Search Outlook 2013 emails using Start Menu Windows Search

Hi,

Since I upgraded Outlook 2013 from Outlook 2010, I can no longer search for emails via the Start Menu Search any more. For Outlook 2010, emails would show up in the start menu. This is no longer the case with Outlook 2013. Although I can instant search emails within Outlook 2013, I don't want to start up Outlook 2013 every time I want to look for a particular email.

Is this problem you are aware of? If so, what is the solution? 

October 27th, 2012 5:04pm

that feature is removed on Outlook 2013

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954(v=office.15).aspx

"In Office 2013, Outlook items do not display in Windows Shell searches (for example, searches from the Start Menu or by using Win+F). Perform Office searches within Office 2013."

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October 28th, 2012 1:23am

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information above was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.


Cheers,
Tony Chen
Forum Support
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November 5th, 2012 6:03am

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information above was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.


Cheers,
Tony Chen
Forum Support
________________________________________
Come back and mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

No. The information was not helpful. You've removed an incredibly useful feature (one that I use every single day). You've provided no reason whatsoever for the degraded functionality You've also failed to answer what a solution to the problem would be.

Just saying "that feature is removed on Outlook 2013" is not helpful. Performing searches within Office 2013 independent of the search bar is ridiculous. So, what's the solution? Is there a patch coming with SP1? Is there a third-party add-on? Who is making these crazy design decisions...and how can we talk to them and understand the reasoning behind this apparent lunacy?

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November 5th, 2012 8:13am

Also, looking at the link you provided: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954(v=office.15).aspx

It appears that feature after feature has been removed from Office 2013 that was previously present in Office 2010. Only a few have been added...and they are very minor. You've spent the last 3 years just removing features? Does anyone feel good about this? Does anyone feel this is really 3 years well spent?

  • Edited by SAS71 Monday, November 05, 2012 5:57 PM
November 5th, 2012 4:10pm

Agree with SAS71 - there has to be a patch on its way soon!
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November 5th, 2012 5:51pm

Also, looking at the link you provided: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954(v=office.15).aspx

It appears that feature after feature has been removed from Office 2013 that was previously present in Office 2010. Only a few have been added...and they are very minor. You've spent the last 3 years just removing features? Does anyone feel good about this? Does anyone feel this is really 3 years well spent?

November 5th, 2012 7:10pm

Also, looking at the link you provided: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954(v=office.15).aspx

It appears that feature after feature has been removed from Office 2013 that was previously present in Office 2010. Only a few have been added...and they are very minor. You've spent the last 3 years just removing features? Does anyone feel good about this? Does anyone feel this is really 3 years well spent?

  • Edited by SAS71 Monday, November 05, 2012 5:57 PM
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November 5th, 2012 7:10pm

The removal of this feature is a major step backwards.

No reason given. No idea that removing a feature may actually require an explanation.

We certainlly won't be upgrading ourselves or advising anyone to upgrade until this is reinstated.

January 2nd, 2013 8:11pm

Ditto to all that's been said here.  I use the "Windows Shell" or "unified search" (as I've heard others call it) feature every single day.  If Microsoft would like to understand why I find what they previously created so useful, I'll be happy to explain it to them.

I shelled out $99 for a one-year Office 365 home subscription for Office 2013, only to uninstall the same day because of this issue.  Outlook 2010 stayed "broken" as the default e-mail client and I was unable to set it as a default whether by checking the default box within Outlook 2010 or by giving it all its defaults in "Default Programs."  I had to do a system restore to a restore point prior to my Office 365 installation in order to return to normal working order. 

I like to keep all my software up to date, but there's not a single feature in any of Office 2013 that's important enough to me to give up the ability to search they way I need to.

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February 1st, 2013 11:39pm

Here's a very strange "solution."  Windows 8 shares Outlook 2013's abandonment of returning e-mails in "shell search."  In fact, there really isn't a comparable search function in Win 8 - in Win 8 you select whether you're searching apps, files, etc., but there's no built-in function that will search Outlook nor is there a way (as far as I can tell) to say please search apps AND files AND people and whatever the other choices are.  However, if you are running Win 8, you can install the third-party Start8 program that restores the "start" button in Win 8's desktop view.  If you search using the Start8 "Start" button, your search results will include Outlook 2013 e-mails.

The reason I call the solution "strange" is because both Win 8 and Outlook 2013 share Microsoft's new "truth" that people don't want to do this kind of search, and in fact it makes me pessimistic about their restoring the functionality that's gone with Outlook 2013 - it doesn't exist in Win 8 even if you're still using Outlook 2010, so why expect that they'll add it back to Outlook 2013?  So it's ironic that the only way I can find to get what I want with Outlook 2013 is to install Win 8.

  • Proposed as answer by ralfscherm Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:05 AM
  • Unproposed as answer by ralfscherm Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:06 AM
February 3rd, 2013 2:50pm

Here's a very strange "solution."  Windows 8 shares Outlook 2013's abandonment of returning e-mails in "shell search."  In fact, there really isn't a comparable search function in Win 8 - in Win 8 you select whether you're searching apps, files, etc., but there's no built-in function that will search Outlook nor is there a way (as far as I can tell) to say please search apps AND files AND people and whatever the other choices are.  However, if you are running Win 8, you can install the third-party Start8 program that restores the "start" button in Win 8's desktop view.  If you search using the Start8 "Start" button, your search results will include Outlook 2013 e-mails.

The reason I call the solution "strange" is because both Win 8 and Outlook 2013 share Microsoft's new "truth" that people don't want to do this kind of search, and in fact it makes me pessimistic about their restoring the functionality that's gone with Outlook 2013 - it doesn't exist in Win 8 even if you're still using Outlook 2010, so why expect that they'll add it back to Outlook 2013?  So it's ironic that the only way I can find to get what I want with Outlook 2013 is to install Win 8.

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February 3rd, 2013 5:50pm

Here's a very strange "solution."  Windows 8 shares Outlook 2013's abandonment of returning e-mails in "shell search."  In fact, there really isn't a comparable search function in Win 8 - in Win 8 you select whether you're searching apps, files, etc., but there's no built-in function that will search Outlook nor is there a way (as far as I can tell) to say please search apps AND files AND people and whatever the other choices are.  However, if you are running Win 8, you can install the third-party Start8 program that restores the "start" button in Win 8's desktop view.  If you search using the Start8 "Start" button, your search results will include Outlook 2013 e-mails.

The reason I call the solution "strange" is because both Win 8 and Outlook 2013 share Microsoft's new "truth" that people don't want to do this kind of search, and in fact it makes me pessimistic about their restoring the functionality that's gone with Outlook 2013 - it doesn't exist in Win 8 even if you're still using Outlook 2010, so why expect that they'll add it back to Outlook 2013?  So it's ironic that the only way I can find to get what I want with Outlook 2013 is to install Win 8.

  • Proposed as answer by ralfscherm Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:05 AM
  • Unproposed as answer by ralfscherm Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:06 AM
February 3rd, 2013 5:50pm

Frankly I see no reason for removing such a feature! You know what will happen? People, me among them, will migrate more and more to Google Apps.

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February 4th, 2013 11:07am

Thank you for the answer. But I agree with everyone. This is a MAJOR regression to my work workflow.

The Win 8 desktop search is bad enough. Having to open Outlook 2013 to search for Outlook items is a major regression. Please, bring it back.

February 5th, 2013 6:31pm

What's even bizarre is that I have Outlook 2013 installed on my PC, but not configured - but after doing that, even though I have no account configured in Outlook 2013, my Windows Live Mail messages no longer show up as search results in the shell as well.  Fluke?  I hope so, but regardless the lack of this functionality means I won't be using Outlook 2013.  I always search through Explorer, the consolidated search (is that file I'm looking for a seperate file, or an attachment?  With consolidated search, I don't have to know that beforehand) and myriad of viewing/sorting options is paramount to my workflow.  Searching from Outlook is incredibly cumbersome by comparison.

Have to agree with everyone here that this is a serious regression.  Windows8 "new" search functionality is awful and one of the reasons I dislike its environment, but why prevent a roadblock to Windows7 users who want to use Office 2013?  It makes no sense.

I've heard the explanation it's "for security", but with no elaboration.  Of course someone logged into my account could use explorer search to see my emails without logging into Outlook - just as they could view critical files I have in my profile.  Someone with physical access to your PC, and your account is going to get at your data, so I don't understand this argument either. 

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February 5th, 2013 11:47pm

I've heard the explanation it's "for security", but with no elaboration.  Of course someone logged into my account could use explorer search to see my emails without logging into Outlook - just as they could view critical files I have in my profile.  Someone with physical access to your PC, and your account is going to get at your data, so I don't understand this argument either. 

I also read that "security" is the reason.  The files on my computer are not inherently more confidential than my e-mails, and I'm not interested in trading a very convenient feature for added security that I don't need.  Anyway, Outlook is always running on my computer (this is not the '90s when people used to "check their e-mail"), so anyone who physically accesses my machine is likely to see my e-mails without any difficulty.  And even when my computer is on but Outlook isn't running, Outlook isn't set to require login credentials when I (or an intruder) open it.  If Microsoft is so concerned about my security, they could disable search from returning e-mails by default but allow me to change the default permanently by entering my e-mail credentials and giving me a big warning that they think I'd be more secure if I didn't.

  • Edited by smoddelm Friday, February 08, 2013 12:38 AM
February 7th, 2013 9:32pm

I've heard the explanation it's "for security", but with no elaboration.  Of course someone logged into my account could use explorer search to see my emails without logging into Outlook - just as they could view critical files I have in my profile.  Someone with physical access to your PC, and your account is going to get at your data, so I don't understand this argument either. 

I also read that "security" is the reason.  The files on my computer are not inherently more confidential than my e-mails, and I'm not interested in trading a very convenient feature for added security that I don't need.  Anyway, Outlook is always running on my computer (this is not the '90s when people used to "check their e-mail"), so anyone who physically accesses my machine is likely to see my e-mails without any difficulty.  And even when my computer is on but Outlook isn't running, Outlook isn't set to require login credentials when I (or an intruder) open it.  If Microsoft is so concerned about my security, they could disable search from returning e-mails by default but allow me to change the default permanently by entering my e-mail credentials and giving me a big warning that they think I'd be more secure if I didn't.

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February 8th, 2013 12:32am

I've heard the explanation it's "for security", but with no elaboration.  Of course someone logged into my account could use explorer search to see my emails without logging into Outlook - just as they could view critical files I have in my profile.  Someone with physical access to your PC, and your account is going to get at your data, so I don't understand this argument either. 

I also read that "security" is the reason.  The files on my computer are not inherently more confidential than my e-mails, and I'm not interested in trading a very convenient feature for added security that I don't need.  Anyway, Outlook is always running on my computer (this is not the '90s when people used to "check their e-mail"), so anyone who physically accesses my machine is likely to see my e-mails without any difficulty.  And even when my computer is on but Outlook isn't running, Outlook isn't set to require login credentials when I (or an intruder) open it.  If Microsoft is so concerned about my security, they could disable search from returning e-mails by default but allow me to change the default permanently by entering my e-mail credentials and giving me a big warning that they think I'd be more secure if I didn't.

  • Edited by smoddelm Friday, February 08, 2013 12:38 AM
February 8th, 2013 12:32am

Thank you for the answer. But I agree with everyone. This is a MAJOR regression to my work workflow.

The Win 8 desktop search is bad enough. Having to open Outlook 2013 to search for Outlook items is a major regression. Please, bring it back.


As I said earlier, you can install the third-party Start8 program and its Win 7-like search button will search for Outlook 2013 items along with files.  Unfortunately, if you have to "See more results," the emails aren't shown in the resulting explorer window.
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February 8th, 2013 10:12pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

It's frustrating that, as eager as some tech writers/sites have been to criticize Microsoft's new products, I haven't read any of them talking about issues like this (and also the inability to move or copy e-mails from another e-mail account into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 - Microsoft actaully has a published "solution" which is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and install Outlook 2007 or 2010!).



  • Edited by smoddelm Saturday, February 09, 2013 12:55 PM
February 9th, 2013 12:54pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

It's frustrating that, as eager as some tech writers/sites have been to criticize Microsoft's new products, I haven't read any of them talking about issues like this (and also the inability to move or copy e-mails from another e-mail account into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 - Microsoft actaully has a published "solution" which is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and install Outlook 2007 or 2010!).



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February 9th, 2013 3:54pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

It's frustrating that, as eager as some tech writers/sites have been to criticize Microsoft's new products, I haven't read any of them talking about issues like this (and also the inability to move or copy e-mails from another e-mail account into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 - Microsoft actaully has a published "solution" which is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and install Outlook 2007 or 2010!).



  • Edited by smoddelm Saturday, February 09, 2013 12:55 PM
February 9th, 2013 3:54pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

You bring up a good point of conversation there.

You mention login credentials. Actually, end-users can only use Windows 8 mail if they login into a live-approved ID first, requiring two sets of credentials to set up an Exchange account. That makes Win 8 mail, by far the most complicated e-mail application to set up in the world today for businesses. It's not solved by policies either.

You mention integrated search is easy. Well perhaps if you are using the Windows 8 mail client that is true. But this is a forum on Outlook 2013, and those e-mails are NOT searchable in the win8 search function. Doesn't work. You have to go into the Outlook application separately to search for e-mails now. This is a complete regression from Windows 7.

So right there, your postings confuse me.

The fact that Microsoft cares so little about the little details and the overall quality of their flagship product is evident. They have no qualms about removing features - and more importantly choice - from the operating system. I see no reason why I cannot simply add my Outlook e-mail search to an integrated engine. Good gravy, Apple Spotlight, for example, works GREAT and people use it ALL THE TIME. Microsoft has decided that people don't like to search everything in Windows or something? They think going into each application and searching is the "new thang"? That's their ticket to success and happy users? I just don't get it.

  • Edited by ABCFED Saturday, February 09, 2013 5:13 PM
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February 9th, 2013 5:10pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

You bring up a good point of conversation there.

You mention login credentials. Actually, end-users can only use Windows 8 mail if they login into a live-approved ID first, requiring two sets of credentials to set up an Exchange account. That makes Win 8 mail, by far the most complicated e-mail application to set up in the world today for businesses. It's not solved by policies either.

You mention integrated search is easy. Well perhaps if you are using the Windows 8 mail client that is true. But this is a forum on Outlook 2013, and those e-mails are NOT searchable in the win8 search function. Doesn't work. You have to go into the Outlook application separately to search for e-mails now. This is a complete regression from Windows 7.

So right there, your postings confuse me.

The fact that Microsoft cares so little about the little details and the overall quality of their flagship product is evident. They have no qualms about removing features - and more importantly choice - from the operating system. I see no reason why I cannot simply add my Outlook e-mail search to an integrated engine. Good gravy, Apple Spotlight, for example, works GREAT and people use it ALL THE TIME. Microsoft has decided that people don't like to search everything in Windows or something? They think going into each application and searching is the "new thang"? That's their ticket to success and happy users? I just don't get it.

February 9th, 2013 8:10pm

Thinking about the "security" explanation again.  The crazy thing is, if you are running Win 8 and have set up your mail accounts in the Win 8 mail application, then the Win 8 search function, though not "unified," will search your emails as easily as it searches your files.  Just search for something and tell Search you want it to look in emails, not files, apps, etc.  No login credentials required...

You bring up a good point of conversation there.

You mention login credentials. Actually, end-users can only use Windows 8 mail if they login into a live-approved ID first, requiring two sets of credentials to set up an Exchange account. That makes Win 8 mail, by far the most complicated e-mail application to set up in the world today for businesses. It's not solved by policies either.

You mention integrated search is easy. Well perhaps if you are using the Windows 8 mail client that is true. But this is a forum on Outlook 2013, and those e-mails are NOT searchable in the win8 search function. Doesn't work. You have to go into the Outlook application separately to search for e-mails now. This is a complete regression from Windows 7.

So right there, your postings confuse me.

The fact that Microsoft cares so little about the little details and the overall quality of their flagship product is evident. They have no qualms about removing features - and more importantly choice - from the operating system. I see no reason why I cannot simply add my Outlook e-mail search to an integrated engine. Good gravy, Apple Spotlight, for example, works GREAT and people use it ALL THE TIME. Microsoft has decided that people don't like to search everything in Windows or something? They think going into each application and searching is the "new thang"? That's their ticket to success and happy users? I just don't get it.

  • Edited by ABCFED Saturday, February 09, 2013 5:13 PM
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February 9th, 2013 8:10pm

 Microsoft has decided that people don't like to search everything in Windows or something? They think going into each application and searching is the "new thang"? That's their ticket to success and happy users? I just don't get it.

It's just so bizarre.  Heck, searching in Metro/Windows Store apps carries this ideology it appears, while it's at least consistent in that the search charm is always in the same place.  The problem is though that using it to search through apps doesn't really save you that much time, click an app icon and choose search, all it does is launch the full app then display the search results.  With the time that Metro apps take to launch (meaning, *long* for HDD-based systems), this largely defeats the point of search for me.  

It always seemed obvious that the point of having search was to get results without having to launch the app that contains your data, you don't always known how your data is classified (Win8's seemingly arbitrary results that straddle apps & settings demonstrates this), and plus with search preview (OSX's Quick Look is unmatched in this respect) you could get your data without having to launch the entire app.  Just makes perfect sense...but this "new" direction doesn't.  How is it more "modern" to manually select which containers one at a time to classify your search?  How is it an advancement to deprecate the Preview feature and give very little information on what a file actually contains, especially when you're forcing searches full-screen and have all this real estate?  Wierd, weird, weird.

And from bad to worse - searching through emails on my Win7 system has now apparently been completely buggered due to Outlook 2013.  Despite having tons of email in Windows Live Mail, explorer search now returns nothing - and I've completely de-installed Office 2013, re-installed Windows 7, Win7 search, re-indexed, etc - nothing.  I'm basically looking at a re-install now due to the Office team deciding that we don't need email search with no logical explanation.

February 9th, 2013 11:52pm

When I uninstalled Outlook 2013, I had pretty much the same problem - no apparent way to get Outlook 2010 even as a choice to index.  Luckily, I only had 2013 installed a few days, so a system restore brought things back to normal.  Did you try that, or did you not have a good restore point?
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February 10th, 2013 12:37am

My point was just that Microsoft does allow searching for e-mails in a new Microsoft product (Win 8) - without being logged into Outlook, so it seemed inconsistent.  Also, I think I've been able to set up both exchange and hotmail e-mail in the Win 8 mail app without my Win 8 login being a "live" login, but I'm not sure - maybe you're right.  But anyway, if that's sufficient protection (because someone would have to know your Live password to login from the welcome screen, that protection is also there for search.  So in any case, I still think Microsoft is being inconsistent in allowing e-mails to be searched without logging into an e-mail client in their brand new OS.  Seems like the security philosophy is different between Ooutlook 2013 and Win 8.

By the way, at least one third party desktop search option - Copernic - will search both files and e-mails with a single search request, including Outlook 2013 e-mails.

February 10th, 2013 12:44am

And from bad to worse - searching through emails on my Win7 system has now apparently been completely buggered due to Outlook 2013.  Despite having tons of email in Windows Live Mail, explorer search now returns nothing - and I've completely de-installed Office 2013, re-installed Windows 7, Win7 search, re-indexed, etc - nothing.  I'm basically looking at a re-install now due to the Office team deciding that we don't need email search with no logical explanation.


Can you confirm one thing?  You said you re-installed Windows 7.  Then you say you're looking at a re-install now.  Did you really mean you re-installed Windows 7? And if so, what are you going to re-install now?  Outlook 2010?
  • Edited by smoddelm Sunday, February 10, 2013 1:46 AM
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February 10th, 2013 1:45am

When I uninstalled Outlook 2013, I had pretty much the same problem - no apparent way to get Outlook 2010 even as a choice to index.  Luckily, I only had 2013 installed a few days, so a system restore brought things back to normal.  Did you try that, or did you not have a good restore point?

Thought about that, but unfortunately my restore points don't go back far enough.

Smoddelm: I got your point, agreed - The explanation of "security" makes absolutely no sense when using the default Win8 mail app completely bypasses that, and it's obviously not some hardcore sandboxed system for isolating your emails if just installing Start8 gets you SM searching back (Even from Outlook 2013 to boot!).  So don't know if that is MS's "official" explanation or just someone's interpretation of the feature removal.

I suspect once Office 2013/365 is released for business where more people rely on explorer/SM search, this topic will start to get more attention.

Disappointing so many reviews of Office 2013 fail to mention this - although most I've read have been incredibly shallow.

February 10th, 2013 2:08am

Smoddelm: I got your point, agreed - The explanation of "security" makes absolutely no sense when using the default Win8 mail app completely bypasses that, and it's obviously not some hardcore sandboxed system for isolating your emails if just installing Start8 gets you SM searching back (Even from Outlook 2013 to boot!).  So don't know if that is MS's "official" explanation or just someone's interpretation of the feature removal.

Disappointing so many reviews of Office 2013 fail to mention this - although most I've read have been incredibly shallow.


I agree with your comment about the reviews - and ditto for the reviews of Win 8.  Re:  Win 8, discussion of whether it's "confusing" to have both the desktop and the "formerly known as Metro" screen, hidden charms, etc., while ignoring important features of Win 8 that are removed altogether (e.g., Windows search not returning e-mails regardless of whether you use Outlook 2010 or 2013).  As for Office 2013, I've seen very few reviews that mention a single feature that the average user would be interested in.  I understand Microsoft's financial "need" to come out with a major (paid-for) update to Office every few years, and I could suggest  a lot of features that would be welcomed and embraced by the average user, but MS delivers some not-so-useful stuff instead.  And does away with important functionality.
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February 10th, 2013 4:40am

And from bad to worse - searching through emails on my Win7 system has now apparently been completely buggered due to Outlook 2013.  Despite having tons of email in Windows Live Mail, explorer search now returns nothing - and I've completely de-installed Office 2013, re-installed Windows 7, Win7 search, re-indexed, etc - nothing.  I'm basically looking at a re-install now due to the Office team deciding that we don't need email search with no logical explanation.


Can you confirm one thing?  You said you re-installed Windows 7.  Then you say you're looking at a re-install now.  Did you really mean you re-installed Windows 7? And if so, what are you going to re-install now?  Outlook 2010?
February 10th, 2013 4:45am

And from bad to worse - searching through emails on my Win7 system has now apparently been completely buggered due to Outlook 2013.  Despite having tons of email in Windows Live Mail, explorer search now returns nothing - and I've completely de-installed Office 2013, re-installed Windows 7, Win7 search, re-indexed, etc - nothing.  I'm basically looking at a re-install now due to the Office team deciding that we don't need email search with no logical explanation.


Can you confirm one thing?  You said you re-installed Windows 7.  Then you say you're looking at a re-install now.  Did you really mean you re-installed Windows 7? And if so, what are you going to re-install now?  Outlook 2010?
  • Edited by smoddelm Sunday, February 10, 2013 1:46 AM
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February 10th, 2013 4:45am


Can you confirm one thing?  You said you re-installed Windows 7.  Then you say you're looking at a re-install now.  Did you really mean you re-installed Windows 7? And if so, what are you going to re-install now?  Outlook 2010?

Gah!  Typo sorry, certainly didn't re-install Win7, that would have fixed it of course and it's likely what I'm heading towards pretty soon.  Was probably thinking of Win7 search and just got distracted in the middle of typing that.

February 10th, 2013 5:07am


Can you confirm one thing?  You said you re-installed Windows 7.  Then you say you're looking at a re-install now.  Did you really mean you re-installed Windows 7? And if so, what are you going to re-install now?  Outlook 2010?

Gah!  Typo sorry, certainly didn't re-install Win7, that would have fixed it of course and it's likely what I'm heading towards pretty soon.  Was probably thinking of Win7 search and just got distracted in the middle of typing that.


OK, but did you try simply re-installing Outlook 2010? Or were you using Windows Live Mail before?
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February 10th, 2013 5:16am

OK, but did you try simply re-installing Outlook 2010? Or were you using Windows Live Mail before?

This was a clean install of Win7 actually, just Live at the time - no Office suite installed before 2013. 

I have MSDN however so I'm going to install 2010 and see if that changes anything.

February 10th, 2013 5:18am

Ok, installing Outlook 2010 does indeed "fix" it for the most part - emails/contacts show up in the Microsoft Outlook category.  However the Windows Live mail category does not show, which it did previously.  Uninstalled Office 2010 as well - and now no results whatsoever.

So Office 2013 basically blew away any notion that this PC has email outside of Outlook. :)

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February 10th, 2013 5:48am

It would be nice if Microsoft would explain to users how to get things back to normal if they decide to uninstall 2013.

Agree, but I'm not sure they can come up with any legitimate answers. I think they are literally in the process internally of going "oh crap, what did we just release? This is really terrible! Why did we let that executive overrule common sense?". Even Microsoft employees themselves hate the new Office 2013 look and feel over 2010. What a major step backward in functionality.

There is almost ZERO ROI to upgrade to Office 2013 - and many negative ROI's to do so.  Office 2010 is a fantastic product - stick with it. Let your voices be heard and reject this trash known as Office 2013.

  • Edited by ABCFED Sunday, February 10, 2013 5:16 PM
February 10th, 2013 5:15pm

Ok, installing Outlook 2010 does indeed "fix" it for the most part - emails/contacts show up in the Microsoft Outlook category.  However the Windows Live mail category does not show, which it did previously.  Uninstalled Office 2010 as well - and now no results whatsoever.

So Office 2013 basically blew away any notion that this PC has email outside of Outlook. :)

Did you try going to "Default Programs" to see if you could set Windows Live Mail as the default?

For my setup, I'm glad to hear that installing Outlook 2010 fixes the problem.  I'm taking another crack at 2013 to see if I really miss the unified search as much as I expected to, and I think I need to make myself live with it for a while.  I didn't want to get to the point where I didn't have a pre-Outlook 2013 restore point and couldn't get back to the way things were.  Because even if I leave Outlook 2010 installed while I give 2013 a real test run (which I have done for my 2 short trials), simply uninstalling Outlook 2013 doesn't return things to normal working order.  As I said above, I had to do a system restore. But I didn't try just uninstalling Outlook 2010 and then reinstalling it...

It would be nice if Microsoft would explain to users how to get things back to normal if they decide to uninstall 2013.

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February 10th, 2013 6:51pm

It would be nice if Microsoft would explain to users how to get things back to normal if they decide to uninstall 2013.

Agree, but I'm not sure they can come up with any legitimate answers. I think they are literally in the process internally of going "oh crap, what did we just release? This is really terrible! Why did we let that executive overrule common sense?". Even Microsoft employees themselves hate the new Office 2013 look and feel over 2010. What a major step backward in functionality.

There is almost ZERO ROI to upgrade to Office 2013 - and many negative ROI's to do so.  Office 2010 is a fantastic product - stick with it. Let your voices be heard and reject this trash known as Office 2013.

February 10th, 2013 8:15pm

It would be nice if Microsoft would explain to users how to get things back to normal if they decide to uninstall 2013.

Agree, but I'm not sure they can come up with any legitimate answers. I think they are literally in the process internally of going "oh crap, what did we just release? This is really terrible! Why did we let that executive overrule common sense?". Even Microsoft employees themselves hate the new Office 2013 look and feel over 2010. What a major step backward in functionality.

There is almost ZERO ROI to upgrade to Office 2013 - and many negative ROI's to do so.  Office 2010 is a fantastic product - stick with it. Let your voices be heard and reject this trash known as Office 2013.

  • Edited by ABCFED Sunday, February 10, 2013 5:16 PM
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February 10th, 2013 8:15pm

I gave up again.  Two principal reasons: (i) the search issue that's the topic of this thread, and (ii) the inability to copy e-mails from another e-mail account (an Exchange account) to a Live or Hotmail account - MS excuse being that it's not supported by EAS.  EAS was a worthwhile change in Outlook 2013 if not for that, but moving things between accounts is a major part of how I work and store things.

As I mentioned above, I've gone through several rounds of uninstalling and reinstalling 2013, and every time I uninstalled the only way I could get 2010 to index again (or even get Windows to recognize that I had a default e-mail program) was to do a system restore.  Last time I did that it broke some networking stuff and I wound up restoring my system from an Acronis backup, so I decided to look for a better way this time.

I tried just removing Outlook from my Office 2010 installation, rebooting, and then adding Outlook back to Office.  That did get the Outlook icon back into "Indexing Options," but indexing immediately claimed (even after reboot) that I still didn't have a default e-mail program, so it wouldn't actually index Outlook items.  I tried 3 ways to make Outlook the default e-mail program: (i) within Outlook (check the box), (ii) in "Set Your Default Programs" (it showed that Outlook 2010 was there and had all its defaults), and (iii) "Set Program Access and Computer Defaults." None of those fixed anything.  I then tried deleting and recreating my Outlook profile.  That also didn't help.  So I completely uninstalled Office 2010 and then reinstalled it.  That has fixed the problem. 

Given that Microsoft's official solution for not being able to copy messages into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and use Outlook 2010, it would be nice if they'd make it a little easier to do that...


  • Edited by smoddelm Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:03 PM
February 13th, 2013 8:01pm

I gave up again.  Two principal reasons: (i) the search issue that's the topic of this thread, and (ii) the inability to copy e-mails from another e-mail account (an Exchange account) to a Live or Hotmail account - MS excuse being that it's not supported by EAS.  EAS was a worthwhile change in Outlook 2013 if not for that, but moving things between accounts is a major part of how I work and store things.

As I mentioned above, I've gone through several rounds of uninstalling and reinstalling 2013, and every time I uninstalled the only way I could get 2010 to index again (or even get Windows to recognize that I had a default e-mail program) was to do a system restore.  Last time I did that it broke some networking stuff and I wound up restoring my system from an Acronis backup, so I decided to look for a better way this time.

I tried just removing Outlook from my Office 2010 installation, rebooting, and then adding Outlook back to Office.  That did get the Outlook icon back into "Indexing Options," but indexing immediately claimed (even after reboot) that I still didn't have a default e-mail program, so it wouldn't actually index Outlook items.  I tried 3 ways to make Outlook the default e-mail program: (i) within Outlook (check the box), (ii) in "Set Your Default Programs" (it showed that Outlook 2010 was there and had all its defaults), and (iii) "Set Program Access and Computer Defaults." None of those fixed anything.  I then tried deleting and recreating my Outlook profile.  That also didn't help.  So I completely uninstalled Office 2010 and then reinstalled it.  That has fixed the problem. 

Given that Microsoft's official solution for not being able to copy messages into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and use Outlook 2010, it would be nice if they'd make it a little easier to do that...


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February 13th, 2013 11:01pm

I gave up again.  Two principal reasons: (i) the search issue that's the topic of this thread, and (ii) the inability to copy e-mails from another e-mail account (an Exchange account) to a Live or Hotmail account - MS excuse being that it's not supported by EAS.  EAS was a worthwhile change in Outlook 2013 if not for that, but moving things between accounts is a major part of how I work and store things.

As I mentioned above, I've gone through several rounds of uninstalling and reinstalling 2013, and every time I uninstalled the only way I could get 2010 to index again (or even get Windows to recognize that I had a default e-mail program) was to do a system restore.  Last time I did that it broke some networking stuff and I wound up restoring my system from an Acronis backup, so I decided to look for a better way this time.

I tried just removing Outlook from my Office 2010 installation, rebooting, and then adding Outlook back to Office.  That did get the Outlook icon back into "Indexing Options," but indexing immediately claimed (even after reboot) that I still didn't have a default e-mail program, so it wouldn't actually index Outlook items.  I tried 3 ways to make Outlook the default e-mail program: (i) within Outlook (check the box), (ii) in "Set Your Default Programs" (it showed that Outlook 2010 was there and had all its defaults), and (iii) "Set Program Access and Computer Defaults." None of those fixed anything.  I then tried deleting and recreating my Outlook profile.  That also didn't help.  So I completely uninstalled Office 2010 and then reinstalled it.  That has fixed the problem. 

Given that Microsoft's official solution for not being able to copy messages into a Hotmail or Live account in Outlook 2013 is to uninstall Outlook 2013 and use Outlook 2010, it would be nice if they'd make it a little easier to do that...


  • Edited by smoddelm Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:03 PM
February 13th, 2013 11:01pm

The last straw: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2028393/office-2013-retail-licensing-change-ties-suite-to-specific-pc-forever.html

Looking at other office suites now...

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February 16th, 2013 1:23am

As a business user, I want quickly be able to find through files. However, files may be sent or received in my inbox and may not have a physical location, even though sometimes they do. I want to do this, holistically, from a single location. Now, I must know if I actually stored the file on my file system or on our shares, or it was something i received in an email.

This makes my life significantly harder and reduces my productivity. 

To me, even though there are a valid security concern, this is such a business valuable feature that Microsoft should have done anything to solve the challenge of general Windows Indexing of classified files. For example by tying the index to the windows account. Never remove valuable features.

Microsoft, this is a hack, - not a solution. Fix it, or I will be forced to use other search engines on my PC. For example Google.


March 5th, 2013 12:31pm

From that standpoint of a business user, removing this feature is detrimental.  While there may be search in Windows 8, Windows 8 is not being deployed in the enterprise around here anytime soon.  Unified search is a major tool for us. 

To add insult to injury, I have not installed Outlook 2013, but installed Lync 2013 which removed Unified Search.  I have specifically avoided Office 2013 as I knew Unified Search was removed.  However I was not expecting Unified Search to be removed by installing Lync2013. 

I hope that Microsoft will reconsider the removal of Unified Search.

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April 4th, 2013 10:41pm

Wonder if there's any chance that this will get fixed (even though Microsoft doesn't acknowledge it's "broken") in Blue...  And ditto for some future update of Outlook 2013.
May 8th, 2013 2:20pm

Unbelievable, I just upgraded from 2010 to 2013 and this is a very backward step on integration...  Windows Search was my right hand!!!  I'm shock!
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May 21st, 2013 6:06pm

I use the windows shell search daily.  The information I am looking for could be in several different formats.   It could be in conversations, email, or just a simple file on my machine.  The ability to include outlook items in the windows shell search was a key feature that was incredibly powerful and useful.   I believe that removing this key feature was an error in judgment.  If they thought it was a security risk then perhaps they should turn it off by default and allow the user to turn it back on.   I cannot express my disappointment enough.

