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I prefer the keyboard over the mouse. The normal way I launch an application is by pressing the windows key and start typing the name of the application until it shows up, then press enter. This is way faster for me than using the mouse.

However, it seems to me that applications that are not properly installed never show up in the Windows 10 start menu when I type. I have a portable app (an .exe file) in my Google Drive. But it never shows up when typing in the Start menu, not even after typing the complete name of the file.

I have tested

  1. Pinning the app to the start menu
  2. Pinning the app to the task bar
  3. Creating a shortcut of the app on the Desktop
  4. Creating a shortcut of the app in %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
  5. Creating a shortcut of the app in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
  6. Added my Personal Folder (that contains Google Drive) to the start menu using this method.

None of these work.

I have made sure that I only have 244 apps in the Start Menu, so I am not victim of the too many apps problem.

Edit:

I also made absolutely sure that Google Drive was indexed by Windows (I had to give System read permission on the Google Drive folder) and rebuilt the entire index. The Start menu now finds pretty much everything in Google Drive, except executable files.

Maybe the Start menu is skipping exe files by design, as a security measure? But if so, it would be nice to be able to make an exception.

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    This should work. Keep in mind, that there's an indexer that needs to populate the search database too. It may take a bit before it becomes searchable. You may need to rebuild the index. Control Panel-> Search Index options
    – LPChip
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 8:54
  • @LPChip Nope. Good idea though, I added that to my question
    – Klas Mellbourn
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 15:20
  • Did you manage to solve it? I have the same problem.
    – Radek
    Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 16:32
  • @Radek no unfortunately not
    – Klas Mellbourn
    Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 18:20

1 Answer 1

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Duplicate a shortcut from the Start Menu folder that already can be found in the search results. Use the copy's Properties window to change its name, path, and Start in directory to the desired executable. The program will quickly start appearing in search results.

This worked for me in both the per-user Start Menu folder and the system-wide one. Interestingly enough, creating a new shortcut to the same program (without the duplication) in the same place after doing the above causes the search results to use the new shortcut's name.

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  • Unfortunately, I couldn't get this to work. I created a copy of a shortcut and did the alterations, waited, and when nothing happened I rebuilt the index. Still no result.
    – Klas Mellbourn
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 5:25
  • @KlasMellbourn Interesting, it worked perfectly for me. I have heard that the too-many-apps problem can manifest itself at lower thresholds for some people; what happens if you temporarily move some more items out of the Start Menu folders? (Maybe try duplicating another shortcut?)
    – Ben N
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 14:04

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