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GET http://woshub.com/

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Windows OS Hub / Windows 10 / Start Menu and Taskbar Search Not Working in
Windows 10

February 6, 2020 Windows 10Windows Server 2019

START MENU AND TASKBAR SEARCH NOT WORKING IN WINDOWS 10

Search in Windows 10 is used more often than in previous Windows version. You
can use Windows search to find an app, file, setting item, system feature or
even search the Internet much faster. However, in some cases, Windows 10 search
in Start Menu, Cortana and Taskbar Search stops working: when you trying to find
an app or a file, an empty list is returned (as a rule, it happens after
installing Windows updates or upgrading Windows 10 build). In this article,
we’ve put some basic tips that should help if search in the Start Menu, Taskbar,
Cortana or other Windows 10 interface elements doesn’t work properly.

Many users of Windows 10 on February 5, 2020 began to complain about the search
box breaking down (the search shows blank results). The problem is related to
the temporary unavailability of cloud-based Bing search services and can be
solved by disabling the Windows 10 search integration with Bing (see the
solution “Blank Windows Search Result on Windows 10 with Bing Search
Integration” below).

Contents:
* Restart Windows 10 Search Services
* Windows 10 Start Menu Search Not Working
* Check the Search Service and Indexing Settings
* Run the Search and Indexing Troubleshooter
* Re-Register Universal Apps in Windows 10
* Blank Windows Search Result on Windows 10 with Bing Search Integration
* Windows 10 Setting Search Not Working
* Reset Windows Search with PowerShell Script
* Some Other Ways To Fix Search Problem on Windows 10

RESTART WINDOWS 10 SEARCH SERVICES

The Cortana process (SearchUI.exe) is responsible for the search from the
Taskbar. If the search from the Windows 10 Taskbar does not work, try to restart
this process:

1. Run the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del);
2. Go to the Details tab;
3. Find SearchUI.exe in the list of processes, right-click on it and select End
Task;
4. Similarly, kill the SearchApp.exe process;
5. The next time you try to use Windows 10 search, these processes will
automatically restart.

WINDOWS 10 START MENU SEARCH NOT WORKING

If the search doesn’t work only in the Windows 10 Start menu, try the following
solution:

1. Kill the File Explorer (Explorer.exe) process by right-clicking an empty
space on taskbar with Ctrl+Shift pressed -> Exit Explorer or use the Task
Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc);
2. Run the Registry Editor from the Task Manager (File -> Create new task ->
regedit.exe);
3. Delete the following registry key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes\{ef87b4cb-f2ce-4785-8658-4ca6c63e38c6}\TopViews\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}.
In the Windows 10 x64 you need to delete the another registry key
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Explorer\FolderTypes\ {ef87b4cb-f2ce-4785-8658-4ca6c63e38c6}\TopViews\
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}.
4. Start Explorer.exe using the Task Manager (File -> Create new task ->
explorer.exe).

In Windows 10 Creator Update (1703) or newer, there is another common problem
that results in the search function not working. In the
Settings -> Privacy -> Background apps, enable the option Let apps run in the
background. If you disable this option, the search among the newly installed
applications may not work.

If you can’t find this option, you can enable it through the registry:

1. To do it, go to the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\ BackgroundAccessApplications;
2. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) parameter with the name GlobalUserDisabled and
the value 0;
3. Then change the value of the BackgroundAppGlobalToggle parameter to 1 in the
registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search;
Or you can change these parameters from the command prompt:
REG ADD
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications
/v GlobalUserDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v
BackgroundAppGlobalToggle /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
4. Restart your computer.

CHECK THE SEARCH SERVICE AND INDEXING SETTINGS

Check if the Windows Search (Indexing) service is running.

1. Open the services.msc console;
2. Find Windows Search in the list of services;
3. Make sure that the service is running and its startup type is set to
automatic;
4. Start/restart the WSearch service;
5. Open the classic Control Panel and open the Indexing Options item (Control
Panel\All Control Panel Items\Indexing Options);
6. Make sure that you select the indexing of all necessary locations (at least
the following indexing locations should be enabled: Start Menu, Users
folder. Also, you can add your local drives and Outlook);
7. Click Advanced button and then press Rebuild in the Troubleshooting section;
8. The reindexing process can take some time. Be patient.

Note. Make sure that there is enough free space on your system drive. In some
cases the size of Windows Search indexing file (Windows.edb) can be quite large.

