Forum Discussion
Windows 11 - File Explorer - Search Contents fails
DBP-User I was having a similar issue with several new computers, all with windows 11 installed. They would not return search results when searching content within our excel files. I tried all the usual tricks like rebuilding the index (Multiple times) and reparing search etc.
Nothing worked until I realised that most of the excel files being searched were the old format .xls. I upgraded them all to .xlsx and now search is reading the contents again no problem and returning the correct search results. Might be worth trying on a couple of your files to test? I upgraded around 5000 files to .xlsx and all is good again.
Seems very strange that windows search doesn't seem able to read the contents of .xls files.
SteveMC181 5000 files are you manually converted or maybe do you have any files series solutions ?
- I used an addin to excel called KUTools, worked great to do a big batch conversion. Took about 4 hours to do all 5000+ files. Only issue as the files were on a network drive, was that it reset all the modified dates. If it’s a local drive you can set it to not change this date.
- https://www.extendoffice.com/product/kutools-for-word.html
which function ?- You need KUTools for excel not word. How to do it here. https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/1349-excel-batch-convert-xls-to-xlsx.html#a3