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
    2022-01-15T10:34:58+00:00

    Yes, I found a solution

    1. Create Windows 11 Installation Media on USB - Download Windows 11 (microsoft.com)
    2. Click on setup.exe from the USB
    3. Do an install keeping apps and files.

    When the install was finished indexing worked great.

    One thing I did before the install was to remove all the indexing locations (until "index these locations" is empty) and the click 'rebuild'. I did this to clear any previous indexing information. I have no idea whether this actually does anything but if you want to ensure you do exactly what I did maybe do this as well.

    Since then, the PC has been fine. It indexed all of my emails and files in 4-5 hours.

    Thanks again for this workaround, it saved me pulling some hair out. Unfortunately like mentioned later on, I am running into the issue again a week or so later, seems like indexing rather quickly cannot keep up with moderately-sized changes to the filesystem (e.g. uninstalling large apps...). At least it's better than before.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-15T02:17:47+00:00

    A Million thanks mikeyjames1967 for sharing this work around. I was struggling so much. I followed through reinstallation of Windows 11 and now it works like a chime. Appreciate your help !!

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-14T08:09:07+00:00

    Same for me, I am back to what it was before, indexing lasts forever.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-12T17:35:08+00:00

    I have had the same issue for weeks now.

    I rebuilt the index, changed its location, disabled slowing down searching while indexing - and it just run so slow...sometimes it stop on one file for a few hours.

    I have tried the above-mentioned commands with PowerShell but unfortunately, it didn't work for me.

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  5. 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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