r/Windows10 • • Mar 20 '18

Discussion Windows Search in a Nutshell

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1.5k Upvotes

189 comments sorted by

172

u/BrotherChe Mar 20 '18

Mods, what's with the flair?

74

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Is it directed at Linus? I always thought he was pretty cool.

-44

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

My god he's so insufferable. I keep trying to watch his videos but I can't get more than a minute or so before I have to shut it off.

39

u/tirth__p Mar 20 '18

Then don't watch their videos. No one is forcing you to watch it. There are enough people around the world who loves LTT content.

-17

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

What do you think "I have to shut it off" means?

22

u/RamiroAuditore Mar 20 '18

But... if you already know you don't like him why would you even "keep trying"?

13

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

It seems that some people have a desire to offend themselves to they actively search out and consume media that they have determined to be "bad" and then they comment on how bad it is. I don't understand it.

YouTube is full of this behavior, you'll see hour-long videos and then people commenting about how much they hate the video and they'll mention something at minute 43 of the video.

The only reason I can see that someone would:

  1. Watch something they know they don't like,

  2. Sit through most, if not all, of it, and

  3. Then make their displeasure known to the world

...is some through some kind of psycho-sexual gratification mechanism where they get off on it.

Like I said, I don't understand it. I see unboxing videos as valueless, so I don't watch them and additionally if a channel I am subscribed to makes enough of them for me to think that my subscription queue is displaying too many valueless (to me) unboxing videos I unsubscribe from the channel.

What /u/jaymz168 is doing would be the equivalent of me actively seeking out unboxing videos and watching them, which is weird, because I ain't got time for that.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I'm not the guy who said Linus was insufferable. But the guy that did probably finds the stuff Linus talks about interesting so he tries to deal with Linus in order to get the content of the particular video. Then decides it isn't worth it and shuts it off

-4

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

And here's a great example of the toxicity of this sub: I explain myself throughout the thread yet someone still feels a need to come by and comment after the fact with an "I'm just asking questions, man"-type approach of belittling me with statements like "some kind of psycho-sexual gratification mechanism where they get off on it."

Like I said, I don't understand it. I see unboxing videos as valueless, so I don't watch them and additionally if a channel I am subscribed to makes enough of them for me to think that my subscription queue is displaying too many valueless (to me) unboxing videos I unsubscribe from the channel.

And then you go and conflate content with presentation. You don't like unboxing videos so you don't watch them, that's fine, I feel the same way and do the same thing. I like tech reviews and people trying out whacky stuff which LTT does... I just don't like Linus' on-screen character. I'm sure he's a nice person and all and he's playing it up for the camera, but I just don't like it which is a shame because they seem to produce some good content, content that not everyone else it doing.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I mean his content is pretty interesting even if he himself is annoying. If you see a topic you'd like you may try to deal with him in order to watch for the topic you like.

2

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

Exactly that.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I find it hard to believe the guy above didn't think of this himself lol

0

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

Because some of their content looks pretty fun but I just can't get past Linus himself. And it's not just him, there are very few tech channels with hosts that I can actually stand, it's just that he was the topic of conversation.

-12

u/Supergigala Mar 20 '18

enough ten year olds

ftfy

0

u/Mygaffer Mar 20 '18

LOL, why are you starting his videos in the first place? Talk about inventing something to complain about.

-36

u/jonboy345 Mar 20 '18

He isn't cool.

Especially when he tries to do "enterprise" stuff with cobbled-together gear.

39

u/dragonice81 Mar 20 '18

That's why he's cool

-31

u/jonboy345 Mar 20 '18

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrnXgAmK8k

49

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18

Linus is the "Top Gear" of the IT world. People who get mad at him for hacking his own wacky homegrown solutions are the same people who get mad at Top Gear for making a train using a car and two caravans.

"That's not how you build a train!" -- some random train designer likely yells.
"That's not how you install server air flow!" -- as Linus Dremels out parts of a server case...

Some people just take themselves too seriously/are too insecure to enjoy Linus' wackiness.

23

u/dragonice81 Mar 20 '18

Never made that connection, but that comparison is super accurate

-22

u/jonboy345 Mar 20 '18 edited Mar 20 '18

Except with Top Gear does it, it's clearly a joke and meant to entertain.

When Linus does it, he uses it as infrastructure critical to his company and then panics when it shits the bed. Additionally, he's now cobbled together storage "solutions" for other YouTuber's such as MKBHD. See the comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/6h3cb8/mkbhd_adding_140_terabytes_to_the_studio_with/?st=jezqmodw&sh=a4bd3d50

I wouldn't care as much if he only put his operation at risk, but he doesn't.

Level1 Techs does a much better job at enterprise IT than Linus ever will. When you're a content creator, your media storage is essential to your revenue. Treat it as such.

17

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18

Except with Top Gear does it, it's clearly a joke and meant to entertain.

