Windows Desktop Search error: The path '- Windows Desktop Search'does not exist or is not a director

  • Thread starter Thread starter ajkessel
  • Start date Start date
A

ajkessel

Whenever I try to do a search with WDS under XP SP3 now, I get a
"Windows Explorer" dialog box popping up with the error: "The path '-
Windows Desktop Search' does not exist or is not a directory." I've
searched around and found very few reports of this problem and no
proposed solutions. Any ideas how to troubleshoot?
 
That knowledge base article is not related to the problem described
here. The problem I am having is Windows Desktop Search (under XP SP3)
doesn't allow any queries. The article linked relates to Windows
Update not working under Windows 98. I am pretty sure it is a totally
independent issue. In any case, the fixes suggested in the kb article
don't work (the registry setting discussed there is not set for me).
 
I figured it out. The problem was that I had disabled dde for Explorer
(I was having a separate issue that DDE calls to Explorer were
experiencing long delays). By restoring DDE in the registry, WDS could
be queried again.

The relevant keys were HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\explore\ddeexec
and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec.
 

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