As we all probably did, I recently upgraded to Windows 10. I was really impressed with how greatly MSFT improved the search function from 7 to 8/8.1, however in Win10, the search function just did not work for me. Using some Google-FU, I was not alone and here is what I found it to fix it:

1. Kill the process ‘explorer.exe’ (Run PowerShell -OR CMD as Admin)

taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
  1. Navigate to this registry key, and DELETE it:

(I recommend using REGJUMP, it’s just sooo handy!)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes{ef87b4cb-f2ce-4785-8658-4ca6c63e38c6}\TopViews{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}`
  1. Launch ‘explorer.exe’ again

(You should find more stuff now, but still not all…)

  1. Make sure the ‘Windows Search’ service is running

  2. Run the following PowerShell command:

(Re-install / build Cortana…)

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
  1. Last but not least, make sure your “Indexing Options” in the Control Panel are set correctly. I Made sure I selected the right disks and drives, and rebuild the index from scratch, that took a while…

  2. Enjoy your working and fast search! :o)