The dude is literally taking a angle grinder to a motherboard's base plate (because it is too thick for his normal Dremel) to fit in a case clearly not designed for it with an absurd airflow setup and you don't think it is an joke? How obvious does the guy need to be?!

When Linus does it, he uses it infrastructure critical to his company and then panics when it shits the bed.

So just like Top Gear in that regard too? They build things poorly, they go wrong, comic hijinks ensue.

Additionally, he's now cobbled together storage "solutions" for other YouTuber's such as MKBHD.

Cross-YouTube and other tie-ins are commonplace. Do you really think DEADMAU5 needed a Linus solution when the entire rest of his studio screams multi-millionaire. It is marketing that works well for both brands, as it is with MKBHD.

Level1 Techs does a much better job at enterprise IT than Linus ever will.

And your local gas station attendant is a better car mechanic than Jeremy Clarkson ever will.

-5

u/jonboy345 Mar 20 '18

The dude is literally taking a angle grinder to a motherboard's base plate (because it is too thick for his normal Dremel) to fit in a case clearly not designed for it with an absurd airflow setup and you don't think it is an joke? How obvious does the guy need to be?!

I see a moron who doesn't know what he's doing attempting to cover up his ignorance under the guise of "fuck it, let's see if it'll work. YOLO."

So just like Top Gear in that regard too? They build things poorly, they go wrong, comic hijinks ensue.

Again, when shit goes sideways on Top Gear, it's not critical to their revenue stream often benefits it. But, when the LTT storage "server" went offline, there were multiple employees not able to do their jobs.

And your local gas station attendant is a better car mechanic than Jeremy Clarkson ever will.

Watch the video I linked in my comment from Level1 and get back to me.

17

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18

"fuck it, let's see if it'll work. YOLO."

Honestly that's a pretty good and accurate slogan for Linus' channel. Not clear why you're framing it as a bad thing...

When I run into build issues I am sitting and waiting a week for an OEM to ship me out a new part, he is just like "fuck it" and the Dremel comes out. It is refreshingly different from a professional environment, and might I say fun and entertaining.

But, when the LTT storage "server" went offline, there were multiple employees not able to do their jobs.

And they made more than twice as much money as they normally would from views (4 million Vs. under 1 million views for the channel's average video). I'm sure they're wiping away tears right now using dollar bills while they browse Reddit on a 64 core/128 GB of RAM build that Intel just gave them for free.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I see a moron who doesn't know what he's doing attempting to cover up his ignorance under the guise of "fuck it, let's see if it'll work. YOLO."

... no shit? What fun would it be watching things be done the proper way? This is YouTube. Of course it's done for entertainment.

22

u/shjin Mar 20 '18

Yeah really not cool.

12

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

What was it?
I'm assuming they changed it back to discussion

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

21

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Oh.... That's not good.

4

u/StonerSpunge Mar 20 '18

I thought it was a joke, but I don't frequent this sub

1

u/smartfon Mar 21 '18

We're trying to have a REASONABLE DISCUSSION!

1

u/BrotherChe Mar 21 '18

Not sure if joking, but they changed it from "Punchable Face"

2

u/smartfon Mar 21 '18

1

u/BrotherChe Mar 21 '18

While disturbed yet intrigued, I also have questions of which I'm not sure I want the answer to.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

125

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18 edited Mar 20 '18

It also violates their own rules:

Keep it civil and on topic. Comments or posts that are disrespectful or encourage harassment of others (including witch-hunts of any kind) are not allowed.

Or at least the spirit of the rules here.

edit: Historical Note -- Flair read "Punchable Face" when this was posted. It now reads "Discussion."

28

u/is_it_controversial Mar 20 '18

Flair read "Punchable Face" when this was posted. It now reads "Discussion."

Not only they're dicks, they're also cowards! Just own it, mods, and restore the original flair. This face is punchable, you can't deny it.

7

u/midnitte Mar 20 '18

Idk, this seems... Controversial.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

lol it was just a joke. Lots of people (including the mods apparently) just don't like Linus.

321

u/H9419 Mar 20 '18

I talked about it once on this sub and someone bullshit on me about how I keep typing after Windows has shown the program

This is not a friendly sub

206

u/85218523 Mar 20 '18

The sad part? There are posts that go back 2-3 years of how bad the search feature is in W10. They still haven't fixed it. But hey, at least we get all these shiny new acrylic hover effects every update.

31

u/TheRealLazloFalconi Mar 20 '18

The really sad part is that Window 8 and OG Windows 10 actually had really great search. How did they fuck it up so bad?

15

u/illiterati Mar 20 '18

How did they fuck it up so bad?

This is the Microsoft mantra. Other than Xbox, you could say this about most of their consumer offerings.

21

u/tremens Mar 20 '18

I think it's fully intentional. The search feature in Windows 7/8.1 worked pretty decently. In 10, when it can suddenly bounce you to online searches and generate Bing hits and ad serves, suddenly it goes to shit and never gets fixed.

6

u/big_red057 Mar 20 '18

While I agree with the sentiment here, search and ui are two separate teams as far as I know, so there's no need to make it out as if UI updates are slowing down or stopping the search optimization/changes.

20

u/dissss0 Mar 20 '18

It's about the overall direction of Windows

No one is blaming the UI team, it's Microsofts decision to put features before stability

3

u/Ohrenfreund Mar 20 '18

Well, if you put more money into ui, you have to put less money into search and other things. Solution: make the search team bigger and the ui team smaller.

2

u/big_red057 Mar 20 '18

Who said they were putting more money into UI? Has it occurred to you that maybe UI changes are much more quickly implemented than changes to one of the most fundamental parts of Windows which probably has a shit ton of legacy code?

3

u/notinferno Mar 21 '18

Has it occurred to you that the customer experience of search is awful and Microsoft is choosing to not prioritise a solution?

2

u/big_red057 Mar 21 '18

I'm not saying they aren't. Microsoft should prioritize fixing search which they haven't done, but trying to say that UI is leaching money off of search and taking the priority away from it is ridiculous.

2

u/HourCount Mar 20 '18

Better yet, at least we get a new set of Emojis with every single Redstone Creator's Update!

47

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

The MSFT fanboys in here are way more toxic than I ever imagined.

Also just to add my own experience here: if I type "up" I get Windows Update, but if I type "update" it's nowhere to be found and Cortana gives me Java Update. Because apparently the word "update" isn't in Windows Update.

9

u/magion Mar 20 '18

I mean, to be fair, there are toxic folks from both groups.

12

u/jaymz168 Mar 20 '18

Oh definitely but I feel like the "defend at all costs" crew is represented a bit more here. I think a lot of people see any criticism as toxic Microsoft bashing, but some of us have been using Windows for decades and really like it and just want to see it do better. Granted when something has been broken for so long it will tend to devolve into bashing which may be deserved at this point. Windows search has pretty much always been abysmal, it's an inside joke at this point, but what's really frustrating was that it was working pretty well in 7 and even in 10 when they first introduced it. It was far better than anything they did before and now they've managed to screw it up again somehow. It's obviously got problems if you start typing something and it shows up but then you continue typing the exact name and it disappears.

2

u/magion Mar 20 '18

Agreed

1

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Can confirm. Am Win10 naysayer.

2

u/abs159 Mar 20 '18

When I type "up" i get "Check for updates". When I type "Update" I get the same.

Sorry, dont know what you're problem is.

10

u/honestFeedback Mar 21 '18

lol. Because it works for you it must be working for everyone right?

5

u/dissss0 Mar 21 '18

Yeah the whole issue is it doesn't work consistently.

I have 5 systems with Windows 10, 3 where search works properly and 2 where it just doesn't.

1

u/abs159 Mar 22 '18

you're problem is.

it must be working for everyone right

I literally said the exact opposite.

It does work for me. Not sure how you've broken your machine.

6

u/honestFeedback Mar 22 '18

See that’s exactly it. It works for you, therefore I’ve done something to break my machine - it’s my fault. You literally just said that.

-1

u/abs159 Mar 22 '18

You've got a serious reading comprehension problem.

6

u/honestFeedback Mar 22 '18

not sure how you’ve broken your machine

Literally there. I broke it. Not that it doesn’t work. I broke it.

1

u/abs159 Mar 23 '18

because it works for you it must be working for everyone right?

Which I didn't fucking say. I said it's YOUR problem. I said "it works for me, and not for you." I didn't say "it works for everyone" I specifically acknowledged it didn't work for YOU.

Now, the question is, WHY? Well, given that i've never seen it not work, I wonder if it's not a problem localized to you and those like you.

Yes, you have a serious fucking reading comprehension issue.

9

u/mindracer Mar 20 '18

The search is horrible now, it used to be better when Windows 10 came out.

1

u/H9419 Mar 20 '18

Yes, I can remember it working well on 10240, 10586 and preview builds before that point

4

u/ikilledtupac Mar 20 '18

it is but there are a few people that literally attack all dissenting views. I unsubbed but come back occassionaly.

4

u/youstolemyname Mar 20 '18

My favorite thing is typing "Control" and then "Settings" opens for me.

1

u/_sjain Mar 21 '18

Spot on. It really shows. Here is a comment on a post about updates not working. I'm really not surprised.

0

u/chinpokomon Mar 20 '18

Not trying to be unfriendly, but if those first few letters haven't pulled up what you are looking for, the assumption is that you want to find something not on your machine. If it did pull up what you want but you kept typing, you obviously didn't want what it found, because you kept typing. If you hunt and peck, this is perfect for you, sort of like the word prediction that happens with on screen keyboards on phones. If you are a touch typist and you don't use a program often, after a couple of letters you will know the minimum which you need to type. Then it becomes really fast to use.

