Search causes Vista to stop responding

[Jeno]

Hi

I have a problem with my Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit installation on
a computer with ASUS A8V deluxe mobo, AMD X2 4200+ CPU, 2 GB Corsair
ram, Geforce6200 Gfx card, 3 IDE HD's, a Plextor DVD-RW and a RME
Fireface 800 audiointerface.

After installing everything successfully I installed AVG antivirus,
and this caused a serious crash, and I had to spend an afternoon
getting the machine running again.

Now everything is fine except when I type something in a searchfield
the computer stalls after 2 or 3 letters. I can still select other
applications, but as soon as I press anything in that application
(f.ex. click on a link in Internet Explorer or try to start a new
application from the start menu) it goes down too. I cannot acces the
"Task Manager" and after a while there's nothing else to do than
hitting the reboot button :-(

When I access the "Index Options" in Control Panel it says "Waiting to
receive indexing status..." and nothing happens (I even tried to let
it run for 10 hours). The "Modify" and "Advanced" buttons are greyed
out, so I can't access anything. I have unticked the "Index this drive
for faster searching" option for 2 of the 4 logical drives (I didn't
want to move them on the Vista system drive and the Win XP drive - I
run a dual boot machine) but it didn't change anything.

It seems to me that the indexing service was broken when the computer
crashed. Does anyone have an idea of how I can get this working again?

 

[Jeno]

Hi

I have a problem with my Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit installation on
a computer with ASUS A8V deluxe mobo, AMD X2 4200+ CPU, 2 GB Corsair
ram, Geforce6200 Gfx card, 3 IDE HD's, a Plextor DVD-RW and a RME
Fireface 800 audiointerface.

After installing everything successfully I installed AVG antivirus,
and this caused a serious crash, and I had to spend an afternoon
getting the machine running again.

Now everything is fine except when I type something in a searchfield
the computer stalls after 2 or 3 letters. I can still select other
applications, but as soon as I press anything in that application
(f.ex. click on a link in Internet Explorer or try to start a new
application from the start menu) it goes down too. I cannot acces the
"Task Manager" and after a while there's nothing else to do than
hitting the reboot button :-(

When I access the "Index Options" in Control Panel it says "Waiting to
receive indexing status..." and nothing happens (I even tried to let
it run for 10 hours). The "Modify" and "Advanced" buttons are greyed
out, so I can't access anything. I have unticked the "Index this drive
for faster searching" option for 2 of the 4 logical drives (I didn't
want to move them on the Vista system drive and the Win XP drive - I
run a dual boot machine) but it didn't change anything.

It seems to me that the indexing service was broken when the computer
crashed. Does anyone have an idea of how I can get this working again?

Now it says "Indexing is not runnig" when I open the "indexing
options". The service status for "Windows Search" is "starting". It is
set to automatic.

Anyone knows how I can get my searchfunction back?

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

If you are comfortable modifying the registry you can set the value of the
key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
Search\SetupCompletedSuccessfully to 0 and then reboot. This will delete
everything the indexer has currently indexed and start again.

However, given that you are having problems with clicking on links and
opening Start Menu apps it may that something more fundamental than search
had got currupted on your machine. Worth a try though ...

Dave Wood

 

[Jeno]

If you are comfortable modifying the registry you can set the value of the
key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
Search\SetupCompletedSuccessfully to 0 and then reboot. This will delete
everything the indexer has currently indexed and start again.

However, given that you are having problems with clicking on links and
opening Start Menu apps it may that something more fundamental than search
had got currupted on your machine. Worth a try though ...

Dave Wood

I gave up and reinstalled everything, and now it works again. Had a
wierd crash yesterday though.... Booted the machine, logged in and as
soon as everything was loaded, the machine stopped responding. I
couldn't get in contact with anything, so I had to hit the reset
button. It didn't do any harm, but it seems that Vista is not 100%
stabile yet. This kind of behavior never happened on XP - even on XP
RC1.

 

[Guest]

I am not having as serious of problems that you are.......I think. However I
have been trying to figure out why my CPU will not go below 50% usage, with
the only service running is the SearchIndexer.exe. I have gone to the
Indexing Options in control panel, and it says "Waiting to receive indexing
status..." and nothing happens. The "Modify" and "Advanced" buttons are
greyed out, so I can't access anything.

Are these problems related? Frustrating to see the CPU at 50% usage with no
applications running....Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

 

[Jeno]

I am not having as serious of problems that you are.......I think. However I
have been trying to figure out why my CPU will not go below 50% usage, with
the only service running is the SearchIndexer.exe. I have gone to the
Indexing Options in control panel, and it says "Waiting to receive indexing
status..." and nothing happens. The "Modify" and "Advanced" buttons are
greyed out, so I can't access anything.

Are these problems related? Frustrating to see the CPU at 50% usage with no
applications running....Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

Oh, thats right. I had that CPU taxing problem too. Seems like you
have the same thing going on as I did. Sorry I can't give you the
solution. I got tired of dealing with the problem and spent a day
reinstalling everything instead. Not the elegant solution, but it
worked

Have you tried following Dave's suggestion?

 

[Guest]

Dave's suggestion of resetting the search indexer by setting the registry
worked!! My search indexing never worked since day one. It's actually
pretty good. Now my CPU is running at a low percentage when the computer's
virtually idle, which is what it should do. Thank you Dave!