RUN THE SEARCH AND INDEXING TROUBLESHOOTER

Try to start a build-in Windows 10 Indexer Diagnostics (Troubleshooter) tool. To
do it:

1. Go to Settings -> Search -> Searching Windows. Scroll down the list and
click on “Run the indexer troubleshooter to resolve common search issues”;
You can start the Windows Search troubleshooter from the command prompt:
msdt.exe -ep WindowsHelp id SearchDiagnostic
2. The “Search and Indexing Services” troubleshoot wizard should launch;
3. Select your problem (most likely it will be “Files don’t appear in search
results”) and click Next;
4. Wait until the “Search and Indexing troubleshooter” scans your computer and
tries to fix the errors. Then reboot the computer and check the search
result.

RE-REGISTER UNIVERSAL APPS IN WINDOWS 10

If you have Cortana installed on your computer, you can fix the search problem
by re-registering all Universal Windows Platforms (UWP / Windows Store) apps in
the system. To do it, run the following command in PowerShell that is started
with the administrator privileges:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode
-Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

After the command completes, reboot the computer.

BLANK WINDOWS SEARCH RESULT ON WINDOWS 10 WITH BING SEARCH INTEGRATION

On February 5, 2020, many users noticed that search from the taskbar or Start
menu did not work on Windows 10 1909 and 1903. When you click the Search icon or
type something in Start menu, it shows a blank search window.

Most likely the cause of the problem is the inaccessibility of the Bing cloud
search services. The fact is that, by default, Windows 10 sends everything that
you entered in the Start Menu search to its cloud servers, which return the
search results from Bing to you.

The easiest way to fix this problem is to disable Windows 10 Search Integration
with Microsoft Bing Search.

1. Run the Registry Editor (Win+R -> regedit.exe);
2. Go to the registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search\;
3. Change the value of the BingSearchEnabled and CortanaConsent parameters to
0;
If these registry settings are missing, create them manually (use the
REG_DWORD 32 parameter type). You can create and set these parameter values
with the following commands:
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v
BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v
CortanaConsent /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
4. Restart the Explorer.exe process or reboot your computer.

This solution will help if you have a search box open, but nothing appears when
specifying the text to search. At the time of writing this post, Microsoft
engineers had already fixed the problem with Bing, and Windows Search Services
began to work fine. Although in my opinion the integration of Windows 10 search
with Bing service should be permanently disabled.

WINDOWS 10 SETTING SEARCH NOT WORKING

Windows 10 Settings app has its own search box for quick access of system
settings. If the search in the Setting menu stops working:

1. Open the File Explorer and go to the directory
%LocalAppData%\Packages\windows.immersivecontrolpanel_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState;
2. Open the properties of the Indexed folder and click the Advanced button.
Make sure that the option “Allow files in this folder to have contents
indexed in addition to file properties” is enabled;
3. If the option is already enabled, disable it, click OK, and then re-enable
it.

RESET WINDOWS SEARCH WITH POWERSHELL SCRIPT

If the methods described above didn’t help you to restore the Windows 10 search,
Microsoft recommends using the PowerShell script to reset all settings of the
Windows Search service (the script is designed for Windows 10 1903 and newer).

Download the ResetWindowsSearchBox.ps1 PowerShell script from the link and run
it on your computer.

SOME OTHER WAYS TO FIX SEARCH PROBLEM ON WINDOWS 10

If the methods discussed above didn’t help to fix the search issue, try the
following additional options:

* Create a new user and check if the Windows 10 search is working under the new
account;
* Boot from the LiveCD and remove the folder C:\Documents and
Settings\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_******
(alternatively, you can use the unlocker tool to kill this folder lock
process). Reboot your computer. The Cortana folder will appear again and
after a few minutes the search should work (this method has helped several of
our subscribers);
* Check the system files and Windows image integrity using the commands: sfc
/scannow or dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
* If there are search problems in the Microsoft Outlook, follow another guide:
Outlook 2016 Search Not Working.

28 comments
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28 COMMENTS

Bob May 8, 2019 - 10:25 am

Thanks a lot for this. The only explanation and solution of its kind that I
could find.

Reply
Hugo Rust June 26, 2019 - 3:44 am

Thanks so much! 1st one worked.

Reply
hub August 2, 2019 - 9:04 pm

The last but one solution works. Thanks a lot.

Reply
George August 13, 2019 - 9:33 am

1st one with deletion of registry key worked for me.

Do you know a root cause of that? Would be interesting to find out what is this
key about and why we need to delete it.

Reply
Evan September 7, 2019 - 11:11 pm

I have tried all of these (and a number of others from other websites) with no
success. However, I tried your suggestion to create a new user in Windows, and
search works fine when I log in as that user. What does that suggest that I
should try next?

