Searching for files and programs unreliable

Hi, this has always been a problem I had with searching for files on windows for as long as I can remember.
The problem is the search function barely works, 90% of the time it will not find what I search for even though I know for sure the files are on the pc.


See my screenshot for what I mean....


This happens all the time, it even happened on windows 7. Surely I am doing something wrong.... is windows really so stupid it can;t search for a basic file name?

Click on the "File Explorer" link under 'Other places to look'

silverz said:

... is windows really so stupid it can't search for a basic file name?

I don't think its you, I use FileSearchEX, others use void everything, and there are others. Search has indeed not gotten better, imo.

Edwin said:

Click on the "File Explorer" link under 'Other places to look'

That half-works.
It's still excluding searching from several of my drives and the number of clicks/menus I have to use to get there kind of defeats the point of searching from the start button and it's bringing up a whole load of things unrelated to my search.

What exactly is being searched if I do not choose the other places to look option? The feature seems almost worthless if it can't find files.

silverz said:

That half-works.
It's still excluding searching from several of my drives and the number of clicks/menus I have to use to get there kind of defeats the point of searching from the start button and it's bringing up a whole load of things unrelated to my search.

What exactly is being searched if I do not choose the other places to look option? The feature seems almost worthless if it can't find files.

Yeah, I don't like how it works either.
I just pin an 'mssearch' shortcut to the taskbar:



C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{9343812e-1c37-4a49-a12e-4b2d810d956b}

@silverz I agree with you 100% that's why when I want to find a file or anything I use Everything its a very good search app.
Also has a few options not found on Windows search at all. Take a look , its a Free app.
Everything Search Tool
http://www.voidtools.com/

Windows search is a worthless piece of sh*t. Microsoft have a special talent for spending millions on f*cking up things that worked fine, while the real problems (e.g. searching for files) never get addressed.

The developer of Voidtools Everything is just one dude writing code in his spare time and, let me tell you, Windows Search doesn't hold a candle to Everything. Shouldn't Microsoft have hired this guy instead of spending $7.6 billion on Nokia?

It's just so infuriating that I was happy with Windows 7 and after upgrading to Windows 10 I've wasted so much time trying to just do what I was already able to do in W7. Some of the new features were so nice in W7... W10 brings some improvements but a lot of it is completely retarded. And before anyone says "Then why not install W7 again?", that's because W7 wouldn't install on my new laptop with Skylake CPU, USB3.0 and NVMe SSD, which apparently W7 doesn't support.

According to your picture: "Search is still indexing your files"

It is unable to find that file because it still hasn't been added to the indexer.
1) Search for and open Indexing Options
2) Observe that number on top: # items indexed
3) Check this every few hours. Make sure this number always gets bigger and bigger. If it gets smaller, that means the indexer is always infinitely resetting because of some error. That would suck if that happens, because dealing with finding what is causing the indexer to crash and reset SUCKS. Let's just hope it's not that.
4) When this number no longer gets bigger and stops at a big number, that means Windows Search should be able to find your file

Voidtools Everything should be the standard of any file search system: It is able to find literally any and every single file on your system, and it does so instantly. A file search function hat produces inconsistent results depending on which way the wind blows is unacceptable. Worse yet, when you search for a file or folder that you know exists because you are looking at it, and search can't find it, you know something is very wrong. This happens all too often.

I can only guess that people at Microsoft either are stupid or never need to search for files, since Windows Search has never worked as expected and nobody has done anything about it and yet Microsoft had enough resources to code plenty of useless features, like removing the "Up" button, removing the Start Menu, then bringing them both back, etc, etc.

Scoox said:

... "Then why not install W7 again?", that's because W7 wouldn't install on my new laptop with Skylake CPU, USB3.0 and NVMe SSD, which apparently W7 doesn't support.

Just to put some light on this..
One can install Win7 on system with Skylake CPU and USB3.x (I'm running it right now). For more info visit
Motherboard compatibility doubts Solved - Page 2 - Windows 7 Help Forums

I can't say about NVMe SSD, because I have none. But I assume it would work if it runs via SATA -if not, then there's maybe a solution similar as with Skylake/USB3 issue.