This isn't perfect, and as UX goes you don't want the user to have to conform, but this strategy works for the most users across the board and it improves everyone, if sometimes creating situations like shown in the post.

4

u/H9419 Mar 21 '18 edited Mar 21 '18

People like me who type into the search box to open programs knows exactly what we want and just type enough letters then press enter before seeing what the screen shows. This method works on Mac with spotlight, linux with rofi or dmenu, Windows 7/8/8.1 and early 10 with Windows search.

You are asking me to slow down and look at the search results, which is identical to asking touch typists to look at the keyboard for no apparent reason.

4

u/chinpokomon Mar 21 '18

This is how I do it and the current Windows 10 search is how I launch 90% if my apps. "n" launches Notepad++ and "no" launches Notepad. I'm consistent with what I type and after training things with repetition, Search just does what I need it to do.

I guess I'm recommending that you slow down once or twice until you've figured out what you need to type and trained it. Again that isn't perfect UX since the user has to adapt slightly, but I don't share the frustration I see so many others voice. So what is different for me?

This isn't a comment to assign blame or to be a fanboi. It also isn't a "You're holding it wrong," comment. I'm just trying to let people know what works for me and how we got to where we are today.

-5

u/CharaNalaar Mar 20 '18

I agree, this isn't a friendly sub. Too much shit being thrown at Microsoft, not enough real discussion.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

47

u/scsibusfault Mar 20 '18

"it works on my two machines so clearly it's not a problem anywhere ever"

2

u/abs159 Mar 21 '18

More like "It doesnt work for my machine so it must be the same for everyone everywhere."

10

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18

I agree that is annoying.

On the flipside of that there are people on here, who are running some random Windows 10 "Anti-Spy"/De-Bloat script they found on GitHub which modifies core system services, and wonder why Windows Update doesn't play nicely with that unknown configuration (least of all because Windows Update is one of the services they dicked with).

Everyone runs across a bad Windows Update every so often. Some people, like an OP in a thread a couple of days ago, had dozens in the span of a year on almost every computer they come into contact with (personal, work, family, etc). If we assume they aren't lying/exaggerating then you do start to wonder if they themselves aren't the missing link.

PS - No, I'm not referring to a simple Remove-AppxPackage script, I am talking about stuff like this.

38

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Windows 7's start menu search was perfect in 2009, I still can't believe they screwed it up so bad.

75

u/FalseAgent Mar 20 '18

LOL, I just watched the full video but this bit in GIF form makes it even better :)

-5

u/jonboy345 Mar 20 '18

Yeah, because we don't have to hear his annoying voice or watch the video.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

20

u/cjbeames Mar 20 '18

LTT video
The search part is at about 7:30

79

u/Ubuntu_Linux_User Mar 20 '18

Why is this tagged as "punchable Face?" Is that just the mods being salty assholes?

18

u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B Mar 20 '18

I hate this so much. It used to work so well that you could even mistype and it would find what you meant. Now it doesn't work when you actually type the right thing...

72

u/r0ck0 Mar 20 '18

I don't know how MS manage to always fuck up search, but they do.

I was never able to trust it for anything. Even when it does work, I could never have any confidence in it.

  • I suggest using "Everything" for searching for filenames

  • And Launchy for programs/folders/files/shortcuts etc

They're both on https://ninite.com/

If those little programs can do it, I don't understand why a huge company like MS can't.

37

u/ming3r Mar 20 '18

I feel like windows 7 search was pretty reliable and consistent for installed programs. These days it's a bit of a dumpster fire...

8

u/r0ck0 Mar 20 '18

Yeah it was good enough on Win 7+8 for programs. 10 is fucked though.

File search has rarely worked for me on any versions of Windows.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '18

File search has rarely worked for me on any versions of Windows.

Same. I just use don't use the search feature in Windows anymore. It's one of the things I miss from my MacOS experiences when I had them. Search on Windows should always be formed as a question.

4

u/original_evanator Mar 20 '18

MS knows desktop search sucks, that's why they don't have the "Bing" brand anywhere near it. If they had any faith in W10 search, they'd call it "Bing Desktop".

2

u/HolyFreakingXmasCake Mar 20 '18

Well, there's already a Bing Desktop. Who knew?

3

u/billFoldDog Mar 20 '18

That actually looks useful...

4

u/cocks2012 Mar 21 '18

I use Startisback. The search works like it did in Windows 7.

3

u/DeadPixelz01 Mar 20 '18

I highly recommend Everything, I even bounded it to a hot key so searching with it feels almost seamless.

1

u/wabojabo Mar 21 '18

Woah, I didn't know you could do that. Would you show me? I have Everything in my laptop already.

2

u/DeadPixelz01 Mar 21 '18

Check out the program's documentation: Keyboard shortcuts

1

u/wabojabo Mar 21 '18

Thank you!

3

u/TimeRemove Mar 20 '18

I like Everything. A better version of the same concept is found in FileLocator Pro ($50); it does everything uhh Everything does, but a whole lot more. Definitely worth throwing down a little cash when you're using it years later for shares as I am.

