# Windows search not responding?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-search-not-responding/712671>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 14, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-search-not-responding/712671 "2015-02-14T21:16:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-search-not-responding/712671/1 "2015-02-14T21:16:18Z")

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Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit. Sometime in the last few days, search has failed. I can type into the start menu box, or any file manager search box, but… nothing. It won’t initiate a search, nor does it auto-search (as on the start menu, to bring up programs from partial names.

I’ve searched, run an MS fixit tool, run system troubleshooting and repair, and tried all but the most esoteric and seemingly irrelevant repairs and fixes I’ve found described. No fixee. This has persisted through at least two reboots.

Any clues?

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-search-not-responding/712671/2 "2015-02-16T04:47:51Z")

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I’ve had that happen a couple of times in Windows 7, but a restart always fixed it. If that doesn’t work. I’d suggest checking your services to make sure Windows Search is set to Automatic startup.

Other than that, I don’t know. I had this problem in Windows 8 when I was testing it out (not a licensed copy), but I never figured out how to fix it.

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**Author:** ![straight\_doped](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@straight\_doped](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_doped)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-search-not-responding/712671/3 "2015-02-16T05:09:23Z")

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is search and indexing turned on and running?

[http://techtrix.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Fix-Windows-7-Search-Index](http://techtrix.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Fix-Windows-7-Search-Index)