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
    2022-03-22T10:58:35+00:00

    I was finally able to resolve this by following a recent suggestion here and doing a repair install of Windows 11.

    Go to the Microsoft download page here:

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

    Choose the option "Create Windows 11 Installation Media".

    Once you have the installation files on a USB drive run "Setup.exe". Important: Make sure you choose the option to keep your existing files and apps.

    After the installation completes everything that was there before is left intact, including any modifications you might have made to the registry. The indexing problem was fixed and I was able to rebuild the index and index over 200,000 files in a couple of hours.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-20T21:22:29+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.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-20T21:03:39+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!

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-18T20:36:23+00:00

    I also have this problem and have tried all the suggestions here. I've performed the following actions:

    • Unchecked the PDF entry in "Control Panel | Indexing Options | Advanced | File Types"
    • Disabled "Windows Search" in Services.msc
    • Deleted everything under "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search"
    • Rebooted PC
    • Re-enabled "Windows Search" in Services.msc

    Unfortunately, this still hasn't fixed the problem and Windows Indexing still crawls along at a snail's pace.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-18T08:42:31+00:00

    Hey everyone,

    I may have a new fix !!!

    I found myself facing the same issue on Windows 11.

    After hours of troubleshooting and trying almost every fix suggested on the web including a hard reset deleting all files and apps, the issue persisted!!!

    However, through process of elimination I narrowed down the issue to PDF files!!!

    It seems that by default window will try to index the content of certain file types, including pdf. And I believe that in my case that was causing the issue.

    1 .- Under "Control Panel/Indexing Options/Advanced/File types" find "pdf" and make sure that the option "Index Properties Only" is selected. You don't want windows trying to index the file content of your pdf documents!

    2 .- Delete and rebuild your index with the "Rebuild" option in "Control Panel/Indexing Options/Advanced/Index settings"

    If the issue persists, disable indexing of PDF files altogether in "Control Panel/Indexing Options/Advanced/File types". This is easily done by unchecking the pdf file extension.

    If the issue still persists, as well as previous posts in this thread, the following page offers a couple of things to try: https://www.technipages.com/what-to-do-if-windows-11-indexing-is-not-working

    Finally, in order to set expectations, I was able to re-index my entire library of 32 000 items in less time than it took me to write this post. I estimate indexing speed was about 30-50 items per second running a 11th gen i7 laptop with SSD drive.

    Best of luck !!!

    1 .- Under "Control Panel/Indexing Options/Advanced/File types" find "pdf" and make sure that the option "Index Properties Only" is selected. You don't want windows trying to index the file content of your pdf documents!

    Just this one step and restarting the pc solved the problem. Thanks!!

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