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
    2023-01-19T23:50:26+00:00

    I have tried everything suggested except reinstalling win 11 from a usb. No matter what I get down to 100-200 files. Then it just hangs for days dropping a few files per hour with almost no disc activity and the CPU at 20-30%. THIS IS KILLING ME.

    Are there any new updates or anything for 2023 so far?

    I am hesitant to try a reinstall as tried a restore point from when I had no issues with search and something got borked with the boot loader and I blue screened and had to undo the restore point.

    If I could just get through one bleeping indexing maybe the issue would go away but I cant ever finish. It will index 62K files overnight and then just hang every time.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-12-31T19:07:24+00:00

    With me, it didn't work.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-12-24T03:14:07+00:00

    This suggested solution fixed the problem of slow indexing for me! My Windows 11 PC went from indexing 60 documents an hour to around 5,000 per hour! I have a backup of the 'PluginResourceData' key, so I can restore it if there are unforseen issues further down the track.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-15T15:51:44+00:00

    Hey all!
    I had a similar problem but a bit different - my indexing is resetting after each PC shutdown. It is so annoying...just imagine being unable to browse your files on all drives...

    Did anyone had a similar issue and found a fix?

    Same issue here, and haven't found a solution yet ... Very annoying!

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-10-01T20:59:39+00:00

    Hey all!
    I had a similar problem but a bit different - my indexing is resetting after each PC shutdown. It is so annoying...just imagine being unable to browse your files on all drives...

    Did anyone had a similar issue and found a fix?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments