Indexing has stopped functioning

Might have found a solution - see last post Windows Search service stopped, won't start! HELP! - Microsoft Community

I'll let y'all know - I'll do all the updates first

pjd

Found this search tool as an alternative, so small and free....

https://code.google.com/p/jkhfilesearch/

Faladu said:

Found this search tool as an alternative, so small and free....

https://code.google.com/p/jkhfilesearch/

Thanks faladu,

That proggie promotes itself as an alternative to Agent Ransack which is a file system finder that looks at folder & file names, but it doesn't look at file contents like Windows Search, I already use Agent Ransack. And Agent Ransack's big brother File Locator is on my list of alternatives for Windows Search.

But - I think I solved my problem...

gregrocker said:

pjd said:

I did a repair install, nothing changed with respect to search, same state as it was in original post. Still doing the post SP1 updates but I not hold out much hope that they will solve the problem. So it looks like its back to last weeks image or a fresh install or use Docfetcher or something

pjd

Then it's likely another program or setting interfering. For this reason it would have been better to start with System Restore to before the problem occurred. Now its too late as a setting has been passed back through that's corrupt without any ability to roll it back.

Turn off everything at Startup in msconfig>Startup and >Services (after Hiding All MS Services) except AV using only a lightweight AV like MSE or Avast.

Have you used a Tweaking suite, Optimizer or Registry cleaner by chance? These will ruin Win7.

@gregrocker I did do System Restore, 2 of them - see post 6 !! I never use things like registry cleaners, or optimizers - see post 3 !! And its not a 3rd party application - it died when moi changed a file type (epub) from Index Properties Only to Index Properties and File Contents - see post 1 !!

However, the good news is indexing is running again :) But the bad news is I don't know why

While I was updating Windows after the in place 'repair', I found that MS thread I posted in post 11. One of the suggestions there was to ensure that Windows Search was 'turned on' in Program Updates->Turn Windows Features on or off. Well it was 'turned on' as was Indexing Service.

So I turned them both off. Then I thought... no you dummy... wait till the updates are finished and you've done a restart. So I turned them both on again. But when you turn features on and off windows scurries around for a while before telling you to do a restart. I'm not sure what it does - but its more than a couple of registry adjustments.

Anyway 30 minutes later the updates finished, did a restart - installed four more updates, then had a look at Indexing Options, It was working again!!

Now did the in-place repair and subsequent updates fix it, or did I fix it by turning Indexing and Search off and on again?

My money is on me turning Indexing and/or Search off and on again. But I am not going to experiment to find out.

BTW epub came back with Index Properties and File Contents set

Thanks to everyone - problem resolved

BR

gregrocker said:

Good work. We'll have to remember turning Indexing and Search on and off in Features. It has worked in the past for me for Internet Explorer that wouldn't reset properly.

Probably worth trying on anything that appears in the Turn Windows features on and off. Problem is that the switches are so discretely placed that we all forget about them - be better if it was a separate cpl applet. You may lose associated data - eg for Search I think it removes the indexes if you turn the feature off.

Whilst the reinstall was probably not the solution to the original problem, it did resolve a couple of right click registry tweaks that had mysteriously stopped working and that I couldn't get working again - take ownership and search - reapplied the registry patches and their back.

thanks again - pjd