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The ability to search for anything on one of my Windows 2008 R2 servers has, for reasons unknown, stopped working.
For example I can't search for anything via the Start Menu:
Clicking "See more results" displays this error dialogue:
I can't search for files or folders in Explorer (there's no network drives, just a C:
drive). All that happens is the search term is displayed in the explorer window title bar (see red highlights):
And most annoyingly, I also can't search for specific installed updates. Again all that happens is the search term is repeated in the window title bar:
This isn't because the Windows Search feature isn't installed. My other Windows 2008 R2 servers don't have that installed either but their search widgets work just fine.
I did bump into this hotfix:
But when I try to install it I'm told that:
The update is not applicable to your computer.
I also tried the workaround in this article which involves deleting the following HKEY_CURRENT_USER
registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes\{ef87b4cb-f2ce-4785-8658-4ca6c63e38c6}
I also tried creating different accounts on this server as well and all result in the same behaviour described above.
Finally, I also tried the solution provided in the answer to this question but that didn't work either:
Windows 7's start menu's search "see more results" is broken
I don't need to search for matching expressions inside files, I just need to search for files and folders names matching a pattern, stuff on the start menu and in particular for specific Windows Updates and hotfixes.
How do I get search working again on this server?
Is the Windows Search service running? – Dr.Ping – 2016-08-04T23:12:10.703
@Dr.Ping - it's not needed and certainly not installed on all my other 2008R2 servers where finding stuff from the Start Menu, files Explorer and Windows updates works just fine. – Kev – 2016-08-05T11:47:37.373
not talking about the Indexing service. In the list of services, is there not a Windows Search (wsearch) service? – Dr.Ping – 2016-08-07T16:20:03.907