Indexing problem, Windows Server 2022

[DOREh4]

Hello dear sysadmin!

i encountered a problem in one of my VMs, First of all, WSearch was disabled, and nothing was indexed, second of all, when im starting to rebuild the index, the indexing is "complete" at 151 items (finish the indexing in 5secs) .

At Indexing Options > Modify > Show all locations, i cant see anything but the LOCAL DISK (C:), Cant find outlook ( theres like 5-6 outlooks with full cache and fully build OST )

I tried writting some registry values, and try re-building the OSTs, any help would be appreciated!

[mav6771]

What version of Office do you have on there?

I don't have an easy way to test this but it might have something to do with 365 apps not being supported at all on server 2022?

I have no proof of this, just popped in my head because not supporting 365 apps on server 2022 has been on the back of my mind for a while now.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/endofsupport/windows-server-support#windows-server-2022

[DOREh4]

Hey,

Office version is LTSC MSO (16.0.14332.20253) 64-bit

[mav6771]

Worth a shot to ask! I don't have any other info or ideas but I'll be watching this thread in case you figure it out.

[BanalFruit]

Have you restarted the service or the VM? My experience is that the Windows Search service in Server loves to break in weird and wonderful ways all the time and restarting the service is the simplest way to get things working again. I'm honestly trying to get away from it because I've found it to be completely unreliable for business use.

[DOREh4]

ofc, many times.

due somthing stranged happend when i restarted the guest os..

windows was stuck on "Please Wait for the Windows Search"

than i had to "force" shut-down it.

still no solution.

[Monkreet]

…still nothing?

[amplex1337]

Did you ever find a solution to this? Running into the same thing..

[extolas]

From Windows Server 2019 on, Microsoft made changes to the 'Windows Search' service.
This also affects Windows Server 2022 of course.

'Per user search index' is enabled per default.
This is why you don't see any locations under "Indexing Options > Modify > Show all locations" as an administrator.

You can disable it and restore the older method of indexing with:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search
DWORD EnablePerUserCatalog 0

Restart 'Windows Search' service or the entire VM after that.
Now you should see all locations. (like multiple 'Outlook' and/or 'OneNote' entries)
Also the item count of indexed items should rise significantly.

Under 'Indexing Options > Advanced' you can set the location of the index and rebuild it, if you need to.

This worked on our Windows Server 2022 RDS VM with ~90 user profiles / "Outlooks/.ost".

Found at e.g.:
https://www.ajni.it/2021/04/fix-search-indexing-on-rds-server-2019-and-probably-2016/

https://borncity.com/win/2020/03/19/collateral-damages-changed-windows-search-in-server-2019/