Windows 10: Cortana Search is not finding portable applications
This question deals with finding applications in general but not portable ones: Cortana Search is not finding applications on Windows 10
I have a portable application located but not installed at C:\sdk\cmder\Cmder.exe. I also have a shortcut located at: C:\Users\twing\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\cmder.
Finding normal, installed applications, work fine, but I can't find cmder, if I search for it, and it works the same for other portable apps.
Re-indexing doesn't affect the problem at all.
I even added a new indexed location C:\sdk\shortcuts and added cmder and an internet shortcut, but it doesn't work either.
I also tried adding C:\sdk itself where the ´.exe`s are located, but it makes no difference.
How do I fix this?
Portable Apps, or really any Programs at all can be indexed in one of two ways.
- By being located on the System Path as a
*.exe - Being within the Registry. There are several ways to accomplish this, but the easiest of these is to register the Application within App Paths
An example of this being (in PowerShell):
New-Item -Path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\myapplication.exe -Value C:\blah\myapplication.exe
It works. The only issue is it takes literally all day for the rebuilt index to start to show up in the start menu even on a fresh clean install of windows 10.
After searching for this yesterday and today here's how I eventually found my portable app in my start bar.
Keep in mind I just "reset" win 10 early this morning so this is a "fresh" install.
I searched for this same topic this morning, found this post, downloaded a portable and installer version of this app.
Around 9:00am
Installed the installer version thinking cortana was only finding things in the registry not just MUI entries. Copied the start menu shortcuts the installer version created. Directly uninstalled the installer version and after it was uninstalled I put the shortcuts back in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and changed their paths to point at my portable version of the same app. I made sure the shortcuts were indexable under Indexing Options and rebuilt the index.
Fiddled with ownership and sharing options for about 30 minutes, anything I could think of that would allow cortana to get a "better view" of my app. (In hindsight i doubt all of this is necessary, I think cortana just sucks right now and it literally takes 8 hours for it to index a hand full of shortcuts)
At 5:30pm Out of habit I slammed the windows key and typed in the name of my app expecting it to show forgetting all about the fact that cortana doesn't index portable apps and low and behold the icon appeared in the corner of my eye and I launched it, from pure muscle memory. I checked to make sure that I was actually launching the portable version of the app and sure enough here it is.
Note: Until Cortana is fixed properly, might I suggest Everything Search Engine for your desktop? It will index terrabytes of data in a matter of seconds. It doesn't index the content of the files of course, but it will supplement your portable app searching needs and outshine anything windows has or will come up with in the near future. http://www.voidtools.com/
Image link proof. superuser.com doesn't feel I'm worthy enough to post images yet. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=4101341642620E2A!4025&authkey=!AEIaKWYQs5wSfaM