How do you disable SearchApp.exe from running so that you can enable SLI in the Nvidia Control Panel?

Anonymous
2020-08-21T21:11:28+00:00

I'm unable to shut down SearchApp.exe in task manager so that I can enable SLI in the Nvidia control panel.  I've performed a clean boot and stopped the Windows Search service. 

However as soon as I end task on  SearchApp.exe, it automatically restarts.  Because of this I'm unable to enable SLI in the Nvidia control panel.

SearchApp.exe is located in C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy

I'm unable to enable SLI if I boot into safe mode.  I already tried that.

When I had a version of Windows 10 pre version 2004, I had no problems ending task on everything running that prevented SLI from begin enabled.  I did a clean install of Windows 10 last night to fix a problem and now that the problem is fixed, I have a new one.  I really hope I don't have to install an older version of Windows 10 and upgrade to get around this problem.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Cortana and search

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
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2020-09-06T13:11:25+00:00

The previous answer is unlikely to work because Cortana keeps searchapp.exe running all the time (causing cpus to get hot).

The following commands worked for me. You have to paste them into in Administrator-level Command Prompt again and again until the timing is right and the "move" works.

cd %windir%\SystemApps

taskkill /f /im SearchApp.exe

move Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy.old

Optional: to remove Cortana completely (in addition to stopping searchapp.exe), run the following command in Administrator-level Powershell:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.549981C3F5F10 | Remove-AppxPackage

David Spector

Springtime Software

Was this answer helpful?

300+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

67 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2021-01-13T03:51:54+00:00

    easiest way for me:

    1. Open the Nvidia Control Panel
    2. Configure SLI
    3. Make a change and select "Apply" to see what programs need to be closed
    4. Open task manager to close programs. you should see the list go down.
    5. SearhApp.exe will keep restarting. use the task manager to close the NVIDIA control panel and reopen the control panel
    6. run the cmd prompt as admin
    7. reopen the NVIDIA control panel and make the changes. "DO NOT HIT APPLY YET!!!"
    8. in the cmd prompt > Taskkill /f /im SearchApp.exe 

      Then immediatly step 8 

    8.  hit "Apply" in the NVIDIA control panel

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-11-06T15:40:30+00:00

    No problem and thank you for the quick and detailed information about it!

    It sounds like a great alternative.

    Now I can finally disable that searchapp wooho!

    Take care

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-11-06T14:16:19+00:00

    @rooobinBergström Thank you for this idea. I was a bit skeptical of the claims that its website made for Everything, but Everything was a great success.

    I installed the Lite version, since I had no need for the features it omits. It installed surprisingly quickly (the executable file is only about 1.5 MB). My next surprise was that it actually only took about 2-3 seconds to index my entire disk (92 GB  in use). My final surprise was how fast it loads as an app, and how complete its listings appear to be, and how easy it is to search for a file even by partial name. I am very impressed with this free program, and it certainly fills the need for a file and folder searching program very well. Since it does not attempt to speed up searches for file content, only file names and folder names, it runs very fast indeed, unlike Microsoft's always slow-as-molasses Explorer search feature.

    Thank you for suggesting this wonderful workaround. It gets five stars from me, and I pledge to post more here should I ever find a problem with it (but I rarely need to do this kind of searching).

    ====

    One minor problem is that it always shows all files or folders whose names contain the search string anywhere in the name, and by default includes all the unneeded Windows system files. There does not seem to be a way to search for "Main" and just see the folder Main. A workaround is to turn on regular expression matching and search for "^Main$". This returns only names identical to Main. You can exclude Windows folders and files using options in Menu > Tools > Options > Exclude.

    ====

    There is a results column labeled Size that is always empty. This is because it is normally disabled for speed. Use Menu > Tools > Options > Indexes to choose what attributes to include in the search index and you can also choose which attribute columns to display.

    Was this answer helpful?

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-11-06T09:01:41+00:00

    David, does it work if you download a separate program for indexing and searching files?

    Like this tool: https://www.voidtools.com/

    If you don't know, maybe you could try and come back to us with the results!

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments