For the past several versions (since Windows Vista, I think), if you hit the Windows key and start typing, Windows will search for applications.

Since upgrading to Windows 10 with Cortana, she is only hit or miss at finding applications. And she doesn't do partial searches, either.

Some examples:

• WinKey + type "Paint" does not find "mspaint". Instead it suggests some applications from the store.
• WinKey + type "Excel" does not find Excel. Nor does typing "Word" find Word. However, typing OneNote finds OneNote.

What is the reason for this behavior and how I can get Cortana to find the applications installed on my machine again? Is there a setting I am missing?

If I browse to "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" I can see that the shortcuts for these applications all still exist. But Cortana is not finding them. Everything from the Microsoft Office applications to IIS to Beyond Compare to hundreds of other applications I have installed.

Where can I set which folders Cortana indexes?

As you can see in the screen shot below, this Start Menu folder is, indeed, indexed:

However, none of these applications are coming back as search results from the "start" menu.

It may be related to this issue as well.

I did a brand new install of Skype (for desktop), and it shows up nowhere in the start menu. And typing in "Skype" to search for the application does not find it. But the shortcut to Skype is definitely in this location:

C:\Users\Patrick\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Skype

EDIT

The latest Windows 10 update (Threshold 2) has solved this issue for me. Cortana now finds all my files with no issues. Previously my only solution was to use Classic Shell, I've been able to uninstall that now and use the standard Windows Start menu.

Found a solution here: Cortana not finding Desktop apps when searching for them

Here is the relevant part:

I reinstalled Cortana using the following procedure:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window (press win + X, and then press A)
2. Type start powershell and press enter
3. Run the command (in one line):

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

After 30 seconds the problem was solved on my machine. Incredible.

If you're seeing some but not all of your Desktop apps in the start menu search and "All Apps", there appears to be a bug where Windows 10 will only register up to 512 start menu entries, which may be the cause.

You can see how many start menu entries you currently have by running the following from within powershell

Get-StartApps | measure

You should get a count that reflects all your Modern/Metro apps plus all of the shortcuts in your start menu (one for each .lnk file). If your count is greater than 512, then a workaround is to delete unnecessary start menu entries by either uninstalling unused apps or deleting the unnecessary .lnk files from the start menu directories:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

As you delete .lnk files from those folders, Windows 10 will automatically register Start Menu links that it had previously skipped over due to the bug without you having to do anything. If you run the powershell command again it should reflect the updated count. Once you get your count down to 512, your Start Menu search and "All Apps" should no longer be missing items.

NOTE: An easy way to remove a whole bunch of unnecessary .lnk files is to delete all the links to uninstallers, since you almost always already have access to them via "Add/Remove Programs". If that is not enough, you can run WinDirStat against the two start menu folders above and sort by "items" in order to see which apps have added the most links. Lots of apps also add links to their website or documentation which you often do not need since they're just a google search away.

For me, deleting the low hanging fruit was not enough so I ended up having to move a bunch of start menu folders for rarely-used apps to a temporary (non-indexed) directory. I'm planning on moving them back once the bug is resolved. In particular, Visual Studio, SQL Server, and Microsoft's various SDKs add a TON of start menu entries.

It's hard to believe that something so fundamental to Windows and central from a user perspective can be this buggy. I had pretty much the same problem. I solved it by removing everything from the index except for the Start Menu. This might not be an option for you, as it appears that you like to be able to search across many folders.

Before Windows 7, I used to use a tool called "Find and Run Robot" heavily, much better than launchy in my opinion, to find programs and files in addition to the start menu. It leaves your start menu alone, unlike the Start Menu replacements and works completely independently.

One thing worth trying is Control Panel -> Troubleshooter -> View All -> Search and Indexing. On my Windows 10 (just upgraded from Windows 8.1), it found & fixed some permissions issues on search-related folders.

Of course it hasn't fixed my search problems of not finding most Start Menu applications and settings (neither did reinstalling Cortana, messing with Index folder variations like just using Start Menu, rebuilding the index over and over, etc). Search worked mostly fine before the Windows 10 upgrade - sigh.

My investigation has found that programs in the user start menu

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Is automatically excluded from indexing the users (exclude appData).

I've manually added that folder and am waiting for the index to build.