Windows Search Service/Indexing - Access Denied?

Hello,

I have been trying to enable the search feature on my windows 7 64-bit machine but when I attempt to do so, or use indexing, nothing seems to happen. When I try to enable windows search in services I get "Windows could not start the Windows Search service on Local Computer - http://social.answers.microsoft.com...1279-56d5-487f-9825-b62128f916d2?outputAs=rsserror 5 access denied."

When I detect problems in search and indexing it tells me windows search service is not running but lists the error as not fixed. When I try to manually add a config folder in the ProgramData - Microsoft - Search - Data folder it erases itself after a few seconds.

This account has full admin control, I don't get it. I even tried to do this through the hidden admin account.

This laptop is only a month old but I can't turn the search feature on. I think maybe if I modify it to not include the external in indexing it would not mess up, but I can't even touch the modify button without enabling windows search, which is currently impossible. Any help?

Try reregistering the windows installer service:

You want to unregister and then reregister.

1) Start> Run

2) Type in msiexec /unreg

3) Press enter

4) Start> Run

5) Type in msiexec /regserver

6) Press enter

Hopefully that will fix it, if not let us know. A Guy

Naw, I appreciate your suggestion but that didn't work. I have also tried this Index - Windows Search Service - Vista Forums

This could be due to the service having changed itself from the required account (system, network, local) to a different user account. The windows search service should be running under the "Local System Account", check that it is so.

How would I go about checking this or correcting it? If you don't mind me asking

In services under log on it says Local System Account

Click on Start button, then type "Services.msc" without quotes in the Run box or Search box. Locate Windows Search service, see what it says in the right-most column labelled "Log On As". It should read "Local System".

It did. Still no resolution though.

this error was in my error logs like 6000 times: The Windows Search Service has failed to remove the old search index. Internal error <0,0x80070005>.

and in administrative events i have it saying
The Windows Search service terminated with the following error:
Access is denied.
and
The Windows Search service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 198 time(s).

Also found this:
The Windows Search Service is starting up and attempting to remove the old search index {Reason: Full Index Reset}.

I had out of the blue this error too. Like you my even log got spammed so massively I keep overclocking the one error message that was actually offering a clue what was wrong.
ACCESS DENIED
When I read that I had a hunch. I checked my "ProgramData" folder and then all down
"Microsoft", "Search"
I can't retell which folders excatly but some where missing permissions.
When I clicked on folder properties and then the security tab the only one with access was my user account.
It should list actually SYSTEM and Administrators at least or windows can't work with these folders.
What I did was first was to delete the whole search folder.
After that I open properties of the program data folder, security tab than clicked on advanced. Clicked on change permissions and then checked the box of "include inheritable permissions from this objects parent". This restored all the permissions. I repeated this for the "microsoft" folder too.
After that windows search recreated the search folder with correct permissions and resumed it work flawless. Of course the whole index has to be rebuild.

Dragoon is right on solving this befuddling problem. Thanks for the great idea-solution.

Dragoon's solution works in Windows 10 as well

After trying many other solutions, this fixed "Windows could not start Windows Search service" Error 5 Access denied.

In keeping with the tradition of a new post being made here once every 4 years, I want to thankHanusMaximus for making this thread and Dragoon for posting the solution in it. Despite trying to resolve this same issue on my machine for several hours, I was unable to do so until I came across this thread. 12 years after this thread was posted it's still the only known thread that shows up on google with a working solution to this issue, at least for me and some other users. Tysm for the help!