Last night, my Windows 10 search engine stopped working. I can't click on a link someone gives me in a post and I can't even try to access a link manually. The only way I can look something up is on my Firefox search engine...........when DuckDuckgo is my preference.
Can you confirm whether that refers to any of Cortana file search, file explorer search, Windows indexing search, Settings search...Last night, my Windows 10 search engine stopped working.
or are you only talking about web search from your browser - or both?
Perhaps a screenshot of what's not working would help.
Thanks!
Do you have any system restore points you could use?
Yes, any Cortana (Bing I guess)search. If I go to DuckDuckgo.com I get the same message. The only search engine that works on my computer is Firefox.
Any link on my desktop that has that "E" from Windows 10 on it fails to open also.
I've heard about system restore, but don't have the slightest idea how to do one. I'm tempted to just take my CPU to a geek and say "here..........set this up so it works".
Hi, so are you basically saying you have problems with web searches, and URL's (blue links that don't respond when you click them?
System Restore has been in Windows since XP.
In Win 10, it is off by default, so unless you turned it on, you won't have any restore points.
A restore point basically captures a snapshot of certain critical parts of your system - system files, the registry, drivers.... installed programs... so you can restore your system to the same state it was in when the restore point was created as regards
- installed drivers
- installed programs
- system updates
- other settings changes held in the registry.
The Tutorial section is a great place to find out how to do things:
System Restore Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials
and a search engine such as Google is also very handy.
"E" from Windows 10 ??
Sorry, can't make anything of the partial long string shown in your browser- I've no idea where that came from.
Yes, I'm aware of system restore points. Just never used them or needed to learn how to use them.
Microsoft Edge is the "E" I'm referring to.
I'm through messing with all this cr@p! I'm one of those people who actually doesn't care about "how" my computer works. I just want it to do what I ask it to do with the click of the mouse. Sorry if that offends the more computer enlightened, but that's the way I am. Just going to take this danged thing to a geek and get it up and working. I'm too stressed over it all. Not worth it to have a heart attack over a stupid computer.
Sorry it's difficult to understand what's going on from the evidence presented. Someone looking at it may be able to tell more.
Windows is not really a consumer product, and requires you to act defensively, and with an unfortunate degree of awareness.
System Restore is useful, but not entirely reliable.
We continually, repeatedly and strongly urge people to use disk imaging routinely to give yourself a chance of recovering from many difficult situations by restoring Windows, disks and partitions to a previous working state- even if you need a new disk- without technical help. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + external storage for disk image sets.
Having that can relieve the stress and frustration you are evidently experiencing.
Oh, I'm sure it is hard to understand from the evidence I'm offering. My biggest problem is I don't and never have understood all the terms used in computers..............which is why it is so difficult for me to understand instructions from people. I'll just unhook everything today and take it to someone to set this up properly. I must have done something wrong when I upgraded. (which wouldn't be surprising at all!)
Thanks to all for trying to help.
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