Windows 7: Highly annoying: The Windows Search service started then stopped...

I can no longer search in outlook. I've traced this back to the search indexing - if I go to control panel > indexing options it states "indexing is not running".

Sure enough, if I go to services the Windows Search Service is stopped (even though it's set to start on "automatic (delayed start)")

If I try to start it manually it says : "The Windows Search service on local computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs".

Googling the error takes me to this very specific microsoft support article which covers exactly this error:

Windows Search Service will not start, Error: "The Windows Search service on local computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs"

The article states the solution is to delete all the files in the "C:\windows\system32\config\TxR" directory. But I tried this and only some were deleted, but 3 remain as they were "in use".

I've googled around for ways to delete locked files, and tried every trick in the locked files book - but I just cannot get rid of these 3 files - and if these files are what's stopping the search service from starting then apparently I'm screwed...

I've tried deleting them using an admin cmd prompt, safe mode with command prompt, removing the system/hidden attributes etc etc, even lockhunter gave up on these files complaining that it was the system that was using them so it couldn't delete/rename them or kill the locking process.

Any ideas? I use the outlook search all the time (I have zillions of stored emails) and not being able to search is a nightmare...

MoveOnBoot may work in this case;

EMCO MoveOnBoot Freeware download and reviews from SnapFiles

HTH

Nope, that didn't help.

I thought I'd try a windows update to make sure everything was up to date, but despite the service being started it gave an error saying it couldn't update because the service wasn't started... strange I thought, wonder if that's connected.

Looking through the system event viewer I found a specific error code when the search service failed to startup. I googled that and found this post:

Fixed - Error %%-2147217025 - Windows Search/Updates won't start after hd clone/Image

This suggested downloading the Intel Rapid Storage Technology update. I did that and it fixed both problems. I hadn't done the cloning thing on a laptop that the article was talking about, but I did rebuild my raid 1 system drive yesterday so maybe that messed something up. But whatever, the driver fixed both issues and everything is ok now. phew.

Now I can do the thing I was going to do 3 hours when I first noticed the search wasn't working...