Windows 11 Search indexing not working


Here’s a quick fix for anyone suffering from the same problem. I noticed that indexing was turned off on my Windows 11 device, so I decided to take a look.

In the Control Panel\Indexing Options applet, nothing was listed in the locations and the Windows Search service was attempting to start but failing to do so.

To fix the problem, I had to go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications and rename the Windows folder as it reported as corrupt. Instantly a new Windows folder was created as the Windows Search service kicked back in and all was good.

3 comments

  1. I have been pulling my hair and searching all over the internet for this problem, there you are, so simple it’s beautiful, thank you, Paul, indexing is finally on. the problem was directly in the windows installation. Instead of upgrading from ten, I used the media creation tool and made a USB flash drive to install completely fresh. should I have known it would be so much trouble, I would have upgraded

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