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
    2022-06-30T10:46:34+00:00

    how about go to their help for office 365, tell them its affecting microsoft outlook and poitn them to this post. I tried this, it frustated me, I gave up.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-30T09:24:49+00:00

    please try to delete the registry key, it worked for me.

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\PluginResourceData

    YES! Thank you! Deleted all the subkeys s and now the indexing seems to be started at the usual speed.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-27T19:19:39+00:00

    LOL. I chose to keep everything in cloud OneDrive and not locally. I've since discovered that:

    1. If I do not index anything locally
      and
    2. Just so happen to run a local search

    it starts to sync/download my OneDrive. My SSD isn't large enough to support an entire sync of my OneDrive.

    Same if you disable Windows Search service.

    This is such bs 😂. I guess I'm going to have to index everything again and wait until the weekend when my 450K items eventually index....and from there watch (and hear) my laptop on never-ending index (new song idea for Limahl) every time I reboot it.

    Seriously, How do we catch Microsoft's eye with this?

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-27T17:53:41+00:00

    I have the same issues, I have been trying everything I can find on line. I have a brand new computer with solid state hard drive and 32 gigs of ram, it should fly through this.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-06-27T10:03:29+00:00

    I simply delete the entire top level folder, it comes back and repopulates. I did this today again.

    My search is working, its painful but way better than the alternative.

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