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

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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

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-09-15T11:55:00+00:00

    @Bassthang  Please don't confuse Cortana's internal searching (the topic of this thread) with Windows Indexed Search, which is a default automatic Windows procedure to look through all files on your computer and build a master index that supports quick searches for files or content.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-09-15T08:02:47+00:00

    Since the 2004 update, I've noticed that large file copies to our NAS are much slower, even though the reported speed is apparently the same. One even just ground to a halt (no error, just "speed: 0 bytes/s"). I had to pause and then run the copy to get it to carry on.

    The green Search progress bar now activates on EVERY folder I go to on our NAS, which never used to happen before. I don't want Windows searching or indexing every folder on the NAS. It means a wait of a few seconds to a few minutes every time I move to a different folder. This makes it very difficult to do my work - I'm always waiting for Windows to do something!

    So I'd really like to get rid of Search running in the background.

    One other possibility is that it's Windows Defender, as I have just uninstalled Avast and let Defender take over (on the grounds that Avast was messing up the updates). At least with Avast I could pause the AV for a while. This doesn't seem to be an option with Defender.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-21T21:35:26+00:00

    Hi and thanks for reaching out. My name is William. I'm a Windows technical expert. I'll be happy to help you out today.

    Searchpp.exe is an extension of the UWP app-desktop (or the overall desktop shell). Normally, you can kill it but it will probably startup once you navigate to the Nvidia Control Panel. In order to keep it from restarting, you will need to end the other desktop shell processes as well. To do this:

    Open the Nvidia Control Panel > create a text file and rename to KillDesktopShells.cmd > paste the following commands into it and save:

    @ECHO OFF
TASKKILL /F /IM Explorer.exe
TASKKILL /F /IM Searchapp.exe
TASKKILL /F /IM ShellExperienceHost.exe
TASKKILL /F /IM StartMenuExperienceHost.exe
START taskMgr.exe

    Run the file. This will end all of the shell desktop and UWP processes and then start the Task Manager. After you enable SLI, then use the Task Manager to restart the desktop shell by going to File > Run new task > type explorer.exe

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