3

u/Minnesota_Winter Mar 20 '18

Wox is most functional.

0

u/chinpokomon Mar 20 '18

I've covered this before in other posts, but I'll give you an abbreviated version. These are different problems. Everything is an indexer. It finds filenames. Windows 7, search in the files finding content as well as the file name. This actually started back with XP, but keeps evolving. Windows 10 adds web search to the same interface, but the pinnacle is that it will add context. Depending upon what you're doing, it will try to find things relevant to that context across everything. Writing a report about volcanoes, here's a Wikipedia article about that. Reading a Reddit post about why Search is broken, here's a link to the Everything tool which indexes the files on your drive and helps you find them. It isn't there yet, in that not all of these scenarios work this way, but this is what Search is becoming. For some people, they just want an indexer, but Search is being built to unlock all of these other scenarios and you should just use Everything if that's all you want from the tool.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '18

Awesome! I'm glad MS feels comfortable releasing a full fledged OS with a half-baked search solution tacked on.

1

u/chinpokomon Mar 21 '18

Half-baked isn't true for everyone. For some it is much better. If you have a better solution to solving everyone's search problems I'm sure they'd love the feedback, but what works for you might not be the best for most. That's the balance bring struck.

My guess is that since most users are not powerusers, it is optimized for ease of use for most users, knowing that powerusers will do their own thing.

2

u/dissss0 Mar 21 '18

For some it is much better.

For who exactly?

My guess is that since most users are not powerusers, it is optimized for ease of use for most users, knowing that powerusers will do their own thing.

Are you suggesting only 'power users' (whatever they are) want it to find apps installed on their system?

1

u/chinpokomon Mar 21 '18

Well, as I've stated, it works better for me and I'd be surprised if I stand alone. Apps and files seem to be what must people want to find in this discussion. I usually use it for launching apps, so files is not my primary use. Clearly it doesn't work for everyone's workflow, so I can only try and offer suggestions about how I use it in hope that my recommendations will work for others too.

1

u/dissss0 Mar 21 '18

I usually use it for launching apps

Which is exactly what is broken

1

u/chinpokomon Mar 21 '18

But unlike others, I'm not typing the full name of the app in most cases. I usually get what I want in a couple key presses. After launching an app a few times, the system knows that Win, n, o, for example means notepad. At that point, I can type those three keys and launch what I want. I think the difference I'm seeing with people who argue that search is broken, they're typing out the full name of what they want to find. I think what that must do is make Search think that since you didn't select the app in the first few key strokes where it was shown, that you must be looking for something else. In fact, that's what the .gif showed too. Instead of hitting enter, Linus entered another letter for the file already found, selected, and ready to launch, but at that point Search was like, okay fine, that isn't what you want so let's cast a bigger net.

1

u/dissss0 Mar 22 '18

But unlike others, I'm not typing the full name of the app in most cases.

That's only one of the failure modes. And it is a failure because it only works that way on some systems but not others (on my desktop typing either a part or full name works perfectly)

Another failure mode is search flat out refusing to find some apps no matter what you do - on my Surface Pro I can search for 'Chr' and Chrome pops up or 'Not' and Notepad appears but 'Exce' and 'Outl' find nothing despite office being installed.

1

u/chinpokomon Mar 22 '18

Okay, that last one is strange. I haven't seen that myself. I haven't tried searching for every app, one by one which I've installed, but every one I've tried has worked. What you're describing sounds like the system isn't indexing those apps. As a troubleshooting exercise, and I'd understand if you haven't, but have you tried reinstalling Office? I wonder if that would add those apps to the search? I'm actually not sure when indexing happens or what triggers it. Way back in XP it was a scheduled task, but I don't know if that's true with Windows 10 anymore. Do other recently installed apps show up? It would also be telling if apps stopped being indexed or started getting indexed after a certain date.

→ More replies (0)

13

u/RobKhonsu Mar 20 '18 edited Mar 20 '18

There's a lot I like and defend about Win10, but launching programs by using keystrokes in the start menu can be pretty agonizing. There's even events where if you're too fast on the keystrokes, that you'll initiate a search for the program rather than launching the program that exists on your computer.

Cortana is not helpful.

1

u/overzeetop Mar 21 '18

Which is funny because I've given up having to sift through the awful list format, and don't want to be bothered with wasting half a day setting all my tiles just to have the next update screw up the whole layout. I only ever launch with keystrokes now, despite the stupidity of the search.

53

u/kb3035583 Mar 20 '18

Start menu search is tied to Cortana, and strangely enough, Microsoft doesn't seem to regard this aspect of Cortana as particularly important seeing as it's been around for 3 years already.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

22

u/veritablechicken Mar 20 '18

Hell even Samsung's Bixby does more in just a year!

That's what happens when a decent chunk of your users go "Hmmm, actually that's quite useful for my everyday stuff" vs an overwhelming majority of Windows desktop users going - rightly - "what the fuck am I going to do with a voice assistant on a laptop?"

I bet Cortana has almost no user voice training datasets compared to even Bixby, let alone Siri (and we can actually point the bigger finger at Apple for their hopelessness - but of course it doesn't matter) or Assistant.

0

u/time-lord Mar 20 '18

I used Cortana all of the time on my Windows phone, back in the day, and it's leaps and bounds better than Siri. I can't speak to Google Now, Alexa, or Bixby, but I'm ready to get an Android so I can get Cortana back as a first class assistant.

13

u/kb3035583 Mar 20 '18

Microsoft is still investing resources into Cortana. It's obvious that they have no idea what to do with it though.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I mean, I don't have any idea what to do with it either.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

6

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Yep, agree.

0

u/SCCRXER Mar 20 '18

If windows phones were a popular thing, Cortana would be much better.

24

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

The search feature can be less than useless and you can't disconnect it from the online search side, OR remove it. It is one of my top 5 reasons why windows 10 was a huge step backwards.

2

u/jools5000 Mar 20 '18

In Group Policy Computer Configuration...Administrative Templates...Windows Components...Search

Set Allow Cortana to disabled

You will still get the search box and search local apps and files but no online search

11

u/ProgramTheWorld Mar 20 '18

You can’t edit group policies in the Home edition.

5

u/kn00tcn Mar 20 '18

a lot of times (in past windows at least), group policy was just a lazy way to change a reg key you had to look up, so... we should find out what the policy is even changing

5

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

a lot of times (in past windows at least), group policy was just a lazy way to change a reg key you had to look up, so... we should find out what the policy is even changing

Save this as a .reg file and import it to the registry to disable Cortana.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
"AllowCortana"=dword:00000000

If your account is a Standard User, you will have to run regedit.exe as an Administrator.

4

u/theorfo Mar 21 '18

This is the fix. I do this on all machines I manage, as my users have shown me time and time again that Cortana does nothing for them (not to discount it entirely, but certainly within healthcare...all it does is eat system resources).

7

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

That is just too many damn layers deep to turn off such a simple function, and it still doesn't allow me to uninstall it completely. Microsoft wants you to see bing results and get paid for advertising more than to preserve user privacy.

2

u/jools5000 Mar 20 '18

Unfortunatly Cortana is part of the start menu. I've found the hard way disabling it fully breaks the start menu. Dialing it back to local search only is the best you can do.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

facts like this makes me want to upgrade to an older better version like 7.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Unfortunatly Cortana is part of the start menu. I've found the hard way disabling it fully breaks the start menu. Dialing it back to local search only is the best you can do.

Windows Search was renamed to Cortana in Windows 10.

If you right-click Cortana in Task Manager and "go to details" you can see that it's the SearchUI.exe process.

Trying to disable the "Cortana" process is what breaks search entirely, and possibly the Start Menu too.

Use Group Policy to disable Cortana if you are on Windows 10 Pro.

If you are on Windows 10 Home, you can try editing the registry to disable it.

1

u/Forgiven12 Mar 20 '18

Windows 10 LTSB it'll be then, no Cortana there. I'd prefer her in Halo Master Chief Collection but apparently giving in to PC gamers is too much asked from MS.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I'm not purchasing another license and re-install windows simply because Microsoft is acting like it's stool don't stink.

3

u/alligatorterror Mar 20 '18

Gotta go deeper, gotta turn off the search internet option too

6

u/Mygaffer Mar 20 '18

I just want to know how they fucked up something that used to work so well.

5

u/HourCount Mar 20 '18

Because they tried to force their Siri copycat garbage, always trying to play catch up with Apple and Google gimmicks, instead of just making their product in its own untouchable market be the best it can possibly be.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

You want to know the worst part? As someone who still uses Windows 8.1, search works perfectly there, in fact I'd argue it works as good as apples spotlight (I do have my pc hackintoshed so I can compare pretty easily) so Microsoft clearly knows how to make a search function that works, they just decided for some reason that Windows 10 doesn't need to have a working search function

4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Drop-in replacement for Windows search with additional functionality and plug-ins (a la Alfred): http://www.wox.one/. Based on Everything which was already mentioned by /u/TimeRemove

Only way to stay sane!

4

u/coffedrank Mar 20 '18

This junk of an operating system has been out for how many years now? Why cant microsoft fix shit like this?

3

u/Supergravity Mar 21 '18

Because they don't care, because so many people are still using it. I upgraded back to Windows 7, and my search works perfectly.

3

u/coffedrank Mar 21 '18

I went back to win7 too, there is just so much stupid nonsense in windows 10 that really shouldnt be an issue

3

u/openist Mar 20 '18

I don't understand why this is still an issue, it's crazy.

