Search still broken

Lots of things are different, the common denominator is Stardock search

from Stardock Forums

Start11 search does not return usable results for documents and many other item types. Also, Start11 search results are not remotely the same as what native Windows Start Menu search returns. 

I posted about this problem about a year ago when it was Start10 and a different PC. When I built a new PC, I immediately bought a license for Start 11 and installed it. The same search problems were immediately present on that machine and install as well. So, different hardware, pristine new Windows install (release channel), same non-functional search. I have been forced to turn off Start11 search, which results in the Windows start menu popping on and taking over search which, while functional, is not an ideal user experience. If I had to guess, this may have some relation to Windows' ability to search OneDrive files that are synched but not necessarily physically downloaded to the PC. I was told the last time that I reported this that Start used the exact same mechanism as Windows to return search results, but I think this is not precisely the case. While I can get by with the abrupt switching between the Start11 menu and Windows Start menus when I search, I would prefer to be able to use Start11 as intended.

stardock software
26,041 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
I have forward your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

A couple of questions to try and paint a general picture of the issue:

  • Is this only happening on your onedrive items or is this happening to you for programs as well? Your last post made it sounds like programs, this one seems like you are only referencing non executable type files.
  • In the other post you mentioned openshell, have you tried Start11 on a clean system that has never had openshell or anything similar (explorer patcher) ever installed?
  • Is there anything in particular that would be on the common users system that always fails to find any results so this can try to be reproduced? (For example, typing winv in search does not find winver.exe)

Also, what Start11 version are you currently running?

Paul Scroggins
Associate Technical Support Analyst

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

This problem is most pronounced for non-application file searches, as that is where the great majority of my searches are directed. I am not noticing missing applications this time and yes, application searches were also causing problems on that original post, but problems were not limited to those types.

As stated in the OP, this problem manifested on a virgin system install, so nothing else had been installed (nor has anything related been to-date on this system).

I don't tend to search for system apps, so I don't have a lot of examples but winver.exe does return in a Start11 search. However, here's a search for ubiquitous functionality that works as expected in native search but fails in Start11:

Search for ClearType

Windows returns...

Start11 returns...

This example may demonstrate that the differences are wide ranging, but the most painful difference is in Start11's ability to locate documents and files that readily appear in Windows start search. Even files that are present in app jumplists in Start11 are not returned in a Start11 search.

 

Until yesterday, I was running the latest release version of Start11. Just to make sure nothing would be different before posting, I installed the latest Beta 1.22 version.

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Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

As a heads up you seem to be using the Start10 search mode not Start11.  This will return results identically to Start10 and will not have any of the improvements to search that were added in Start11.

That mode was added for those who needed Start11 to return the same search as Start10.  For all other use cases I would strongly advise you to use the newer search as it will produce superior results especially for applications and setting searches. 

That said a search for the term Cleartype is not producing any results which is curious as we would expect it to do so.  We shall investigate further why that particular search isn't producing any settings results given that all the other settings seem to be showing up just fine.

For documents I suspect given the reference to Jumplists (which themselves I don't think are ever searched by Windows) that the files you are looking for many be being picked up from the OS recent documents folder which doesn't seem to be being searched for some reason.  I was under the impression it was but will check what is up with that.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 4

I suspect given the reference to Jumplists
End of Neil's quote

Just to clarify, my reference to jumplists was only meant to illustrate what information Start11 search could see, but not search. It is not meant to imply there's some direct relation between jumplists and search. I don't believe this problem is related to recent documents, as Windows search will find just about any document between local, OneDrive, and SharePoint (OneDrive for Business) whether accessed recently or not, but Start11 has a pretty poor track record of finding the same documents.

Quoting Neil, reply 4

As a heads up you seem to be using the Start10 search mode not Start11
End of Neil's quote

I am also not using the Start10 search mode:

Not sure if maybe you thought the example of an actual Windows 10 search (for direct comparison purposes) was that?

