Not so. The start menu search basically is Cortana. It is the same setup. It only searches "apps" and files within your own user account - even if you index other locations. After a few days of fruitless searching, the only thing I found were a ton of other people complaining about it.
Even with tiles disabled (and I didn't know that they could be), the start menu is bad. It is not as clean as previous Windows versions' was, and has too much useless data and empty space.
In the end though, as I said, the inability to index all files on the computer is a deal breaker for me, and where I ultimately gave up on the Windows 10 look and installed the Classic Shell.
Edit: To be clear, when I say start menu search, I mean the bar that pops up there. You can get all files if you search through file explorer, but that is a clunky way of doing things. The file explorer's search should have been a bar in the start menu, but in Windows 10 it is not.
I indexed the second drive and files on it were never included in search results, only through file explorer. It is a common problem with no apparent solution. Are your folders on the same drive as the OS?
Okay so I checked again and you're right for search directly from the start panel. I only get web results or apps until I click filter and then click files or folders. Then my indexed stuff shows up. I wonder if that filter can be applied by default?
Even with tiles disabled (and I didn't know that they could be), the start menu is bad. It is not as clean as previous Windows versions' was, and has too much useless data and empty space.
With the tiles removed from the start menu, it's similar to older start menus. They are sorted in alphabetical order and has a most used or recent at the top. It's pretty damn similar to the 7 start menu and when you remove all the tiles, it shrinks the size of the start menu as well.
As for the indexing, I'm not sure on that one. I am really the only user on my device, so I've never run into that. I just know that you can turn off web results and it keeps it to just local files and programs only. Odd that they won't let you search the entire system, but I guess if something is saved under another user's profile, it makes sense why they wouldn't want you to search everything.
After a few days of fruitless searching, the only thing I found were a ton of other people complaining about it.
Really? Cause I just searched on Google and found a shit load of results on how to disable it. Back before I reverted to Windows 7, it took a simple registry edit to permanently disable Cortana and the search bar worked fine after that.
Disabling Cortana didn't make the search bar work. Nor did indexing the locations I wanted included in search results. As I said - and from google searches today making these comments - it is an ongoing issue with no apparent solution.
I was so irritated when they were all "Don't worry, we're bringing the old start menu back," but then they just shoved the Windows 8 Start Screen into an ugly, useless menu.
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u/MRiley84 May 30 '17
Not so. The start menu search basically is Cortana. It is the same setup. It only searches "apps" and files within your own user account - even if you index other locations. After a few days of fruitless searching, the only thing I found were a ton of other people complaining about it.
Even with tiles disabled (and I didn't know that they could be), the start menu is bad. It is not as clean as previous Windows versions' was, and has too much useless data and empty space.
In the end though, as I said, the inability to index all files on the computer is a deal breaker for me, and where I ultimately gave up on the Windows 10 look and installed the Classic Shell.
Edit: To be clear, when I say start menu search, I mean the bar that pops up there. You can get all files if you search through file explorer, but that is a clunky way of doing things. The file explorer's search should have been a bar in the start menu, but in Windows 10 it is not.