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
    2022-03-22T01:25:38+00:00

    Hi,

    i used one of my storage hardisk to create the window 11 installer.
    I didnt know it will delete all my files..
    how can i recover back all my files from my storage hardisk..

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-21T12:25:00+00:00

    My Indexing is still running smoothly after having done a clean install of Win11 on the 14th of February. I now have over 1.3 million files indexed and the search service only spools up and uses a small amount of CPU for a short time when I add a large number of files at the same time. It's more in the region of 1% CPU rather than an entire core like it was before when I had simply upgraded to Win11 on top of Win10.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-20T22:30:04+00:00

    I have a new fix: -

    I have a Microsoft 365 Subscription and so I contacted the free support that comes with it and the technician took control of my PC and fixed the issue in less than 2 minutes. The indexing is now running at a good speed and should only take a few hours whereas before it would have taken a couple of weeks.

    Why struggle to fix it on your own when an expert can fix it for free!

    Do you know what the technician did? Sounds like an easy fix you could do yourself if you knew what to do.

    No Chris I don't know what he did, sorry. For all I know he may have done what some of the posts on this thread have advised, the point is that if you have a MS 365 subscription support will fix it for free.

    The tech did say that Microsoft were aware of the issue and were hoping to issue an update to fix it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-16T01:31:20+00:00

    I am using 128 GB RAM 16 Core i9, the indexing is super slow. Shame on windows, could be worse???????????????????

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-13T17:27:04+00:00

    Thank you DenisRanque. It worked for me!

    As a workaround for the pdf files I just followed the instructions: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/pdf-search-breaks-110-install.html (adobe download link is broken so you can get the file here: https://www.documentlocator.com/downloads/software/PDFFilter64Setup.msi or access the ftp: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/11.x/PDFFilter64Setup.msi).

    A step by step video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWPiJJ67RJc 

    It worked for me.

    All the best and good luck!

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