June 3rd, 2013 8:22pm

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


  • Proposed as answer by Jared.B324 Thursday, June 06, 2013 7:32 PM
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June 6th, 2013 7:32pm

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


June 6th, 2013 10:32pm

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


  • Proposed as answer by Jared.B324 Thursday, June 06, 2013 7:32 PM
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June 6th, 2013 10:32pm

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


Nice find - it did show emails in the Start Menu, however attempting to open any of them results in "The Attempted Operation Failed.  An object cannot be found".  As well, it lists them under "Files" and not "Email", which limits somewhat how you can sort them.

Some progress so thanks, unfortunately not ideal currently.

Even Win 8.1 "Blue" still won't have email indexing as well apparently.  I don't understand why this is considered such a niche functionality by MS or what the deal is - some limitation of Windows Runtime currently due to the harsh sandboxing and they don't want to separate the desktop and Start Screen search results is my best guess...(?)  Then again I'm trying to figure out the logic behind a company that launched a $500 Tegra3-based tablet in this day and age and hyped up a $100 keyboard add-on as its most distinguished feature, so...

Another "No Compromise" compromise due to Metro possibly (not to mention even the "new' amalgamated search in Win8.1, which appreciated, still does not have the functionality of Start Menu search.  Augh!)?


  • Edited by Nitz Walsh Friday, June 07, 2013 3:16 AM
June 7th, 2013 3:03am

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


Nice find - it did show emails in the Start Menu, however attempting to open any of them results in "The Attempted Operation Failed.  An object cannot be found".  As well, it lists them under "Files" and not "Email", which limits somewhat how you can sort them.

Some progress so thanks, unfortunately not ideal currently.

Even Win 8.1 "Blue" still won't have email indexing as well apparently.  I don't understand why this is considered such a niche functionality by MS or what the deal is - some limitation of Windows Runtime currently due to the harsh sandboxing and they don't want to separate the desktop and Start Screen search results is my best guess...(?)  Then again I'm trying to figure out the logic behind a company that launched a $500 Tegra3-based tablet in this day and age and hyped up a $100 keyboard add-on as its most distinguished feature, so...

Another "No Compromise" compromise due to Metro possibly (not to mention even the "new' amalgamated search in Win8.1, which appreciated, still does not have the functionality of Start Menu search.  Augh!)?


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June 7th, 2013 6:03am

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


Nice find - it did show emails in the Start Menu, however attempting to open any of them results in "The Attempted Operation Failed.  An object cannot be found".  As well, it lists them under "Files" and not "Email", which limits somewhat how you can sort them.

Some progress so thanks, unfortunately not ideal currently.

Even Win 8.1 "Blue" still won't have email indexing as well apparently.  I don't understand why this is considered such a niche functionality by MS or what the deal is - some limitation of Windows Runtime currently due to the harsh sandboxing and they don't want to separate the desktop and Start Screen search results is my best guess...(?)  Then again I'm trying to figure out the logic behind a company that launched a $500 Tegra3-based tablet in this day and age and hyped up a $100 keyboard add-on as its most distinguished feature, so...

Another "No Compromise" compromise due to Metro possibly (not to mention even the "new' amalgamated search in Win8.1, which appreciated, still does not have the functionality of Start Menu search.  Augh!)?


  • Edited by Nitz Walsh Friday, June 07, 2013 3:16 AM
June 7th, 2013 6:03am

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information above was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.


Cheers,
Tony Chen
Forum Support
________________________________________
Come back and mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

No. The information was not helpful. You've removed an incredibly useful feature (one that I use every single day). You've provided no reason whatsoever for the degraded functionality You've also failed to answer what a solution to the problem would be.

Just saying "that feature is removed on Outlook 2013" is not helpful. Performing searches within Office 2013 independent of the search bar is ridiculous. So, what's the solution? Is there a patch coming with SP1? Is there a third-party add-on? Who is making these crazy design decisions...and how can we talk to them and understand the reasoning behind this apparent lunacy?

Microsoft is going backward..remember? why do you think they released Windows 8 and removed start menu...They also have new positions open for "Remove best features expert"
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June 26th, 2013 7:43am

Agree 100%
July 4th, 2013 5:54pm

This is a BIG problem and oversight. I happen to like a number of the Office 2013 changes. Even the flat icons are starting to grow on me. But, the removal of this search is an outright deal killer for me. I had to revert back to Windows 7 and Office 2010 because of this issue. Yes, it is that big of a deal to me.

I have 16 Active Data Files covering 14 years of emails and over 50,000 contacts.

Cant search for contacts across multiple folders and data files: Searching for contacts is limited to a single folder. I can use the Advanced Find function, but then you have to individually check off each location to search and search is limited to only 1 of only 7 field groups in the contact.

Mailbox searches do not include contacts: Search results within the mailbox search does not include contacts even if you do select All outlook Items.

Filtering Searches: When I do a search through Windows Shell the results are shown in Explorer where I can easily sort and filter in many different ways. For example, I can filter by just Outlook Contacts or just Word Documents and sort them by Date Modified. I can find all the contacts I have with a particular domain name in their email address, know which outlook data file and folder they are in and see when each was touched/updated last. As far as I can see, this business case is outright impossible now?

Searching in Attachments: I can no longer see which attachment a search string is in. The Outlook search results provide only the email that the attachment is in. In Windows Shell search the actual documents would also be in the results. I could then sort by the modified date, filter by type and be able to find the last version and see the others also out there. This would all be in comparison to what I have on my desktop too. I can also see if a particular search string is in Word Docs, Excel Spreadsheets, PowerPoints and PDFs. No of this is possible in the outlook search unless I open every single email in the search results.

Ultimately searching for all the emails, contacts, tasks, events, documents (in and out of outlook) for a string such as the domain name from an email address is no longer possible. You would have to perform several searches in several different places and ways and even then would not be searching everything.

All suggestions welcome: if anyone has ways around my challenges listed above, I would love to hear them.

PLEASE bring back the indexing of outlook content in Windows Shell Search!!! I could do everything I needed to do above with this functionality.
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July 12th, 2013 3:09pm

I have the same issues as the above comments. I installed Visio 2013 and that totally messed up my life! I can't search anything on my desktop search/start search. Even Word documents won't open as I see them in the search results - I can't even see a preview! To top the icing on my frustrations I can't even right-click on the files to "open with" or "send to" any other program! So I'm just sitting watching the results trying to figure out where and how to actually reach them!

So far after decades of work this is the pinnacle of stupidity and frustration. It really tops all the blue screens, driver errors, and general screw-ups I've had to deal with so far.

I hope there's some solution to this, I have over 40k emails and thousands of documents, I can't even think of how I can deal with this situation if it lasts.

July 14th, 2013 7:33am

Yes - this definately seems to be major killer for any professional
people working with office documents.. Instead of killing simply
best app that Microsoft had for unified search, could you please
even try to make it better (like including cloud locations etc)

But IMHO unified search is THE most common used thing after
taskmgr.exe amongst it pros.. Killing it was simply idiotic

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July 20th, 2013 1:33am

Try this, it worked for me :

Go to this registry key and change office15 to office14 :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{138508bc-1e03-49ea-9c8f-ea9e1d05d65d}\InprocServer32]

default = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MAPISHELL.DLL


Nice find - it did show emails in the Start Menu, however attempting to open any of them results in "The Attempted Operation Failed.  An object cannot be found".  As well, it lists them under "Files" and not "Email", which limits somewhat how you can sort them.

Some progress so thanks, unfortunately not ideal currently.

Even Win 8.1 "Blue" still won't have email indexing as well apparently.  I don't understand why this is considered such a niche functionality by MS or what the deal is - some limitation of Windows Runtime currently due to the harsh sandboxing and they don't want to separate the desktop and Start Screen search results is my best guess...(?)  Then again I'm trying to figure out the logic behind a company that launched a $500 Tegra3-based tablet in this day and age and hyped up a $100 keyboard add-on as its most distinguished feature, so...

Another "No Compromise" compromise due to Metro possibly (not to mention even the "new' amalgamated search in Win8.1, which appreciated, still does not have the functionality of Start Menu search.  Augh!)?



Sorry, looks like my system still has Outlook 2010 loaded. The search did get messed up when my company loaded Lync 2013. So I guess I have a odd mix of the Office suite. All I can recommend is getting your company to downgrade you to Outlook 2010. I guess I should start looking for third party software that will search emails. Microsoft, pushing business to other suppliers, this is why they loose confidence and market share.
July 22nd, 2013 10:06pm

No, this might be the 'answer' but it's hardly acceptable. Why would anyone want to remove such a useful feature? Unfortunately, I use the Explorer shell as a unified search solution dozens of times a day -- probably even more. The answer to 'Use the appropriate Office application' is simply wrong.

Who to we complain to in order to get something done about this travesty?

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July 22nd, 2013 10:52pm

One would think that the removal of the Outlook search function would have created a veritable storm within Microsoft Corporation fueled by the anger of thousands of frustrated employee-users. surely, the company's top management uses Office and has noticed that something is seriously wrong.

It is absolutely imponderable that such a fundamental function could have been eliminated. I and many other users rely on Outlook searches many times  day. Microsoft must fix this and do so in a hurry to avoid further fracturing its enterprise customer base. This is bad enough to warrant a public apology and a promise to fix the product.


  • Edited by jafisitt Thursday, August 22, 2013 1:00 PM
August 22nd, 2013 12:59pm

One would think that the removal of the Outlook search function would have created a veritable storm within Microsoft Corporation fueled by the anger of thousands of frustrated employee-users. surely, the company's top management uses Office and has noticed that something is seriously wrong.

It is absolutely imponderable that such a fundamental function could have been eliminated. I and many other users rely on Outlook searches many times  day. Microsoft must fix this and do so in a hurry to avoid further fracturing its enterprise customer base. This is bad enough to warrant a public apology and a promise to fix the product.


  • Edited by jafisitt Thursday, August 22, 2013 1:00 PM
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August 22nd, 2013 3:59pm

OMG!  I wondered why my start button searches were not returning Outlook results.   I also heavily use OneNote and I have noticed that the start button searches are not returning items stored within OneNote as they once did when I was using Office 2010. I, also, have paid $100 for the first year use of office 2013. If this is going to be Microsoft's position then I must revert to Office 2010.

I was also planning to get my big toe into the Windows 8 hemisphere this fall with an upgrade of my current Toshiba convertible Tablet PC. I think Microsoft decision in this area is going to force me to downgrade any purchase to Windows 7 and to stay with office 2010. 

Microsoft, sometimes you make some brilliant decisions but this one that you tried to slip by us is inherently stupid and very, very unproductive for us users.

September 5th, 2013 12:37am

This is a mission critical feature. Affects work flow of people who work with contacts and emails on an every day basis. I probably do 20+ shell searches a day looking for contacts or emails and currently have my old Win7/Outlook2010 alongside the new Win8/Outlook2013 as a temporary solution until this is fixed.

This was a terribly thought out feature removal. The security explanation makes no sense either.

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September 5th, 2013 10:48pm

Sadly I took up the offer to upgrade to Office 2013 and I regret it tremendously. It turns out indeed that this upgrade makes my Windows 7 Pro 64bit less functional as it removes the ability to search for emails and embedded email attachments via the built-in Win7 Shell search (explorer search).

I first thought this was a bug but I learned from this thread that this is actually planned obsolescence that removes functionality from one bit of (paid) Microsoft software (Win 7) when upgrading another.

The ability to quickly find emails and attachments from my various .pst archive folders and document collections in one unified search is functionality I use multiple times every day, and something essential to my use of my computer. I fail to understand how Microsoft can simply remove this without considering the outpour of negative feedback this will create. The security reasons Microsoft states for removing this seem nonsensical to most experts.

I tried to remove Office 2013 and reinstall Office 2010 but unfortunately the damage the 2013 installation has done (explained above) seems irreversible?

Could Microsoft PLEASE release a script/tutorial to reverse Windows Search to its original (pre-Office 2013) state so that my Windows 7 + Office 2010 combination works as it should (and as was advertised when I bought it)?

September 8th, 2013 7:43am

Recently upgraded to Office 2013 and spent a couple of hours trying to look for ways to re-enable the integrated Outlook search in Windows Search. Just found this thread and can not believe what I am reading. MS removed a critical feature that is essential for most business users? Why?

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September 12th, 2013 2:58pm

The best solution I have found is to simply to reinstall Office 2010.  It will coexist with 2013 as long as the binaries are the same type (64 bit office 2010 + 64 bit office 2013).  In particular, I installed Onenote and Outlook 2010.  The programs need to be running for the Indexer to see their contents.

Then, to get the full Desktop Search functionality on Windows 8, one must create a shortcut to {user}/Searches/Indexed Locations.  That will open a Window where you can freely search for any Outlook or Onenote item, as well as any other files configured in Indexing Options.

This is an awkward workaround.  I agree completely that crippling the search functionality in Win8 and Office 2013/365 was a very bad blunder, and one that Microsoft needs to correct quickly.

  • Proposed as answer by daflory Friday, October 18, 2013 5:28 PM
October 18th, 2013 5:26pm

The best solution I have found is to simply to reinstall Office 2010.  It will coexist with 2013 as long as the binaries are the same type (64 bit office 2010 + 64 bit office 2013).  In particular, I installed Onenote and Outlook 2010.  The programs need to be running for the Indexer to see their contents.

Then, to get the full Desktop Search functionality on Windows 8, one must create a shortcut to {user}/Searches/Indexed Locations.  That will open a Window where you can freely search for any Outlook or Onenote item, as well as any other files configured in Indexing Options.

This is an awkward workaround.  I agree completely that crippling the search functionality in Win8 and Office 2013/365 was a very bad blunder, and one that Microsoft needs to correct quickly.

  • Proposed as answer by daflory Friday, October 18, 2013 5:28 PM
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October 18th, 2013 8:26pm

I thought this might get fixed with Win 8.1.  Didn't really expect, but hoped.  Instead, Search seems worse than ever.  A lot of tech journalists say it was improved (I guess because now it includes web searches with Bing?).
October 27th, 2013 1:56am

Hi,
i totally agree to the other users here that the removal of this feature is a huge step backwards. It is just another reason and maybe a show stopper for us to introduce office 2013 in our company (~1000 users) !
It is just insane and unbelievable what Microsoft did here.
  • Edited by MLouis Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:41 AM
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November 21st, 2013 8:41am

Hi,
i totally agree to the other users here that the removal of this feature is a huge step backwards. It is just another reason and maybe a show stopper for us to introduce office 2013 in our company (~1000 users) !
It is just insane and unbelievable what Microsoft did here.
  • Edited by MLouis Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:41 AM
November 21st, 2013 11:41am

Never have I experienced such dumb decission from Microsoft.
First a useless system like Win8 and then they remove the most important feature in a mail program.
What are you thinking Microsoft and thank you for wasting hours and hours of my time and make me go back to Outlook 2010.

I wish I could say  thanks for nothing, but this is so much less than nothing.

Who ever came up with this bright idea should be ....

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December 12th, 2013 1:22am

This is a BIG problem and oversight. I happen to like a number of the Office 2013 changes. Even the flat icons are starting to grow on me. But, the removal of this search is an outright deal killer for me. I had to revert back to Windows 7 and Office 2010 because of this issue. Yes, it is that big of a deal to me.

I have 16 Active Data Files covering 14 years of emails and over 50,000 contacts.

Cant search for contacts across multiple folders and data files: Searching for contacts is limited to a single folder. I can use the Advanced Find function, but then you have to individually check off each location to search and search is limited to only 1 of only 7 field groups in the contact.

Mailbox searches do not include contacts: Search results within the mailbox search does not include contacts even if you do select All outlook Items.

Filtering Searches: When I do a search through Windows Shell the results are shown in Explorer where I can easily sort and filter in many different ways. For example, I can filter by just Outlook Contacts or just Word Documents and sort them by Date Modified. I can find all the contacts I have with a particular domain name in their email address, know which outlook data file and folder they are in and see when each was touched/updated last. As far as I can see, this business case is outright impossible now?

Searching in Attachments: I can no longer see which attachment a search string is in. The Outlook search results provide only the email that the attachment is in. In Windows Shell search the actual documents would also be in the results. I could then sort by the modified date, filter by type and be able to find the last version and see the others also out there. This would all be in comparison to what I have on my desktop too. I can also see if a particular search string is in Word Docs, Excel Spreadsheets, PowerPoints and PDFs. No of this is possible in the outlook search unless I open every single email in the search results.

Ultimately searching for all the emails, contacts, tasks, events, documents (in and out of outlook) for a string such as the domain name from an email address is no longer possible. You would have to perform several searches in several different places and ways and even then would not be searching everything.

All suggestions welcome: if anyone has ways around my challenges listed above, I would love to hear them.

PLEASE bring back the indexing of outlook content in Windows Shell Search!!! I could do everything I needed to do above with this functionality.

I completely agree. The feature to search mails and its attachments from Windows shell is a "MUST HAVE" feature. 
December 26th, 2013 5:30pm

Disturbing that we're coming up to a year now with no sensible reply or traction on this.

It's just night and day when I dual-boot between Win7 with Office 2010 and Win8 with 2013 in being able to find what I want quickly.  Searching from Outlook isn't only a hassle, it's a major regression in flexibility as detailed by St Lee's post.

Really MS, throw us a crumb this Christmas.

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December 26th, 2013 6:41pm

So correct if I am wrong but this is still true today?

Using Office 365 and Outlook 2013 on Win 7 you can no longer search using the start bar.  Windows 8.1 using Outlook 2013 and O365 again you still can not do this?  (So basically upgrading your OS does not help either?)

Any updates on this?  We have migrated from Exchange 2010 to O365.  And we are now starting to migrate users to Office 2013 and are discovering Outlook 2013 users can no longer searching using Start/Windows search.  The end users are not pleased...

Thanks for any updates.

January 17th, 2014 11:41pm

So correct if I am wrong but this is still true today?

Using Office 365 and Outlook 2013 on Win 7 you can no longer search using the start bar.  Windows 8.1 using Outlook 2013 and O365 again you still can not do this?  (So basically upgrading your OS does not help either?)

Any updates on this?  We have migrated from Exchange 2010 to O365.  And we are now starting to migrate users to Office 2013 and are discovering Outlook 2013 users can no longer searching using Start/Windows search.  The end users are not pleased...

Thanks for any updates.

Unfortunately yes we're still at ground zero; still no movement on this or any explanation has been forthcoming from MS.

It's more than the Start Menu in Win7 though, installing any component of Office 2013, even ones that have nothing to do with email (such as just installing Lync) - removes email indexing entirely (or at least the user-exposed interface to search through them), so search via its dedicated search pane (Winkey + F) will also give no results.  In my testing, it also removed all previously stored indexed results from Windows Live Mail, which doesn't even use a database for its emails, just individual files.

On Windows 8, email searching from explorer is not possible at all regardless of what Office version or other email client you're using - except ironically enough, if you install a Start Menu replacement.  I installed Start is Back, and once that's done I at least get email results in the Start Menu - but again, only if you're using Windows Live Mail, as mentioned Live Mail just stores every email as a seperate file, so in this case the results show up under the "Files" category, but you can least see their headers and senders and quickly find that you're looking for.

On a related tangent: Supposedly one of the benefits of having "Software as a Service" is the constant stream of 'free' updates you can get.  Well, it's been a year and a significant regression of Office 2013 has not been remedied - I'm curious to hear from Office 365 users who have the desktop software subscription exactly what kind of "updates" they've been getting.  I'm using an MSDN copy of Office 2013 (basically stick to Office 2010 on my Win7 partition because of this) so I'm not aware of any significant improvements that have been made, certainly the web portals and interfaces have improved to varying degrees, but I remain highly skeptical that a subscription model really delivers significant benefits to end users in terms of rapid iteration. 

Certianly not seeing it so far.

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January 18th, 2014 6:03pm

Is very disapinting that this featiure doesn't work any more. Has been one of the principal tool I have use to increase my productivity.
February 1st, 2014 10:20am

It *is* disappointing....and I do not buy any of those "security" excuses.

The plain reason is that MS wants to push you towards their Office365 (i.e. their cloud solutions in general) by removing features from their desktop products.

  • Edited by Trekman Saturday, March 15, 2014 10:49 PM
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March 15th, 2014 10:46pm

It *is* disappointing....and I do not buy any of those "security" excuses.

The plain reason is that MS wants to push you towards their Office365 (i.e. their cloud solutions in general) by removing features from their desktop products.

  • Edited by Trekman Saturday, March 15, 2014 10:49 PM
March 16th, 2014 1:46am

Thank goodness I found this thread. I've been pulling my hair out.

This is an incredibly bone-headed move. I used Copernic years ago, but loved the Windows shell search when I found it. Now it's back to Copernic.

MICROSOFT, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.

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March 25th, 2014 11:57pm

Just completed a backout of Office 2013, with the MS office removal tool and re-installed 2010

Happy that my search is back the way it was. Unified search was one of the most useful features introduced into Windows / Office in the last few years. I cannot see myself moving to Win8 / 2013 until this is resolved.

April 3rd, 2014 2:56am

Wow.  I have been on Office 2013 for 2 days and all of the problems I have seem to be universal.  I have 8 licenses in the Office and now that I have seen that many of the innovations of Office 2010 have been removed from Office 2013. We will not be buying any additional licenses.  The e-mail search is used more than 30 times per day on our Exchange account.  Everyone in the office is able to keep abreast of what is going.  This is incredibly frustrating.  Please Microsoft.  Send out a fix.  The good news for Microsoft is that I will have to go buy a license for Outlook 2010.  Hopefully I can still buy one.
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April 23rd, 2014 10:20pm

The best thing about windows was WDS via the windows key. Now it's pointless, it's no longer a desktop search, it's an application specific search. This was a point of differentiation , it made MS look like they were really getting ahead of the game. A TOP NOTCH EXCELLENT WELL DESIGNED FAST RESPONDING FEATURE.  I am not resistant to change but I am resistant to reversing progress. Here's one of the few functions that makes Apple look backwater and MS looks professional. AND YOU TOOK IT OUT. Come on, have all the good designers left Microsoft? Look at the length of this trail, it's a massive MISS. Shoot again and hit the target Microsoft
June 2nd, 2014 5:06am

Excellent !! Let us know the details. Otherwise i may have to think downgrade to Outlook 2010. Without the mail contents being searched in windows search, the day would be incredible. I have around 26GB archive files added in Outlook 2013 and the Inherint feature of Outlook search bar just hangs and crashes now and then. It is really rediculous that you have removed such a good feature. Agreed that you are concentrating the light weight features for Office 2013 but that doesn't mean to remove the good features. The product can be stabilized only when you keep the existing 'good voted' features.  Let us not compromise on the product quality.

Please let me know the SP to to download the patch for this.

Ta

kiran

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June 7th, 2014 10:18am

I downgraded to Office 2010.
September 4th, 2014 7:58pm

Late on the train, I installed some PCs for a client, and as there is no way to buy Office 2010 anymore (only grey or black copies for insane prices) I had to install 2013. To be most compatible with the client, I also updated my Office to 2013.

Then I figured out not only that Access 2013 simply does not support my .adp application anymore, which is in use since many years - meaning not at all, forget it, nada! - but also the fact with the Windows search not showing emails anymore, as discussed here.

I cannot believe what Microsoft is doing. How stupid can a company be, to work so dramatically away from users needs? I skipped this silly idea of Win8 completely, still working on (excellent!) Win7, waiting for Win9. Sadly with Office I did not have this choice. And yes, also the optics of Office 2013 look like a huge step backwards, really!

Microsoft is *still* a big company. But also very big ships can sink, and at the moment it looks like they are doing everything for it.

WE USED THIS FEATURE INTENSIVELY, and there is no good reason for removing it. And as it seems Microsoft does not even try to explain seriously; they will know why.

FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO THE CLIENT, or more and more people will realize, that e.g. also LibreOffice is a nice suite, and - guess what? - FOR FREE!






  • Edited by Klaus Weber Saturday, September 06, 2014 9:50 AM
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September 6th, 2014 9:19am

Late on the train, I installed some PCs for a client, and as there is no way to buy Office 2010 anymore (only grey or black copies for insane prices) I had to install 2013. To be most compatible with the client, I also updated my Office to 2013.

Then I figured out not only that Access 2013 simply does not support my .adp application anymore, which is in use since many years - meaning not at all, forget it, nada! - but also the fact with the Windows search not showing emails anymore, as discussed here.

I cannot believe what Microsoft is doing. How stupid can a company be, to work so dramatically away from users needs? I skipped this silly idea of Win8 completely, still working on (excellent!) Win7, waiting for Win9. Sadly with Office I did not have this choice. And yes, also the optics of Office 2013 look like a huge step backwards, really!

Microsoft is *still* a big company. But also very big ships can sink, and at the moment it looks like they are doing everything for it.

WE USED THIS FEATURE INTENSIVELY, and there is no good reason for removing it. And as it seems Microsoft does not even try to explain seriously; they will know why.

FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO THE CLIENT, or more and more people will realize, that e.g. also LibreOffice is a nice suite, and - guess what? - FOR FREE!






  • Edited by Klaus Weber Saturday, September 06, 2014 9:50 AM
September 6th, 2014 12:19pm

Any chance this will be fixed or addressed in any meaningful way?

Very disappointing to see perhaps the single most useful feature removed with poor explanation & alternatives.

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September 9th, 2014 6:20pm

Well, at least this thread was very helpful to me to understand that Microsoft is apparently going to ignore this problem they created with Outlook 2013. Also for me, WDS has become the pivot of my daily work.

Now, after trying for 6 weeks to work with Office 2013, this missing feature finally made me decide to uninstall Office 2013 and roll back to Office 2010. 

There were some other issues with Outlook 2013, like it's sub-optimal use of display space (obviously a tribute to touch display input) that cannot be entirely undone and a click-intense address book integration... But first I thought  I should give it some time. The switch to Office 2007 was also a really hard one, but after 1-2 weeks I started to understand and even like the new UI. 

This didn't work for Office 2013. Not at all. Actually I wished 2010 back more and more every day. Finally, understanding that there's no way to get the Mail index back into global search, I rolled entirely back to Office 2010 and I'm happy now. 

I really hope that the next major Office product release will fix it and I then can jump over Office 2013! 

September 13th, 2014 3:48pm

Now THAT is a helpful answer.  I REALLY agree.  Having just upgraded from 2007, and discovering these new design decisions that have been made, I'm REALLY missing my 2007.  If I hadn't wanted the Live Drive access to get away from Google, I'd being going back immediately.
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October 25th, 2014 4:19pm

yup... my main concerns for office 2013 currently are..

1) removing unified search.. who on earth could engineer such an improvement ??? monkey???

2) working with big excel files.. even though office 2013 64-bit should support really BIG files,
it's actually a lot slower than 2010 32-bit.. just try to filter huge list (i.e. 1M entries)

I hope MS would really listen to this comments and fix things.. but unfortunately I have not seen that happening :(

Like "hmm, I understand, we will take this to product development team" -type of comments

November 8th, 2014 12:33am

I concur with all the comments here. I discovered (too late, of course) that I cannot search any of my 200,000+ emails now because I installed Office 2013 Professional. Everything worked great with Windows Desktop Search (Win 7 64 bit) and Office 2010 Professional. I saw all my documents, emails, etc. Now, it's all screwed up.

I made the mistake of then REMOVING Office 2010 Professional, thinking this would help. I *then* went to rebuild my indexes. As a result, I can't find ANYTHING, as indexing for Windows plods along at a snails pace (2,590 files indexed in three hours. When I tried previously, it was up to 140,000 files over the course of many days. Likewise, trying to index in Outlook 2013 showed I had over 250,000 files to index, and every time I'd delete emails, the number went UP!)

Needless to say, I'm thinking of backing up, reformatting my hard drive, reinstalling Windows 7 64 bit and then reinstalling Office 2010 Professional. (Which, by the way, you can do via a DVD and choose which components to install, unlike Office 2013 Professional, which forces you to take everything. And don't get me started on what to do if you want to upgrade to a new computer and think you can easily install Office 2013 Professional!)

The final kicker is this: the only reason I got Office 2013 Professional was because I wanted the table slicers in Excel 2013. Then I found out that the decremented PowerPivot, etc. in Excel! Only if you buy the STANDALONE version of Excel do you get Business Intelligence features. IS MICROSOFT TRYING TO DESTROY SMALL BUSINESSES?!

Like so many others have expressed, it seems that Microsoft is purposely trying to get people to go away. LibreOffice has never looked so good. APPLE has never looked so good!

Oh, final tip: see this link for free desktop search programs that may solve the broken WDS issue.

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/08/13/the-best-free-desktop-search-programs-for-windows/

WDS issue. fad Oh, how I wish Google still made their Google Desktop Search. That thing was wicked fast. If Google would just improve their online "office" docs product (Docs. Drive. Whatever.), I'd be there in a heartbeat. Why they don't is beyond me.

  • Proposed as answer by WWestFC 22 hours 11 minutes ago
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February 5th, 2015 8:43am

I concur with all the comments here. I discovered (too late, of course) that I cannot search any of my 200,000+ emails now because I installed Office 2013 Professional. Everything worked great with Windows Desktop Search (Win 7 64 bit) and Office 2010 Professional. I saw all my documents, emails, etc. Now, it's all screwed up.

I made the mistake of then REMOVING Office 2010 Professional, thinking this would help. I *then* went to rebuild my indexes. As a result, I can't find ANYTHING, as indexing for Windows plods along at a snails pace (2,590 files indexed in three hours. When I tried previously, it was up to 140,000 files over the course of many days. Likewise, trying to index in Outlook 2013 showed I had over 250,000 files to index, and every time I'd delete emails, the number went UP!)

Needless to say, I'm thinking of backing up, reformatting my hard drive, reinstalling Windows 7 64 bit and then reinstalling Office 2010 Professional. (Which, by the way, you can do via a DVD and choose which components to install, unlike Office 2013 Professional, which forces you to take everything. And don't get me started on what to do if you want to upgrade to a new computer and think you can easily install Office 2013 Professional!)

The final kicker is this: the only reason I got Office 2013 Professional was because I wanted the table slicers in Excel 2013. Then I found out that the decremented PowerPivot, etc. in Excel! Only if you buy the STANDALONE version of Excel do you get Business Intelligence features. IS MICROSOFT TRYING TO DESTROY SMALL BUSINESSES?!

Like so many others have expressed, it seems that Microsoft is purposely trying to get people to go away. LibreOffice has never looked so good. APPLE has never looked so good!

Oh, final tip: see this link for free desktop search programs that may solve the broken WDS issue.

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/08/13/the-best-free-desktop-search-programs-for-windows/

WDS issue. fad Oh, how I wish Google still made their Google Desktop Search. That thing was wicked fast. If Google would just improve their online "office" docs product (Docs. Drive. Whatever.), I'd be there in a heartbeat. Why they don't is beyond me.

  • Proposed as answer by WWestFC Thursday, February 05, 2015 1:41 PM
February 5th, 2015 1:41pm

I concur with all the comments here. I discovered (too late, of course) that I cannot search any of my 200,000+ emails now because I installed Office 2013 Professional. Everything worked great with Windows Desktop Search (Win 7 64 bit) and Office 2010 Professional. I saw all my documents, emails, etc. Now, it's all screwed up.

I made the mistake of then REMOVING Office 2010 Professional, thinking this would help. I *then* went to rebuild my indexes. As a result, I can't find ANYTHING, as indexing for Windows plods along at a snails pace (2,590 files indexed in three hours. When I tried previously, it was up to 140,000 files over the course of many days. Likewise, trying to index in Outlook 2013 showed I had over 250,000 files to index, and every time I'd delete emails, the number went UP!)

Needless to say, I'm thinking of backing up, reformatting my hard drive, reinstalling Windows 7 64 bit and then reinstalling Office 2010 Professional. (Which, by the way, you can do via a DVD and choose which components to install, unlike Office 2013 Professional, which forces you to take everything. And don't get me started on what to do if you want to upgrade to a new computer and think you can easily install Office 2013 Professional!)

The final kicker is this: the only reason I got Office 2013 Professional was because I wanted the table slicers in Excel 2013. Then I found out that the decremented PowerPivot, etc. in Excel! Only if you buy the STANDALONE version of Excel do you get Business Intelligence features. IS MICROSOFT TRYING TO DESTROY SMALL BUSINESSES?!

Like so many others have expressed, it seems that Microsoft is purposely trying to get people to go away. LibreOffice has never looked so good. APPLE has never looked so good!

Oh, final tip: see this link for free desktop search programs that may solve the broken WDS issue.

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/08/13/the-best-free-desktop-search-programs-for-windows/

WDS issue. fad Oh, how I wish Google still made their Google Desktop Search. That thing was wicked fast. If Google would just improve their online "office" docs product (Docs. Drive. Whatever.), I'd be there in a heartbeat. Why they don't is beyond me.

  • Proposed as answer by WWestFC Thursday, February 05, 2015 1:41 PM
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February 5th, 2015 4:41pm

I agree 100%. My boss is gonna be pissed!
February 6th, 2015 8:35am

Unbelievable they could be so short sighted.

Wish I could move to OSX where the search feature still works.  :-)

Please, Microsoft - listen to your customers!!

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February 20th, 2015 2:08pm

What. The. HELL?

Email = killer app
Unified search = killer app

Unified search for email = Mission critical!

The only "FIX" for me seems to be to remove Office 2013, reinstall Office 2010 and never "upgrade" from Win7

Seriously, I prefer Linux at home but have Windows at work, the unified search was one of the things that has made me appreciate Windows, it's fast and functional and made my work a lot more streamlined. 

And the only response to this huge thread is "Feature killed"

April 28th, 2015 7:15am

To all that reads this Microsoft has removed a needed time saving feature.

THIS NEEDS TO BE PUT OUT ON THE ENTERNET FACEBOOK, TWITTER, SNAPCHAT ANY SOCIAL MEDIA KNOWN

THIS WILL NEVER BE FIXED BY MICROSOFT

FORCE THIS UP TO YOUR COMPANY MANAGERS AND LET THEM KNOW HOW MUCH MORE TIME YOU WILL SPEND EACH DAY NOT HAVING A SIMPLE FUNCTION AS SEARCH. NOT ONLY WILL THE SEARCH NOT WORK FROM START IT WILL NOT WORK FROM FLASH DRIVES OR DESKTOP FOLDERS WITH OUTLOOK OPEN???????

MICROSOFT IS A MONSTER AND WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO FORCE Competition!!!!!! IN THE MARKET

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August 17th, 2015 9:35am

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