File Explorer search not working in Windows 10 1909

Anonymous
2019-11-20T13:56:08+00:00

Ever since I updated to Windows 10 1909 the Search Box in the File Explorer is completely unuseable. It shows a text cursor but I cannot click inside the box or type any text into it. Essentially it's a text box with no "wiring". 

Any ideas how to resolve this issue? I'm having to resort to using a third-party search app just to find files in my projects.

Kind regards

Byron

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

369 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-02-06T15:42:51+00:00

    Hi

    I had this problem...

    My opinion this is a premission/corruption problem.

    Solution for me was:

    Open indexing option from Control Panel

    Open Advanced

    Move the index location to something like c:\temp

    close

    Open advanced again

    Move the index location back to c:\programdata\microsoft

    Restart the computer.

    Tested this on a lot of computers :)

    Regards

    Gudjon

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-12-09T08:07:27+00:00

    Having the same problem.  As a workaround, I manually call "Search Tools" by typing "search-ms:" in the file explorer's location bar and hit enter. This brings search tools screen and re-enables typing in the search bar.

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-11-26T21:22:17+00:00

    Another ME TOO post, but with an additional point / complaint:

    If one has a long process going on (I have a very large copy operation going now), you can't kill explorer. So that means that anything you wanted to do that required search has to wait. So much for a multi-tasking operating system.

    Just a nit: a batch file that kills the processes shouldn't be called a fix (even when adding the modifier of 'temporarily') — it is a workaround, nothing more.

    But when one cannot kill explorer due to a process being executed, then this is more than a nuisance — it is a bona-fide production killer.

    Thanks to those of you that opened tickets on this.

    Chris

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-11-21T12:11:14+00:00

    Might want to roll back to 1903. It was far less glitchy. Microsoft should release an update at some point that will fix 1909.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2019-11-21T08:57:15+00:00

    I wrote a .bat that taskkills file explorer. That seems to have fixed the problem, but its only a temporary fix. If you go into taskmgr and kill explorer.exe it should start working again. 

    Hi!

    Tried this, it worked for a while as you said, but the box seemed misaligned and glitchy. After closing explorer, it stopped working again, so it's all over the place.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments