1
Using Windows 8, if regedit is pinned to the start screen, I can press the Windows key and type r-e-g-e-d-i-t. regedit appears from the first keypress and the other entries gradually disappear with each keypress exactly as you would expect.
However, if I unpin it from the start screen, it doesn't appear until I have typed the name in full (the "apps" count goes from 0 to 1 as I type the final 't')
Does the start screen search feature only search pinned apps? If so, why does regedit appear at all?
Andy
Posted 2013-05-07T16:00:12.513
Reputation: 725
Windows 10 has the same deficiency – user145400 – 2017-05-11T15:49:29.443
I just tried your experiment. There is an app named "REG" which I've never seen before. No clue what it is or does. The app will not pin to the task bar, even though a right click produces an option to do exactly that (i.e., pin it). Clicking on the rectangle which holds the word "REG" produces no observable behavior. I join you in wondering what's going on. – User.1 – 2013-05-07T18:12:21.360
By pinning it to the start screen the search is able to look at your pinned applications before it starts to look at other locations. – Ramhound – 2013-05-07T19:26:45.317
1what I don't get is why it will find regedit (when not pinned) by typing in the full name but not by typing reged, because as far as i understand that's not the way the search screen is supposed to work – Andy – 2013-05-08T10:05:43.073
1@User.1: reg.exe provides command-line access to the registry and has been around for a long time now. – Karan – 2013-05-09T17:04:58.740
@Andy: Do you see the same behaviour if you search with Win+Q? Also, can you try
*regedinstead? – Karan – 2013-05-09T17:05:28.850@Karan, if you say it provides command line access, that's fine. Nothing happens when I click it. I'll try it from the command line (just did that) Ah, okay, so that's what was going on. Thanks, now I've learned something. – User.1 – 2013-05-09T17:37:32.927
1@User.1: Perhaps the cmd window opens and closes so fast you don't notice it, or quite likely the window pops up and closes on the desktop side of things and thus nothing is visible on the Start Screen. – Karan – 2013-05-09T17:40:14.767
@Karan: Win+Q gives the same behaviour and *reged gives nothing - in fact even *regedit doesn't work so I'm not sure whether asterisks do anything. – Andy – 2013-05-09T20:55:12.543
@Andy: I'm not sure what the search algo is doing exactly, but looks like it did the exact same thing in Win7 as well. Perhaps indexing the Windows dir + subdirs will improve matters?
– Karan – 2013-05-09T21:22:12.577