Indexing Broken in Windows 11 (Painfully Slow At Best)

Anonymous
2021-12-05T01:10:52+00:00

Hello

I have upgraded to Windows 11 Pro on two different laptops, and both have the same issue with indexing. It is painfully slow and then usually resets itself after a couple of weeks.

Both PCs are high-end laptops with Core i9 mobile CPUs (1 x 6 core and the other 8 core). Both run 2 x NVMe 1TB drives. Both have 64GB RAM.

Both run MS Office and I use Outlook for email connected to same IMAP accounts on both. My docs, pics, music and work-related files are all stored on OneDrive and accessed from both PCs (OneDrive is set to keep local copies on both PCs for fast access).

Windows is being asked to index around 250,000 files and 80,000 emails and calendar appts. Windows 10 used to accomplish this task in 6-8 hours max.

Windows 11 takes nearly two days just to index the emails. It can take up to three weeks to index the lot and then some folders simply refuse to be indexed. Then, after a couple more weeks it will eventually lose the lot and indexing has to start from scratch again (on both PCs)

I have tried:

Disabling backoff via registry so indexing never pauses

Only adding one location at a time to let it slowly build up (e.g., add only Outlook and when that finishes add a folder)

Rebuilding the index

Storing the index in different location

Search and Indexing Trouble-shooter

Nothing fixes the issue

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Mick

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-10T18:55:35+00:00

    Hello, I try this but the same results not working, i did a reinstallation and its working again but i know this is not a fix because its the second time i have to do it in a month

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-10T18:24:31+00:00

    Oh, thank you, I used copy & paste and did not check the commands. My mistake.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-10T08:20:05+00:00

    Any news about potential fix?

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-08T00:44:57+00:00

    Thanks mikeyjames1967.

    Yes, it works. I could not find solution earlier, had hit lot of trials and errors.

    It has started indexing in outlook and hopefully the outlook search will also work.

    Regards

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-01-03T11:17:56+00:00

    I have this same problem, I manage six Surface Pros (7's and 6's) for my company and have experienced this on all of them. Unbelievable that updating the Windows version would result in loss of indexing for Outlook (and File Explorer). I was able to fix the File Explorer indexing when using the built-in troubleshooter. The Outlook Indexing issue continues. After 3 weeks of "indexing", it still have 78k left and has been in that range for days.

    My question. One person indicated that re-installing Windows 11 from USB while keeping apps and data was only a temporary fix. Can any of the other people that performed this fix confirm or deny this? Do your Outlook searches and indexing continue to work the same as prior to the Windows 11 install, or did you go back to a perpetual state of indexing?

    Thank you for your responses.

    Hi,

    I also did the mentioned fix ca. 3 weeks ago. For me, it is all fine since then. Indexing finished in 5-6 hours and problems have not started again yet. Hope it will remain like that.

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