I may have fixed this on my system by reverting the index locations to default. In Registry Editor, set SetupCompletedSuccessfully = 0 in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search and restart your system. This will set the locations to: CPU usage remains normal so far after pressing Win
Purging and reinstalling Start10 hasn't resolved the issue here. Rebuilding the index hasn't either. Are there specific index locations that should or shouldn't be included? Here are my current search and index settings:
The following Start10 thread may be related to the issue: Start10_64.dll!Hook+0x7bb80 – there's two of these whenever a search is performed. Stack 1: ntoskrnl.exe!KeSynchronizeExecution+0x5aa6 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x1422 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0xab4 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x255 ntoskrnl.exe!KeGetProcessorNumberFromIndex+0xfc7 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x34b8 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x16fa<
For me, this issue occurs whenever I press just Win and type a search term. If I use Win+S to open a search box, then type a search term, CPU usage remains normal.
I've noticed the same issue recently on Windows 10 1903 (18362.207). Process Explorer shows a new thread in explorer.exe adding CPU cycles rapidly after each search via Start10. Logging off and back on terminates those threads. They also seem to terminate after a while, but that usually takes 15-30 minutes at least. Start address is usually "ntdll.dll!RtlInitializeResource+0x410". Here's a sample stack: ntoskrnl.exe!KeSynchronizeExecution+0x5aa6 ntoskrnl.exe!KeWai