Indexing not running in Windows 8.1

Finally found a solution to this after about 2 weeks of on and off troubleshooting. This was in Windows 8.1. Indexing was not running, all options were grayed out, and no solutions I tried (registry changes, etc) worked.

A few posters suggested going to 2 directories and deleting all the files in those folders:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Temp\

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\

However, this solution was initially impossible for me, because the first directory (Temp) and all the files in the 2nd directory (Windows) would DISAPPEAR upon trying to view them. They would be there for a second when I first entered the directory, and then vanish. Since I couldn't get to them, I couldn't delete them. I've never seen files and folders do that before.

I fixed this by renaming the "Windows" folder to "Windows.old," and immediately the system generated a replacement "Windows" folder where the files didn't disappear!  I then did the same thing with the "Temp" folder, but this time it didn't auto-generate a new folder, so I just made one myself.

I didn't even have to delete the files in the newly generated folders. Indexing started working immediately after the new folders were created.

Hope this helps someone!

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.

This one did it for me, thx!

Just deleted the subvalue, and everything is working.

Other symptom was not being able to launch indexing options from control panel at all.

Hi,

Thank you for sharing the information.

Your efforts to work on this issue is very much appreciated.

Feel free to post your query here on Windows Forums, we would be happy to assist you.

This worked for me as well. In the solutions above, the string 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Search\FileChangeClientConfigs

Didn't exist.

In my case, I do use OneDrive (ala SkyDrive) as I use so many different devices, so it's essential that I maintained that functionality.

Thank you for this post :)

it was fixed my index before i run my registry cleaner app..