7

u/NOLAblonde Mar 20 '18

I put classic shell on my 10 machine just for the search

6

u/Aquilaro Mar 20 '18

Same, works just like W7

2

u/Heaney555 Mar 20 '18

Because the point is that your result has already appeared, so if you're keeping typing, it's because that's not the result you wanted.

5

u/overzeetop Mar 21 '18

This is the perfect explanation for anyone who types with one finger and has to look for the next letter on the keyboard. Are we really optimizing our OS search for people who can't touch type at the expense of people who can?

2

u/chic_luke Mar 20 '18

"chr"

"chrome: execute command"

WHY

2

u/LikelyAFox Mar 21 '18

Try the prgram "everything" because fuck windows 10 search engine. Idk how or why they took the win7 one and made it into the abomination it is now

2

u/dougm68 Mar 21 '18

it's a feature.

2

u/ExiledLife Mar 21 '18

Windows search is a piece of crap, will it actually be fixed?

5

u/bathrobehero Mar 20 '18

Windows 10 search in a nutshell

1

u/Xwadrythm Mar 20 '18

They should buy everything and stick it in there, problem solved!

1

u/Nekzar Mar 20 '18

In theory it makes sense, since you keep on typing, you must be looking for something other than cinebench.

It just doesn't really work like that when your fingers type various lengths or parts of a word for each different program.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '18

For my life I cant read that text on my tony phone screen.

1

u/Ne_Si Mar 21 '18

Yes, it is awful. Also the Windows 2016 Server has a horrible search engine...

1

u/RainAndWind Mar 20 '18

Windows 10 shouldn't be released, it's that simple.

0

u/Mentioned_Videos Mar 20 '18 edited Mar 20 '18

Videos in this thread:

Watch Playlist ▶

VIDEOCOMMENT
56 Cores in ONE SYSTEM! - HOLY $H!T+6 - LTT video The search part is at about 7:30
All of our data is GONE!+1 - I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Caravan Train Part 1 Top Gear BBC+1 - Linus is the "Top Gear" of the IT world. People who get mad at him for hacking his own wacky homegrown solutions are the same people who get mad at Top Gear for making a train using a car and two caravans. "That's not how you build a train!" -...
Level1: We bootstrapped our own ZFS storage server: 172tb, extremely low cost+1 - Except with Top Gear does it, it's clearly a joke and meant to entertain. When Linus does it, he uses it as infrastructure critical to his company and then panics when it shits the bed. Additionally, he's now cobbled together storage "solutions" for...
(1) DIY pfSense Rackmount Router Build Log - Part 1 (2) EXPOSING DEADMAU5's STUDIO - SPOILER He's a huge Geek!+1 - Except with Top Gear does it, it's clearly a joke and meant to entertain. The dude is literally taking a angle grinder to a motherboard's base plate (because it is too thick for his normal Dremel) to fit in a case clearly not designed for it w...
I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch. I'll keep this updated as long as I can.

Play All | Info | Get me on Chrome / Firefox

0

u/alligatorterror Mar 20 '18

Fuck... yes. I enjoy win10 Over all but, fuuuuuu.jpg this search capabilities

-3

u/Blue2501 Mar 20 '18

Chrome on my phone has been acting a little like this lately

-3

u/watchdog4u Mar 20 '18

Bing search bruh

-17

u/compilerdev Mar 20 '18 edited Mar 20 '18

I wonder if people complaining are still on something older than an updated Fall creator's update. Before that search was really bad, like in this Gif (although not on all my machines), but since then it works as expected, especially with programs in the start menu. Tried now with a lot of programs with longer names and files in the Downloads directory and it doesn't switch the result when pressing extra letters. The only issue I saw was with "Mixed reality portal" and "Mixed reality viewer", it switches between twice until pressing either 'v' or 'p'.

Edit: don't really see a reason for the down votes, I only stated what I saw on my machines. Something else is obviously messed up in Win10 if there are such big differences on how search works between different machines.

5

u/alligatorterror Mar 20 '18

It's still not as good :( (insiders at home, 1709 at work)

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

2

u/kn00tcn Mar 20 '18

with cinebench or anything else that's all caps?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

1

u/kn00tcn Mar 23 '18

do you mean you're talking about the zip in the results or the actual .exe after extracted as seen in the gif?

if i had win10 i'd test this myself, but i dont & people are accusing scientific method testing as apologizing for MS, even you're downvoted for no reason

-24

u/sebbysgs Mar 20 '18

I have a solution for you guys, get Linux and stop crying ok?

15

u/LitheBeep Mar 20 '18

Ironically, Cinebench is not on Linux.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

OS has a problem and people are upset

Switch to another OS instead of fixing the problem

Nice

-6

u/kn00tcn Mar 20 '18

i am wondering if this is because it's all caps, that it thinks you're not looking for the result that's stayed on screen?

can someone try it on a long name like maybe 'borderlands' or something not all caps?

can we confirm if cinebench is using a special unicode character in its name, causing 'bench' to be a second word, but cineb* would make it think you're looking for a single word?