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting RealRedJay, reply 5


Quoting Neil Banfield,
reply 4

I suspect given the reference to Jumplists



Just to clarify, my reference to jumplists was only meant to illustrate what information Start11 search could see, but not search. It is not meant to imply there's some direct relation between jumplists and search. I don't believe this problem is related to recent documents, as Windows search will find just about any document between local, OneDrive, and SharePoint (OneDrive for Business) whether accessed recently or not, but Start11 has a pretty poor track record of finding the same documents.


Quoting Neil Banfield,
reply 4

As a heads up you seem to be using the Start10 search mode not Start11



I am also not using the Start10 search mode:



Not sure if maybe you thought the example of an actual Windows 10 search (for direct comparison purposes) was that?

End of RealRedJay's quote

Sorry the extra icons at the top confused me as I though they only showed with the old mode, but I was wrong they show with both.

If you are willing to try we have a tweak to search which might help.  There are some instructions to follow however.

1) Press Win+R and run services.msc

2) Find Stardock Start11 listed and stop the service

3) Download https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/S11Search64%20-%20Test.zip

4) Extract this to the Start11 program files(x86) folder and replace the existing exe

5) Start the Stardock Start11 service again

Now try a search.

This will not help the cleartype tuner search as that handled differently, but does this help find your files you were looking for better?

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 6

does this help find your files you were looking for better?
End of Neil's quote

I replaced S11Search64.exe as instructed. A few documents that were previously unfound do now appear.  However, there are still many searches that do not return the expected results, and completely different ones to the native Windows search. I can type the exact name of many documents and they will not appear in the Start11 search while appearing before completing the name in native search.

The majority of documents I search for (and therefore are not being found) are located on connected OneDrive for Business libraries, aka modern SharePoint. I'm not sure if it's relevant to the problem, just something that may be a factor. On the other hand, I find that Start11 does a pretty good job of locating files in the Documents folder, even though it is also located in/synched with OneDrive.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting RealRedJay, reply 7


Quoting Neil Banfield,
reply 6

does this help find your files you were looking for better?



I replaced S11Search64.exe as instructed. A few documents that were previously unfound do now appear.  However, there are still many searches that do not return the expected results, and completely different ones to the native Windows search. I can type the exact name of many documents and they will not appear in the Start11 search while appearing before completing the name in native search.

The majority of documents I search for (and therefore are not being found) are located on connected OneDrive for Business libraries, aka modern SharePoint. I'm not sure if it's relevant to the problem, just something that may be a factor. On the other hand, I find that Start11 does a pretty good job of locating files in the Documents folder, even though it is also located in/synched with OneDrive.

End of RealRedJay's quote

I suspect the use of onedrive for business is indeed the problem here.  Windows has a defined location for the onedrive files which you can open by using Win+R and typing %onedrive% and running that.  This can therefore be searched, but with two versions of Onedrive only one can use the location.  I would be curious to know what it shows when you run the above command and also where the one drive for business files are actually located on your hard drive?

You can find this out by right clicking on a file in the folder and picking properties.  The location should then show a full path.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 8

would be curious to know what it shows when you run the above command and also where the one drive for business files are actually located on your hard drive?
End of Neil's quote

The folder the %OneDrive% environment variable points to is actually the OneDrive for Business folder. It is located at D:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive - COMPANYNAME

It might be helpful to know that there are additional environment variables present that might be relevant to this:
%OneDriveCommercial% and %OneDriveConsumer% are also present.

%OneDriveConsumer% points to D:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive and %OneDriveCommercial% is the same as %OneDrive% above

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Any update on this problem? Start11 search results are worse than ever. Searching "update" doesn't even bring up a link to Windows Update in settings anymore, while native Windows search brings up a long list of related options. I prefer the search interface on Start11 but have had to disable Start11 search in order to reliably be able to find anything that's not a start menu shortcut.