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Since upgrading to Windows 8.1 from 8, I've noticed that doing a search (Windows + S) is not turning up any Control Panel settings. For example, if I try to find Windows Update by typing in "update", I'm not getting any results. It's almost if the Settings option of the search is not actually doing anything.

Example search with no results

Doing the same search from within the Control Panel itself gives me the results I'm looking for:

enter image description here

Any insight as to why this is happening? I'm fairly certain this worked fine in Windows 8, but I have no way of verifying that. Is this just a setting somewhere that I've missed?

Ryan
  • 593

5 Answers5

10

I had this exact same problem. However the solution wasn't to enable indexing on my SSD.

Counterintuitively, I solved it by simply disabling the Windows Search Service.

Windows Search service disabled

As soon as I disabled Windows Search, search worked perfectly again.

My PC is new and I had recently enabled Windows Search when Microsoft OneNote prompted me to.

OneNote prompts to enable Windows Search service

Given the choice, I went with slower OneNote searches and a working Search charm!

stucampbell
  • 201
6

We had been experiencing exactly the issue you described.

Recently we had migrated to using SSDs and as part of that, we disabled the "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" setting on the C drive.

Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties

After re-enabling this setting, we found that the Control Panel settings returned in the search results (in both Everywhere and in Settings).

lxalln
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1

Hey to do a search in the settings menu the default keyboard shortcut is "Windows + W" not "Windows + S". So try searching for update in the settings menu. Also if your'e not getting anything from typing update then you can try to search for windows update. It should bring up the settings for the update options.

1

I also removed indexing from the drive, and lost all control panel and settings in searches.

You can get them back by enabling Allow files in this folder to have contents indexed in addition to file properties for the folder (and all folders and files under):

C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Packages\windows.immersivecontrolpanel_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState

That way you can keep indexing off for most of your drive.

(I've tested this on Window 10, not 8.1)

Source: Windows 10 forum

Kobi
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0

In my case, I had to:

  1. Enable "Show Administrative Tools" in "Tiles" settings (see this answer)
  2. Add missing links such as "Windows Update" and "Programs and Features" manually in %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools` (not sure why they were not there in the first place).

I can now type Win + S and type "Update", and "Windows Update" shows up.

If you have trouble creating these shortcuts, here are a few links that might help: How to create a Programs and Features shortcut and How to create a Windows Update shortcut

Community
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Christian Rondeau
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