Indexing not running in Windows 8.1

I found an answer that completely resolved these issues for me. And it made complete sense once I discovered it. I do not use SkyDrive - But in my Windows 8.1 installation, I had noticed that opening the file explorer defaulted to SkyDrive.

In the Registry; sub values in the entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE|Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs pointed to SkyDrive. (I suggest that you verify this on your systems prior to proceeding)

I renamed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE|Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs so that if needed I could restore it. Then I restarted my PC.

Search issues with both file explorer and Outlook search issues were fully resolved after reboot.

I have seen several problems introduced by Microsoft implementation of SkyDrive. My next problem to work is to completely remove SkyDrive with "breaking" things. Have not found a way yet.

Barry Cole,

Firstly thank you... I think you may have cracked it though I've not fully got this to work, but I am not techy at all, just a long-term user.

I have never dared change the Registry. For those of you (home users/freelancers) like me with no outside technological help - Search for REGEDIT and then you will find a list of files including the one Barry mentioned above. I exported to my Desktop as a way of safely saving it if anything went wrong. Then I dug down and eventually found one line that did indeed state SkyDrive. I clicked on edit and changed the name to C:/My PC. And then re-started. (I did also change the name of it as you suggested Barry, but didn't really understand why and can't change it back again).

This seems to have solved Windows Explorer Search, but not yet Outlook Search, perhaps because Outlook is not saved in My PC but somewhere else?? Can't find out...

I looked into getting rid of Sky Drive as I would like to also. I found this but haven't dared try to work my way through it yet:

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-get-rid-of-skydrive-in-windows-8-1-explorer-1447031829

Thanks again for help so far,

Wink

I found an answer that completely resolved these issues for me. And it made complete sense once I discovered it. I do not use SkyDrive - But in my Windows 8.1 installation, I had noticed that opening the file explorer defaulted to SkyDrive.

In the Registry; sub values in the entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE|Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs pointed to SkyDrive. (I suggest that you verify this on your systems prior to proceeding)

I renamed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE|Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs so that if needed I could restore it. Then I restarted my PC.

Search issues with both file explorer and Outlook search issues were fully resolved after reboot.

I have seen several problems introduced by Microsoft implementation of SkyDrive. My next problem to work is to completely remove SkyDrive with "breaking" things. Have not found a way yet.

I just want to add to the voices here and say that I'm having all the same problems since agreeing to auto-install 8.1 - most especially cannot use Search on Explorer nor can I use search on MS Outlook 2010.

As I'm really, really busy at present completing the writing and self-publishing of a book that a lot of people are waiting for, I'm using other ways to find things (using my iPad for contacts, Mailstore for emails and my personal memory - the most dangerous

• for explorer).

Whenever I tried to fix it I was just going round and around in circles getting absolutely nowhere as people have experienced above. I am simply just keeping an eye on this post to see when a real solution comes up.

So thanks to all for pursuing this.

Where is someone from MS to sort this out?

And/or when is there going to be a fix in MS Updates?

I am suffering exactly like you and have spent 2 sessions with Microsoft Windows team each time more than one hour and still they could offer no solutions. One of the Microsoft engineer had asked me to uninstall and re-install the MS Office 2010 which did not work. The other person went through the  transcripts of previous session for over 40 minutes and then we got disconnected.

I am slightly better position than you by doing as follows: Start Outlook as an administrator mode and it says search is not available. However, if you search you do get the emails reasonably fast. Moreover windows explorer gives the file search but a bit slow as indexing is not there at all.

Yesterday I got a message as follows:

I restarted Windows Search service as below:

Restart-Service WSearch -Force

I tried it but without any success.

Like you I sincerely hope that Microsoft or community will soon find a fix.

I just want to add to the voices here and say that I'm having all the same problems since agreeing to auto-install 8.1 - most especially cannot use Search on Explorer nor can I use search on MS Outlook 2010.

As I'm really, really busy at present completing the writing and self-publishing of a book that a lot of people are waiting for, I'm using other ways to find things (using my iPad for contacts, Mailstore for emails and my personal memory - the most dangerous

• for explorer).

Whenever I tried to fix it I was just going round and around in circles getting absolutely nowhere as people have experienced above. I am simply just keeping an eye on this post to see when a real solution comes up.

So thanks to all for pursuing this.

Where is someone from MS to sort this out?

And/or when is there going to be a fix in MS Updates?

Karthick, Thanks for the suggestion. Wish it had worked for me, but it did not. The restart was supposed attempt to stop the service and it it was not running start it. It is stopping before that point.

Restart-Service : Service 'Windows Search (WSearch)' cannot be stopped due to the following error: Cannot open WSearch service on computer '

At line:1 char:1

• Restart-Service WSearch -force