I somehow broke my windows search feature, help needed.

[Khaotik55]

Ok, so I went into "turn windows features on or off" and I decided to disable windows search. Now that I want to re-enable it, it won't let me. Every time I try to enable it again and hit ok it does it's little thing and then asks me to restart, so of course I restart. However when I start up it starts saying "configuring windows features" or whatever, and then fails and goes into reverting changes. I can't get windows search to come back on for nothing, any help would be appreciated.

 

[hdfrango]

how long was it turned off? Did you do anything special during that time?

Have you tried in safe mode?

If that doesn't work, you might want to use system restore...

Also, if you have exact error message, could help too,

and that message does it happen before logging in?

in that case, you can probably forget the safe mode advice

 

[Sassa]

Ok, so I went into "turn windows features on or off" and I decided to disable windows search. Now that I want to re-enable it, it won't let me. Every time I try to enable it again and hit ok it does it's little thing and then asks me to restart, so of course I restart. However when I start up it starts saying "configuring windows features" or whatever, and then fails and goes into reverting changes. I can't get windows search to come back on for nothing, any help would be appreciated.

Try that again, but with Windows disc in your drive.

 

[hdfrango]

turning features back on is not supposed to require having install disc, and if it needed it, it would just ask for it, I don't think there is a parameter such as "if fail, try to install from drive without telling user about it, else cancel and rollback"

 

[Khaotik55]

I've tried it in safe mode, and there's no real error message, just failed configuring features or whatever before logging in. Also, I didn't burn windows 7 onto a disc, I ran it from desktop and let it install. No disc needed. (I still don't understand how it does that, probably copied needed files somewhere temporarily.) Needless to say, I can't use a disc, and my motherboard only has 1 IDE port, and I use a small storage harddrive on that, and I'm in no mood to go into my PC and change it out for a DVD drive, lmao I need to upgrade my drives to sata.

 

[Sassa]

turning features back on is not supposed to require having install disc, and if it needed it, it would just ask for it, I don't think there is a parameter such as "if fail, try to install from drive without telling user about it, else cancel and rollback"

I disabled one feature in vista (i can't remember what feature) and menaged to enable it this way i mentioned.
It is worth to give it a shot...

 

[hdfrango]

in that case, have you tried a system restore?

if you want, I can disable/enable that feature here and see how it goes, just in case it would be a bug or something.

I am new to windows 7, only a few days, still learning things, but far from a beginner with computers, just to let you know .

 

[Khaotik55]

I don't think I have any restore points that go back that far, I don't think I even have that enabled, usually I keep my PC tidy and error free so it's not needed. This happened about a month ago anyways, so it's been a while.

 

[hdfrango]

ok, just in case I disabled/rebooted, enabled/rebooted, and it worked fine, so it seems to be something on your side (unless we would be unlucky enough that this was a bug in the build you run)

So it's been a full month...

May be along the way you installed things or changed some default settings that make reinstalling that feature a hassle for windows. Could be a number of things.

About safe mode,have you tried in safe mode when you reboot and it tries to reinstall the feature, and not when you're choosing the feature you want back prior to reboot?

Sometimes, failure could be due to corrupted files or something, you might want to try to run chkdsk.

What "major" software (including security ones) do you have installed?

edit:

also, if you tweaked windows 7 in any way, using registry hacks or some program that does it for you, you might want to try to revert whatever was done.

Have you disabled any other features?

 

[Khaotik55]

Avast antivirus, a couple games. Nothing weird besides that. I have disabled search indexing.

 

[hdfrango]

disabled search indexing? Service was still working despite having turned off search feature? I'll have to read more about it I guess, this is getting confusing.

Whatever you did to search indexing, I'd say undo it and try again.

edit:

Sorry about that, unless you are talking about something else, indexing service is disabled by default in Windows 7 (this is being done by windows search now), so does it mean you had turned it on before or you are talking about something that was on by default?

 

[Khaotik55]

I disabled search indexing at the same time I disabled windows search, they're two separate options. I tried enabling them both also, to no avail, It's still failing.

 

[hdfrango]

yes, they're distinct, you don't need indexing service, windows search is enough, so that's not our solution.

I guess that meanwhile you've been using alternative search utilities?

I have to say I don't know exactly what gets disabled when you turn windows search off, search in explorer or search in start menu as well? (I'm silly, should have checked that myself when I disabled it earlier)

In case we don't find a solution, you might want to consider those programs (chances are you know them already) :

• everything : Everything Search Engine
• effective file search : File search tool for Windows XP/Vista/2000/2003/9X
• executor (or farr) - to replace the start menu search : executor.dk

everything is great for a quick search, while effective file search is a full featured search program meant to replace windows search function

 

[Khaotik55]

"I have to say I don't know exactly what gets disabled when you turn windows search off, search in explorer or search in start menu as well?"

Both, they completely disappear. I don't really use Search I would just like it there just in case I needed to find a specific file or what not.

 

[hdfrango]

in that case, just go with the alternatives above, you'll be happy

 

[stevieray]

Have you tried the old "sfc /scannow" trick?

 

[hdfrango]

he doesn't have the install disc, unless somehow windows 7 manages that differently and requires no disc?

 

[Khaotik55]

Have you tried the old "sfc /scannow" trick?

That actually worked thanks.

It didn't ask for my DVD, but that might have been because I mounted the ISO onto a virtual drive, but once again my search works, thank you.

It also added some effects on the top of my file transfer windows that I've never seen before, like I was missing it...

 

[stevieray]

Cool. Glad it worked. Happy hunting!

 

[psychfunk]

I have the same problem except I disabled WMP and IE. As with Khaotik55, they disabled perfectly fine, but it gets to 96% on renabling them, and then I get a failure message and it reverts changes. No error message or codes as such. Windows 7 x64 Build 7600.
Only problem I've had with Seven so far...
Thanks in advance.