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I'm making a non-elevated software installer for Windows 10. The installer saves the application into C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\MY_APP_NAME folder. It also creates a shortcut in C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ folder. The shortcut correctly appears in Start Menu, but it never appears in search results.

I tried rebuilding the search index and ran Start Menu troubleshooter with no luck. I'm from Poland and thus Cortana is disabled on my machine.

I investigated other shortcuts in that folder and found that some applications appear in search results while others do not. For example, a link to SourceTree appears in search results while a shortcut to R-Link 2 Toolbox do not appear there. Both SourceTree and R-Link 2 Toolbox are installed into AppData\Local folder and both shortcuts are saved to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\. I don't see any difference between their shortcut files. Yet I can find SourceTree in search results while R-Link isn't there. This behavior isn't related to spaces in the app name. I tried renaming my app not to have a space in its name and this changes nothing.

Is there something I should do to register my shortcut for indexing?

Ivan Nikitin
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  • How are you creating this install? Are you using an established deployment tool? – Stein Åsmul Sep 17 '18 at 23:25
  • @SteinÅsmul Yes, I'm using InnoSetup. – Ivan Nikitin Sep 19 '18 at 07:29
  • I don't know. Just shooting from the hip: Do these different shortcuts - some of which do not show up in searches - perhaps point to the same target file, but with different shortcut names and command line switches for each shortcut? Do you use any ć ń ó ś ź - et al - in the shortcut name? In other words special characters? Tested on an English machine or a clean virtual? – Stein Åsmul Sep 19 '18 at 23:17
  • @SteinÅsmul I have Windows 10, system language is English. Nor "SourceTree", nor "R-Link 2 Toolbox" have special characters in their names. I suspected the difference may be due to the spaces, but changing "R-Link 2 Toolbox" to "RLink" changed nothing. – Ivan Nikitin Sep 20 '18 at 08:10

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It seems the problem was related to indexing issues of the Windows OS. It seems sfc /scannow command solved the problem and now indexing works correctly for all menu folders and apps.

Ivan Nikitin
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