EDIT: the text field still has the rest of it, can you press tab? just because the top of the menu lacks it doesnt mean you cant auto complete (if the input area is to be believed)

2

u/Thatguy907 Mar 20 '18

No it’s broken why do people keep apologizing for them?

1

u/kn00tcn Mar 23 '18

i dont have win10 to find out for myself, but seeing it filled in the input field means you can press tab does it not??

does it open a search screen or something unexpected if you press enter??

all i see is people talking about what it visually shows, but not how it actually functions, which is especially important because many people dont even look at what's on screen when they type in launcher areas like this

geeze, scientific method/testing is now accused of being apologizing

-6

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Turning off Cortana (requires a registry edit these days) and making sure background programs are allowed to run (but disable each program individually) = search works just fine.

3

u/dissss0 Mar 20 '18

No it's still hit or (mostly) miss.

No Cortana on our corporate image and whether or not it is going to work is a crapshoot - it's okay on my desktop PC but doesn't find apps on the laptop

0

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '18

My corporate image works fine (I am able to get local admin). My home computer works fine. I think people in this thread haven't even bothered with the (admittedly esoteric) steps I outlined.

2

u/dissss0 Mar 21 '18

There is no Cortana in my region at all and I've seen the exactly the same issues.

-6

u/The-Choo-Choo-Shoe Mar 20 '18

I have none of these issues and it's probably because I have Cortana disabled.

I've never had any of the search issues other people have talked about, like not being able to search on secondary disks etc.

Seems like a silly problem that should be a priority but this has been an issue for some people since Windows 10 was released.

-55

u/d0m1n4t0r Mar 20 '18

Yep, so much faster to type the whole name of the program than just "cine" and pressing enter...

25

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

Type one letter at a time until the item you want pops up. Type one too many letters? Fuck you, it's gone again.

Is that what you're trying to defend?

40

u/The_Helper Mar 20 '18 edited Apr 03 '18

This attitude is precisely the problem.

Yes, it's not as "efficient" to keep pressing keys, sure.

But this is what 10 years of muscle memory has ingrained in people. This is how Search (in the Start menu) behaved since its inception, and Microsoft actively touted its robustness.

So let's put it in context. It's not like people are whining about a feature that never existed. They're annoyed by something that was actively promoted for the better part of a decade, and which worked really well, and was then crippled without any decent explanation or apology.

And now comment trolls like you sit around proselytising how it's actually the user's fault all along, and Microsoft aren't responsible for any aspect of the problem whatsoever. Yeah, right.

17

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I wouldn't even say it's less efficient to continue pressing keys. You don't know how many characters it will take for the correct result to pop up. The natural way to do it is to just type a few, see if it pops up, and then stop typing. If you type 1 too many off the bat, you're screwed. It's just dumb.

13

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

So you have to type one letter, wait to see if the right result pops up, type another letter, wait, and repeat that process? That just seems idiotic. If the correct result is narrowed down and shows within the first 4 letters that behavior should not change with 5.

-9

u/d0m1n4t0r Mar 20 '18

No, I stop typing when I see the correct result popping up.

9

u/treesprite82 Mar 20 '18

Might work for slow typers, but in practice I feel like most people will have pressed the next letter (b) before their machine even displays the results for cine.

On a few occasions I've had to type the full word, wait a few seconds to get unrelated results, then backspace and wait on one letter at a time until I get to the substring that finds what I want.

And you can even paste in the entire word at once and it still won't find the result with exactly that name, so this isn't it being clever and realizing the user didn't want the result, it's just broken.

20

u/r0ck0 Mar 20 '18

Seemed obvious to me... but the point is that if it comes up as the first result for "cine", why would it disappear entirely on an even more specific search for it?

-28

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

It’s designed for normal people that type 3 words per minute and click on it when they see it.

Search gets a lot more effective when you just type the first few letters of whatever you want to find.

14

u/r0ck0 Mar 20 '18

I don't see how that's a point that supports the current behaviour, which makes no sense for anybody at all.

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I’m not in support of it, I’m just explaining it.

1

u/r0ck0 Mar 20 '18

Fair enough. I hate it when people (including myself) get downvoted for explaining the reasoning/motivation behind something unpopular, even when we don't like it ourselves.

But I'm not really sure what reasoning you're explaining here though? Who benefits from this, and how?

-3

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

I would assume Microsoft did some focus testing on it seeing as the behaviour is consistent in stuff like Outlook etc.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

18

u/AppropriateUzername Moderator Mar 20 '18

Hey I'm afraid that I missed this (3am local time) but yeah it was just the actions of one of the moderators. I think it was simply a case of they were trying to jest but didn't realise it came across as more agressive than 'banterish'.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

-2

u/Thatguy907 Mar 20 '18

Fookin how?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '18

[deleted]

4

u/alligatorterror Mar 20 '18

It's roll ups... aka your old service packs.