Published 7 minutes ago

After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh).

Few things on Windows are more universally hated than its search capabilities. People have been struggling with irrelevant results, Bing searches, and slow performance for years. Alternatives like Everything, Fluent Search, and even local AI solutions have been known for massively improved search performance. That said, you shouldn’t write Windows search off without considering the possibility that your system settings might be behind the poor search performance. Moreover, you might be expecting more from Windows search than what it’s designed to do. If you optimize the search settings and set your expectations right, Windows search won’t feel as bad as everyone claims it is.

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You haven’t touched indexing, cloud search, and other settings

You probably didn’t know you needed to

This is probably the worst mistake most users make before blaming Windows search for being useless. One of the major reasons that Windows search fails to locate your files might be that they aren’t being indexed in the first place. Without comprehensive indexing, you’re unlikely to see better search results, blaming the search feature instead for not doing its job properly. The average user might not even be aware that they need to manually tweak the search indexing settings to include all their files in the defined radius of Windows search.

To do this, search for and open Indexing Options in the search bar, click Advanced, and then navigate to the File Types tab. Here, you can specify all the file extensions you want included in your search results. In the **Add New Extension to the List **field, select all the extensions you want, click Add, and then click OK.

Next, in the Indexing Options main window, click **Modify **and include all the folders you want Windows to include in the index. Click **OK **to save your changes, and wait for Windows to complete the indexing process. Once it’s done, your search results will improve considerably, since Windows is more likely to locate the file or folder you’re looking for. The need to manage the indexing settings should be clearer, but it is what it is. Maybe you won’t need to find an alternative search tool after modifying your indexing settings the way you want to, and that’s not a small win.

Another setting that can help you improve Windows search results is Search my accounts, which allows you to view results from OneDrive, Outlook, and SharePoint. As long as you’re signed in to them, Windows search will be able to pull results from your work as well as personal accounts. Look for **Search **settings in Privacy & security settings, and ensure the toggles for **Microsoft account **and Work or School account under Search my accounts are turned on. You should also make use of pinned searches whenever you find the right search results. This will make your life far easier when you search for the same or a similar thing next time.

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You’ve probably made Windows search worse over time

Not intentionally though

When you set up your new PC months or years ago, you probably disabled some Windows settings for better performance. One of these is very likely to be search indexing. Considering the reputation of Windows search, most people feel comfortable disabling indexing since they don’t plan to rely on the default search feature anyway. However, if you return to it years later, having forgotten the settings you disabled, you might blame Windows search instead of yourself. Enabling search indexing in **Indexing Options **will significantly improve the search performance, as I mentioned in the previous section. Next, you might have used one or more debloat scripts on Windows to disable multiple settings in one go. Some of them might have been related to Windows search, leading to the terrible results and slow performance you’re used to seeing.

It might already be working as intended

You’re just expecting it to do much more

Windows search isn’t perfect, but it’s also not the hot mess most people think it is. It was always designed to help you find applications, Windows settings, and recent files, not to work like a search engine. If you repeatedly type in vague filenames and deep queries, don’t be surprised at all the Bing results. If your search indexing settings are properly optimized, and you’re utilizing filters, categories, and pinned searches, then Windows search is already working as best it can. Expecting it to behave as a brainstorming assistant or PC archeologist is setting yourself up for failure. If you’re already using Windows search to launch the Command Prompt, Device Manager, and System Information window by typing "cmd," "dev," and "msinfo," respectively, then search is working as intended.

Windows search might not hold a candle to third-party alternatives, but most people don’t switch to them because they need them. They switch because they gave up on Windows search too soon. Bad search performance might very well be linked to unoptimized settings, which are easy to fix.

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Windows search isn’t the best, but it might be enough for your needs

Windows search is probably all you need, provided you set it up properly. Ensuring proper indexing settings to cover all the files you want to be covered, and utilizing all the built-in features is key to making the most of Windows’ default search capabilities. If you still wish for more functionality, alternatives like Everything and Fluent Search are always there, but don’t jump to them because you think Windows search is useless.