Tag Archives: Redirected Folders

Windows 10 Bug: Windows 10 Offline Files not Indexed or Searchable

Most times when I post articles, it is because I have found a fix for an issue. Well, this time that isn’t the case. I love Windows 10, however there seems to be so many bugs that keep showing up.

This is the latest bug I found with Windows 10 Version 1511. In Windows 10 offline files are not indexed or searchable in the Windows 10 start menu. Let me explain how a lot of small companies are setup and how this impacts us.

Most small networks have some version of SBS or Server 2012. A lot of IT admins, including us, using the folder redirection group policy to redirect the users’ documents to the server. This essentially gives the workstation a “backup” for its documents and also allows a user to access their documents on multiple devices.

On each device we set the redirection folders to also be offline files. This allows the user to go outside the network and still have their redirected documents with them. This works absolutely beautiful with Windows 7 – you would think it would work great Windows 10 as well, but NO it doesn’t.

I verified this has happened on multiple computers and different customers. When you set the documents to be offline files and redirected, Windows will “index” the offline files – but it really doesn’t. A quick search in the start menu will come back absolutely empty. You can search all you want with the new “Better” start menu and it will not return even one redirected , offline file. Good Job, Microsoft!

I knew we couldn’t be the only company that uses redirected folders and offline files, so I did some checking on Google. Sure enough I found this forum thread with other users that have the exact same problem.

I would like to hear from you if you are experiencing the same problem. If you are experiencing the same problem, please post of this forum thread and comment below if you have found any fixes or work around.

In the meantime, I will keep a close eye out for any fixes that come along. As far as for the users that already upgraded to Windows 10, sorry no searching Windows 10 offline files for you – yet!

This was posted by techspeeder. Please follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my YouTube Channel.