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
    2021-12-27T21:41:44+00:00

    I had the same problem. I also reinstalled Windows 11 while keeping apps & data and this fixed my problem.

    HOWEVER this is only temporary. As soon as you reboot or I think after a few days it will revert back to the "bugged" state like it was before (slow indexing and 10% cpu usage for the indexing service). I reinstalled W11 twice now and the problem returned after a few days.

    It's very weird because when I got it finally fixed there was almost no CPU usage at all and "Search Protocol Host" took up the most % of the CPU when idle (like 4% maybe?). Now this process is not taking any amount of CPU but instead the "Windows Search Indexer" process/"Windows Search" service which takes up about 9% usage all the time.

    I gave up and just disabled indexing and use Everything to search files.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-12-10T12:36:11+00:00

    Hi Sandor

    Everything was the same after the installation with all of my programs and files still working, including Outlook, and desktop etc was all okay.

    There were a couple of custom registry edits that I had done previously which had been reset to default, but other than that everything was the same.

    The option to keep all my files and programs automatically during the installation but worth keeping a close eye on the installation to make sure this option is chosen.

    Many thanks for the quick reply, Mikey! I am really glad to hear that basically everything will stay as is. (I also have a few registry edits, but that is not a big deal to do again.) I will perform the install for sure, but will possibly save a full system image before just to be on the safe side.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-12-10T12:22:40+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.

    Hi Mikey!

    I have the same issue, indexing is damn slow after Windows 11 update. Many thanks for posting this solution. I am looking forward to trying this.

    I have spent a lot of time installing, setting and fine-tuning everything in Windows, therefore I am a bit worried doing the installation procedure you mentioned. Therefore, can you please specify what will be kept and what will be lost after this? It is clear that installed apps and personal files will not change, but what is the case, for example, with Windows settings (such as, keyboard layout, date/time format settings, appearance settings, etc.) as well as settings of different apps, such as Outlook? (I have done a lot of fine-tuning in Outlook.) Will they stay?

    This information would be highly appraciated.

    Thanks,

    Sandor

    Hi Sandor

    Everything was the same after the installation with all of my programs and files still working, including Outlook, and desktop etc was all okay.

    There were a couple of custom registry edits that I had done previously which had been reset to default, but other than that everything was the same.

    The option to keep all my files and programs automatically during the installation but worth keeping a close eye on the installation to make sure this option is chosen.

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    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2021-12-10T12:04:27+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.

    Hi Mikey!

    I have the same issue, indexing is damn slow after Windows 11 update. Many thanks for posting this solution. I am looking forward to trying this.

    I have spent a lot of time installing, setting and fine-tuning everything in Windows, therefore I am a bit worried doing the installation procedure you mentioned. Therefore, can you please specify what will be kept and what will be lost after this? It is clear that installed apps and personal files will not change, but what is the case, for example, with Windows settings (such as, keyboard layout, date/time format settings, appearance settings, etc.) as well as settings of different apps, such as Outlook? (I have done a lot of fine-tuning in Outlook.) Will they stay?

    This information would be highly appraciated.

    Thanks,

    Sandor

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-12-10T02:02:46+00:00

    thank you so much, "pura vida" its working now. Best regards

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