Reply
Maekail June 6, 2020 - 7:34 pm

I have the same situation. Using Search as a new User works perfectly, however,
under my account it is not working properly. What can I do next?

Reply
P September 27, 2020 - 11:07 pm

Same here, search wasn’t running for me. The “Re-Register Universal Apps” method
did the trick for me. (nothng else worked).

Reply
Abe January 4, 2022 - 9:27 pm

I had similar issues on multiple computers. This issue is related to user
profile and not any of the recommendation above. Just delete user profile and
recreate it.
Delete C:\users\%userProfile%
start regedit and go HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Profile
List and find out the guid that belong to that particular profile. Delete the
corresponding listed profile
and go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Profile List and
delete the corresponding GUID for that profile

Reply
Anders Stefan Öberg September 29, 2019 - 8:55 pm

Thanx!
Followed the registry changes under “Windows 10 Start Menu Search Not Working”.

And now it works! Tiles are back and when I start typing after clicking the
windows flag, I get suggestions again!

Be well!

Reply
KS November 20, 2019 - 11:35 am

nothing in this really worked in my case!
can u suggest me some other methods ?

Reply
ehsan February 5, 2020 - 8:48 pm

thanks it work!

Reply
Julien February 6, 2020 - 9:56 am

Thanks, first method worked!

Reply
Dioxaz February 6, 2020 - 10:55 am

I want to thank the author of this guide as it helped successfully on 2 machines
which I migrated from Windows 10 1803 to 1903.
I followed all those instructions and the taskbar or start menu search started
working again as they should (no more dreaded blank menu). I suspect it’s the
last Powershell command (Re-Register Universal Apps in Windows 10) that fixed it
in my case, but I did follow the whole procedure (deleting the registry key,
rebuild the indexing, etc) before doing the Powershell command, just to be sure.

Reply
Brian February 8, 2020 - 6:53 pm

Thank you ! Blank search with bing integration solution worked perfectly.

Reply
Alicja Arczynska February 10, 2020 - 10:25 am

Thanks a lot for this, you saved me

Reply
anonyms February 21, 2020 - 2:53 pm

Thanks mate.

Reply
Gustl February 23, 2020 - 3:02 pm

For me the following worked: Set BingSearchEnabled to 1
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v
BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
Thanks

Reply
John February 23, 2020 - 11:11 pm

MY solution was a bit different than what has been described here – I went into
the Task Manager, and I noticed the Search function was temporarily stopped. I
killed the process, started a new Taskbar search, and the results started coming
up!

Reply
Shadi February 24, 2020 - 11:39 am

Thank you, for me creating manually the registry settings was worked.

Thank you again

Reply
Alexander March 14, 2020 - 4:55 pm

This problem exists for several months now and keeps getting back. Why couldn’t
it be fixed in one of the updates. WTF Microsoft

Reply
Sameer Das April 25, 2020 - 3:45 am

My windows task bar search option is not work and SearchUI.exe folder not shown
in my pc..kindly solve the problem…

Reply
KK July 29, 2020 - 2:07 pm

Thank you so much!!!!

Reply
Cihat Okan ARIKAN August 2, 2020 - 7:18 pm

None of them except the following worked: Set BingSearchEnabled to 1
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v
BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
Thanks

Reply
Rob Finson September 6, 2020 - 2:14 pm

My Situation: “Type here to search” box wouldn’t accept text, or work in any
way. Created a test user, test user could use the search box without issue.
Also, search within File Explorer wouldn’t work.
Re-registering universal apps worked for me. I also messed around with the
Bing/Cortana registry entries and modifying/starting/stoping indexing, but none
of those appear to have helped. Thanks for the comprehensive troubleshooting
guide on this one, very helpful!

Reply
Thomas Widmer September 28, 2020 - 6:53 am

I when through many of your recommendations. “Re-Register Universal Apps in
Windows 10” ist the one that finally worked.
Thank you.

Reply
Tadie January 1, 2021 - 9:35 am

Thank you. This was very helpful.

Reply
Very Appreciative May 3, 2021 - 3:39 am

This was extremely extremely helpful. Thank you for being so thorough!

Reply
Alex June 26, 2021 - 5:11 am

Thank you – the second solution in the list worked for me by deleting 2 of the
registry files and running explorer.exe again!

Happy

woshub.com Open in urlscan Pro 37.252.2.22 Public Scan

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POST http://woshub.com/wp-comments-post.php

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woshub.com Open in urlscan Pro
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