After 1909 update I lose Windows Explorer, search desktop

Well this automatic update stuff sure is working out!

Between driver updates and Windows updates my PC performance has me pulling my hair out. A couple days ago my PC started acting erratically ( I wasnt aware of the status of automatic updates and so didnt know what had changed to cause the issues. I would lose Explorer/search/desktop intermittently.

After much research I think the culprit is the new November 2019 update. Something about having Cortana entirely disabled is causing issues. Is this correct?

Im not suffering any BSOD's or shut downs or error messages, I just lose search capabilities and occasionally my desktop goes away and I have to re-boot from a shutdown. Ive had to do this a few times in the last couple days.

Anybody else experience this?


My PC:
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz

Memory : 32692MB(3000)

Mother Board : ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING

Windows Version : Microsoft Windows 10 Pro v 1909 OS Build 18363.476

Installation Date : 2019-07-30

Monitor : Generic PnP Monitor

Video Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Mouse : USB Input Device

Keyboard : USB Input Device

Disk Drive : WDC WD6003FZBX-00K5WB0(5589GB,IDE)

Install latest version of graphic card driver.


If you haven't already restart your computer to see issue resolves. If your search problems persist following a restart, read on!


Use Windows troubleshooter to restore indexing services

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows + R keys at the same time, type in control and press Enter.



2. Select view by Small icons, then click Troubleshooting.



3. Click View all.



4. Click Search and Indexing.



5. Click Next button.



6. Tick the box or boxes for the appropriate troubleshooting process you see. Then click Next button to continue.



When the troubleshooting process finishes, Windows 10 should be able to tell you what went wrong and what you can do to fix it.



Enable Windows Search Service

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows + R keys at the same time, then type services.msc in the Run search box and press Enter key.



2. Press W key to faster locate Windows Search service, and then right-click it and choose Properties.



3. Change the Startup type to Automatic, and then click on OK and Apply buttons to save the change and exit.

4. Restart your computer.



Delete and Rebuild Index

1. Open Start Menu > Control Panel > Indexing Options.



2. Click the Advanced button.



3. In the newly open window, click Rebuild button under Troubleshooting category.



You will be seeing this notification window, just click OK to continue.





Reinstall Cortana

1. Open an elevated PowerShell window, press Win + X keys to open PowerShell.

2. Execute following commands one at time.

Code:

Get-Process  SearchUI | Stop-Process  –Force 

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

3. Restart your computer.



If the above options still cannot help you fix the Cortana or Search issue in Windows 10, you might need to perform a Repair Install of Windows 10, without losing anything.

rocks911 said:

...occasionally my desktop goes away and I have to re-boot from a shutdown. Ive had to do this a few times in the last couple days.

Do you mean the entire desktop including the taskbar disappears, and you are left with a black screen and a mouse cursor, perhaps with windows for any apps you may have had open at the time? If so this means explorer.exe has crashed, as it is explorer.exe that draws the desktop.

This is NOT the cure, but it is more convenient than a complete restart:

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del. On the blue screen select Task Manager. In Task Manager select File > Run new task. Type explorer.exe in the Open: box and click OK.

Bree said:

Do you mean the entire desktop including the taskbar disappears, and you are left with a black screen and a mouse cursor, perhaps with windows for any apps you may have had open at the time? If so this means explorer.exe has crashed, as it is explorer.exe that draws the desktop.

This is NOT the cure, but it is more convenient than a complete restart:

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del. On the blue screen select Task Manager. In Task Manager select File > Run new task. Type explorer.exe in the Open: box and click OK.

Exactly correct. After a ton of research I have come to the conclusion that Microsofts November updates have really made my pc unstable.
Im not where I can run Task Manager right now but certainly ill use that to resurrect operability.

I just cant reliably duplicate this bug. As a fact I worked all day on the PC and it seemed everything was fine. I left the PC to idle with a couple things running, just idling mostly. I came back to it and did a security scan and then a Glaryware (Glary Utilities) scan and cleanup as I have done for literally years and when it finished I lost the desktop.

I can resurrect this thing no problem. I can re-index, no problem. I can rebuild search capabilities. But I cant say for certain exactly why this is happening and the only event I can tie it to is the most recent Windows update (I think)

My video card driver is current as are all drivers on the PC.

I have run the Windows memory scan and it turned up nothing unusual. It was suggested somewhere that I perform the 8 hour memory test (might look into that tonight) to be sure. I have a disk monitoring program that shows no errors and all drives are 100%. Everything looks good in Device manager. I run SysGauge to monitor running processes and no errors are noted.

Cant figure it out.

rocks911 said:

Exactly correct. After a ton of research I have come to the conclusion that Microsofts November updates have really made my pc unstable.
Im not where I can run Task Manager right now but certainly ill use that to resurrect operability.

I just cant reliably duplicate this bug. As a fact I worked all day on the PC and it seemed everything was fine. I left the PC to idle with a couple things running, just idling mostly. I came back to it and did a security scan and then a Glaryware (Glary Utilities) scan and cleanup as I have done for literally years and when it finished I lost the desktop.

I can resurrect this thing no problem. I can re-index, no problem. I can rebuild search capabilities. But I cant say for certain exactly why this is happening and the only event I can tie it to is the most recent Windows update (I think)

My video card driver is current as are all drivers on the PC.

I have run the Windows memory scan and it turned up nothing unusual. It was suggested somewhere that I perform the 8 hour memory test (might look into that tonight) to be sure. I have a disk monitoring program that shows no errors and all drives are 100%. Everything looks good in Device manager. I run SysGauge to monitor running processes and no errors are noted.

Cant figure it out.

Read your post after reading this one,Can't perform advanced search in Windows 1909 file Explorer I was having similar problems with my search and un-installed (KB4517245) reverting to the 1903 install and this fixed my issue. Not a permanent fix as I am sure the next update will screw me over again!

SharkyCA said:

Read your post after reading this one,Can't perform advanced search in Windows 1909 file Explorer I was having similar problems with my search and un-installed (KB4517245) reverting to the 1903 install and this fixed my issue. Not a permanent fix as I am sure the next update will screw me over again!

Glad my post helped you. It should be a permanent fix for as long as you can stay on 1903. Cumulative updates should not change the search behaviour. Windows Update won't try to upgrade you to a newer version until shortly before 1903 reaches its end of service on December 8, 2020.