Cortana Search Issues – How to Fix Cortana Not Finding Applications on Windows 10

windows 10

For the past several versions (since Windows Vista, I think), if you hit the Windows key and start typing, Windows will search for applications.

Since upgrading to Windows 10 with Cortana, she is only hit or miss at finding applications. And she doesn't do partial searches, either.

Some examples:

  • WinKey + type "Paint" does not find "mspaint". Instead it suggests some applications from the store.
  • WinKey + type "Excel" does not find Excel. Nor does typing "Word" find Word. However, typing OneNote finds OneNote.

What is the reason for this behavior and how I can get Cortana to find the applications installed on my machine again? Is there a setting I am missing?

If I browse to "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" I can see that the shortcuts for these applications all still exist. But Cortana is not finding them. Everything from the Microsoft Office applications to IIS to Beyond Compare to hundreds of other applications I have installed.

Where can I set which folders Cortana indexes?

As you can see in the screen shot below, this Start Menu folder is, indeed, indexed:

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However, none of these applications are coming back as search results from the "start" menu.

It may be related to this issue as well.

I did a brand new install of Skype (for desktop), and it shows up nowhere in the start menu. And typing in "Skype" to search for the application does not find it. But the shortcut to Skype is definitely in this location:

C:\Users\Patrick\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Skype

EDIT

The latest Windows 10 update (Threshold 2) has solved this issue for me. Cortana now finds all my files with no issues. Previously my only solution was to use Classic Shell, I've been able to uninstall that now and use the standard Windows Start menu.

Best Answer

Found a solution here: Cortana not finding Desktop apps when searching for them

Here is the relevant part:

I reinstalled Cortana using the following procedure:

  1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window (press win + X, and then press A)
  2. Type start powershell and press enter
  3. Run the command (in one line):

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

After 30 seconds the problem was solved on my machine. Incredible.

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