Windows 10 Start menu default search location

meat juice · 14 Feb 2017

I have 13 hard drives full of video sorted by title. Despite the drives being indexed it takes multiple clicks to find a file using the Start menu search. For example, I type in the name and the result comes back, "No results found for...". I must click the filters tab and then "Folders This PC" to get a result.

Ideally I would like to type in the name and have the result come up without the extra clicks as was the case in Windows 7. Is there a registry hack or some other way I can accomplish this? I spent a long time looking without any success.

Thanks for your consideration.

dalchina · 14 Feb 2017

The best advice, which has very often been given here, is to use a free 3rd party tool.

Locate32 (which I prefer)
Ultrasearch
Everything

These do a very fast index of everything, which is then updated, (but not content indexing) then provide results on a find-as-you-type basis. Pretty much instant.

Of these, I find Locate32 the easiest to use in terms of search specification, whilst Ultrasearch is modern, maintained.
These allow detailed specification by date, size, type etc etc, whilst you need a beta version of Everything to approach that.

Locate32 will search metadata too.

Much faster than Windows indexed search, which needs knowledge of Advanced Query Syntax to set detailed search parameters if used in file explorer's search bar.

meat juice · 14 Feb 2017

I appreciate the time you have taken to respond to my question. Indeed I have come across many web pages suggesting 3rd party software. I'll certainly take a look at what you've suggested. Having said that, 3rd party apps seem like a workaround to what should be a fundamental search feature. Do any of your recommendations integrate into the Start menu search or must they use their own GUI? There used to be a hack restoring the "search everywhere" feature but apparently MS removed that ability in v1607.

dalchina · 14 Feb 2017

Separate GUI. Otherwise where would you specify a reg-ex search with size and date range bounds, for example, or get a list of results shown? Or specify optional content search of found text items (Locate32, Ultrasearch).

The search bar (Cortana) is very limited and requires several clicks to specify a search by Videos, for example, and of course it's ability to list results is extremely limited.

With a separate GUI you can order the results by size, name etc.

And of course with these tools you can specify the folder/drive you wish to restrict the search to.