I'm facing an annoying issue where the Windows Search service gets stuck in the 'starting' state on a couple of machines at work, usually about once a week. Simply killing the process and restarting it doesn't help, and rebooting the PCs doesn't solve the problem either. The indexing troubleshooter hangs because the service won't move past starting. The only way to fix it temporarily is to delete and rebuild the index, after which the service starts fine, but then the issue comes back within a week. I've even wiped and rebuilt one of the machines, but the problem returned after a few weeks. This is happening on two machines, and it feels like there's some software, a driver, or a configuration causing it, but I'm not sure how to figure that out. Does anyone know how to determine what's causing the service to hang and why it needs the index rebuilt?
3 Answers
How old are the machines you're working with? Sometimes older machines might struggle with certain services more than newer ones.
The Windows Search feature relies on SQL to function properly. It might be worth checking if there's any software on these machines that could be interfering with it, or if the system shuts down unexpectedly. For instance, if these machines are virtualized and moving between hosts, that can lead to issues as well.
I've practically given up on the Windows Search service myself! It often fails to locate files that I know are on my PC. I turned it off and now use WizFile instead. It might not index contents but it's fast and gets the job done for me! You might want to give it a shot.
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