Windows 8.1 Search/Indexing Will not Start - Error 2: The system could not find the file specified.

Anonymous

Original title: Windows 8.1 Search/Indexing Will not Start

Running Windows 8.1 and the indexing has stopped. When I go to services and try and restart the windows search service i get the message....

Windows could not start Windows Search service on the local computer.

Error 2: The system could not find the file specified

I've tried disabeling, rebooting and renabling but this did not work.

I've also did a completly fresh install, which fixed the problem, for about 2 days and back to the exact same error now.

Searched on the internet but cannot find any refrence to Error 2 and windows 8 search. Tried some of the simular fixes reported to different error codes in windows 7 but none matched exactly and none worked.

Any help appreciated, only thing I can think of is that it may be windows 8.1 related? As never had problems with windows 8

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Anonymous

I experienced the same problema and i FIXED it!! after chatting with Microsoft technical service many times, the solution give was: format your PC and reinstall Windows..

However, thanks to Gary and his clue... i fixed and this is my solution (it Works for me now)

I renamed (you can try to delete, but i always like to rename to have an easy way to restore) the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs{A010C594-BAB6-4690-952C-28A0C0365307} value=ScopeToMonitor

renamed to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigBAK{A010C594-BAB6-4690-952C-28A0C0365307} value=ScopeToMonitor

and then started the Windows search sercvice (services.msc).. and right now its working. Its already indexing my files!!

The Windows search service automatically created a new entre in the registry named:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs

I rebooted my laptop and the service started automatically and its working and indexing!!

Hope this patch helps!

Sergio

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Anonymous

Hi everyone, after 4 months of trying to solve this issue without reinstalling the OS, here is my solution!

(all other remedies failed)

Suggest you start with USB memory stick and format (I used NTFS)

This is a little laborious but works...

Open [Services] application, scroll down to [Windows Search] double click and set to Automatic on Startup type:

Open [This PC] to show available drives and ensure you can see your new USB drive, then click on [Manage]. Under [Storage] menu click on [Disk Management].

Click on the new USB drive box (bottom of window), it should show Drive 1 Removable

Right button click and select [Change Drive Letter and Paths...], then select the aspirate USB drive and literally work through the alphabet (avoiding drive letters that are already in use). Each time you change the drive letter, reboot your PC and check to see if [Services] has started 'ruining' [Windows Search]

Once you have figured out which is the correct drive to enable [Windows Search] service to run, then I suggest you partition some space on your hard drive and rename it to the appropriate drive letter that you know works! (Don't forget to format)

Hope that works for you as it fixed my issue

Thanks to everyone for making the world a better place

Think responsibly

Dom

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140 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-03-15T17:30:54+00:00
I have screwed up many of my computer registries by just deleting stuff; however, this worked for me.

problem index service is not working, file not found;
- regedit, went to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\FileChangeClientConfigs

and deleted both sub directories

indexing stared up on its own.

For what ever its worth
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Anonymous

2014-03-10T16:07:58+00:00

My problem was that the indexing was turned off, and would not restart.

There were no file entries in the indexing options, and the rebuild index under advanced options did not work.

I ran the SFC /scannow option from command prompt with admin privs and it found some corrupted files/directories it could not fix and pointed me to the logs.

I decided to play with the registry keys based on this post. I used RegEdit to find these keys and deleted them. There were actually two - one for the PC and one for OneDrive. The alpha/numeric codes in the parentheses were quite different from those in this post - which I expected.

After deleting the registry keys, I rebooted the PC. It took longer to restart, but when I went into the Control Panel, Indexing Options section, I now had file types in the indexing box, and I could get an indexing status.

A few minutes later (i-7 with SSD), the indexing was complete and search was working again. In Outlook, it still took a little more time, but it is all working properly now....I hope for some time.

Thanks for this post!
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Anonymous

2014-03-09T01:46:42+00:00

THIS WORKED FOR ME ALSO!! I've been desperately seeking a solution for days; finally came upon this one and the service started on it's own as soon as I changed the registry entry.

Thanks! From sunny SW FL, HJG.
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