Windows 10: Cortana Search is not finding portable applications

cortanafindportableshortcutswindows 10

This question deals with finding applications in general but not portable ones: Cortana Search is not finding applications on Windows 10

I have a portable application located but not installed at C:\sdk\cmder\Cmder.exe. I also have a shortcut located at: C:\Users\twing\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\cmder.

Finding normal, installed applications, work fine, but I can't find cmder, if I search for it, and it works the same for other portable apps.

Re-indexing doesn't affect the problem at all.
I even added a new indexed location C:\sdk\shortcuts and added cmder and an internet shortcut, but it doesn't work either.

I also tried adding C:\sdk itself where the ยด.exe`s are located, but it makes no difference.

How do I fix this?

Best Answer

Portable Apps, or really any Programs at all can be indexed in one of two ways.

  1. By being located on the System Path as a *.exe
  2. Being within the Registry. There are several ways to accomplish this, but the easiest of these is to register the Application within App Paths

An example of this being (in PowerShell):

New-Item -Path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\myapplication.exe -Value C:\blah\myapplication.exe