip:  Press      CTRL+Shift+ESC.
  2. Click File > Run New Task
  3. Make sure you have a check mark beside “Create this      task with administrative privileges”
  4. Type Powershell
  5. Type the following 2 commands in the Powershell prompt:
             $manifest = (Get-AppxPackage      Microsoft.WindowsStore).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml' ;      Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifest

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"}

  1. Close the Powershell window.
  2. Reboot

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No, unfortunately this didn't work for me. 

...Microsoft? 

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I wonder if this will be fixed in a future update or is intended behaviour? It kinda sucks if this is the intended behaviour moving forward.

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UPDATE 1

I took a peek in the search index database using ESEDatabaseView (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/ese_database_view.html).

I did find entries in the database for the .exe files i am looking for; so this issue seems to be more about getting the search result to include .exe files instead of they not being indexed to begin with.

I have also tried the following:

    Create c:\data\apps\PushVNC
    Copy pushVNC7-0.1.1.exe to the above folder
    Create shortcut in c:\data\pushVNC7 (that points to c:\data\apps\PushVNC\pushVNC7-0.1.1.exe)
    Add c:\data\apps to folders to be indexed in Control Panel -> Indexing options

After doing this i STILL get no search result for either the shortcuts nor the exe files.

UPDATE 2
I also tried querying the index as described at http://www.thejoyofcode.com/Using_Windows_Search_in_your_applications.aspx. This also returns the correct result, indicating again that the files has been indexed, but are being filtered out by the Search function on the start menu.

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Another way to search the index in a different way is to press Win+R (run) and enter: search-ms:query=pushvnc

This will open an explorer with the correct result.

(see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff684385%28v=vs.85%29.aspx for reference)

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Currently i have worked around the problem by creating a folder in the Start menu where i put shortcuts to the applications i want to be able to search for: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Apps

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Nice workaround, which works quite well. 

Nevertheless, as soon as you use multiple PCs and have some dozen tools it's a rather big hassle to create shortcuts for them all. This needs to be fixed!

Why is there no reply from Microsoft? This forum is called ANSWERS.microsoft.com...

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Last updated May 11, 2024 Views 32,285 Applies to: