Windows Update screwed up the search option in Windows Explorer?

[ricard83]

I am so beyond frustrated right now. My computer is a Gatewaykx4800-01 (Quadcore/4 gigs of RAM) Runny Windows 7 64bit
I purchased it second-hand a little over 2 years ago- aside from randomly powering itself off (turns out to be a common bug) it had given me no issues.
Recently I was getting the BSOD, and upon reboot it would not boot past recognizing my hard drive. In the BIOS my hard drive wasn't listed for (booting), but if I unplugged everything by USB it would be there, and boot fine. Run for maybe 20 minutes, and BSOD again. I used Google for troubleshooting via my phone (I'm software savvy with graphic design etc- but that's where it ends) and my absolute last case scenario (aside from reformatting) was to run Windows Update. I really didn't want to. It's always done something to F up my computer- but as I work from home and this has been impacting my job I went for it. 125 updates (whoops) and it was completed.
It started fine. I plugged everything back in (Bamboo tablet, printer, scanner, two LCD monitors, LCD TV hooked up by HDMI, wireless USB adapter, keyboard, mouse). No crashes. Everything is running fantastic. Oh Windows Update why did I demonize you so much. Ha.
So I open Photoshop to do some editing on one monitor, and open Explorer (My Pictures/Documents) on the other monitor as per usual. When I open My Pictures (organized by month) only 6 folders show up (I have about 50,000 photos on there, couple hundred folder, and then subfolders). I immediately almost crap myself. So I go to "arrange by folder". Phew. They're all there. So I switch back to "arrange by month" (my preference) and it's back to only 6, and it's loading slow as all get out. Hmmmph. So I open My Documents, and go into my Scrapbooking folder (I have about 300gigs of scrapbooking graphics as well). They're in folders, and then subfolders. Each folder is a category, and inside each folder is a sub-category. So if I were looking for say, a button, I could just search "button" in the search bar at the top of my Explorer Window, and it would bring up every file (and folder) with the word button in it.
But no. Not anymore. Now it will bring up folders with the name button in it- but no sub-folders, no files. WTF? So I searched "png" and nothing comes back. I searched .jpg, and a handful of files that are not in subfolders popped up. So I just clicked and went through each folder- everything is there, why the F can't I search it. If I go into each category and sub-category every time I need a certain embellishment or letter, that's really going to make this process a nightmare- and make projects take waaaaay longer than they should (BTW I do Photography, pencil portraits, graphic design, archival scrapbooks and photo repair, scrapbooking, and cardmaking). I have painstaking organized every little graphic into these folders so they have keywords I can search to save time. Now that option has been obliterated.
I've tried properties, pissing around with all the search and indexing options- no dice. I've Googled and checked countless forums that almost sound like similar issues- but then they aren't. I don't want to run system restore and run the chance my computer goes back to its BSOD bullshit. And I really really really don't want to reformat. Is anyone familiar with this bug? Thank you!

[rickie]

as far as search goes, windows must re-index the files probably now that it has a new search. maybe give it time to re-index?
as a workaround, do this:
[windows-logo-flag-key]-R cmd[Enter]
dir/s/b "*button*"
if you want files or folders with the word button in it
dir/s/b/a-d "*button*"
if you want files only with button
dir/s/b/ad "*button*"
if you want folders only with button in it
and
dir /?
or
help dir
for help on the dir command. if you turn on quickedit mode in the cmd shell properties, (alt-space)
you can mouse-drag text, hit enter and it will copy to clipboard, such as a filepath you can paste into photoshop or whatever.
you can change into a directory/folder by using the cd or chdir command (same thing).
for instance, you can paste in just the folder path and cd into it
cd "c:\users\joann\Documents\buttons\aqua"
explorer .
will pull up an explorer at that directory.
or you can simply do
explorer "c:\users\joann\Documents\buttons\aqua"
or
[windows-logo-flag-key]-R explorer "c:\users\joann\Documents\buttons\aqua"

when was the last time you cleaned your cpu cooler? for desktop, every 6-12 months, for laptop every 2 years max.
if this is a laptop, are you using a laptop cooler also?

stability problems:
windows needs to be reinstalled after about 2-3 years of constant use,because it gets corrupted (some people do it every year)
I would suggest keeping your data on a separate drive, preferably not external. even if it's just a separate extended+logical or primary partition.

umm... some antivirus programs like kaspersky have [had] a problem with too many files in 1 directory (like if you have 16384 files or so). try breaking them up into multiple directories ASAP. like a tree fashion. maybe reorganize them - number them if you have to. you might have to turn your antivirus off for a while and kill some background programs you know you can live without. besides, too many files in 1 dir makes windows SLOW.

things disappearing:
this can also be caused by LACK OF MEMORY+DISK FULL. if it's out of RAM and your hard disk is full, you are stuck. no more virtual memory and no more RAM. you must do some trimming if you are going to get your machine back. I use a fixed VM size,so I am stuckwith a 32-bit system and a wimpy 4096MiB of VM per logical drive. if you have a 32-bit system and tons of disk space, resize your system with gparted and add some 7GB partitions for Virtual Memory and max out your fixed size on each drive. your 32-bit apps will still be limited to 4GiB of RAM, but you can run a lot more of them simultaneously...

when was the last time you repaired your filesystem? (you don't need to do the defrag) this may even fix some problems. maybe.

use Start, My Computer to check the size of your C: drive and make sure it has some gigs of free space.

before you boot gparted, make sure you have:
1.successfully repaired your filesystem, let it do all its rebooting.
2.successfully shut down.
3.booted into CMOS SETUP though delete key, F1, F2, F12, F10, or whatever key your computer happens to be (before windows comes up - gotta be fast), and set it to boot cdrom as the first priority device, with usb next and hard drive next. you can also do usb first and cdrom next, provided you don't have a bootable USB device inserted. save and exit.
4.press a key to boot from cd while you can if it asks.

[flannagain]

Access your system in safe mode, run disk check, disk cleanup, system file checker and RegInOut scan. Thanks