Microsoft Search topics

Is there possibly no official documentation for Windows 11 search?

SJB_NC — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:02:22 GMT

I have looked far and wide to find a definitive, official technical reference for the Windows 11 search service... especially for the various search parameters and the syntax they require from a savvy user to conduct a well specified, precision search for something. Is it possible that Microsoft has not produced a formal specification of Windows' search feature?

Would someone from Microsoft please, please, please provide a link to such a document? Is it possible to buy it? Does it exist anywhere? Am I deluded to think that that is something that the provider of the world's most used desktop OS would have had to create, as a matter of course?

I'm talking here about conducting searches, within the file system of a Windows 11 (Pro) machine, that one initiates from the "Search Home" box at the top right of every File Explorer window that gets opened by the user.

Any thoughts from someone actually involved in creating the search tool?

Imploringly yours,

SJB

Microsoft accounts

Blaz3ym0use — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:24:29 GMT

Hi all.

I have a problem with my daughters Microsoft accounts which I'm hoping you can help with.

She set up an account for her X Box on my email address (without asking me first) which is preventing me from setting up my own account for Windows.

Since then she has also set up a Hotmail account with her own email address. I understand we can set up an alias on the X Box account using her email but will this conflict with the Hotmail account. The problem is she doesn't want to change her gamer tag which was set up on my email address.

Any help / advice will be gratefully received.

Many thanks in advance

Microsoft accounts

Blaz3ym0use — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 11:52:20 GMT

Hi all

I have a problem with my daughters accounts. She set up an account for her X Box on my email which has prevented me from having my own account for Windows. She has also set up her own Hotmail account for her emails.

She wants to keep her gamer tag (set up on my email) not the one she has been given on the Hotmail account. I understand that I can create an alias on my account using her email and this should keep her gamer tag but will it conflict with her Hotmail account.

Any help / advice will be gratefully received

Many thanks in advance.

Filters and Images/thumbnails with new Copilot Search

amwallSAS — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:07:37 GMT

Did anyone else use the filters on the verticals before new Copilot Search and find it very frustrating with the new experience to only have Modified, Type, and Person as the filters? It makes your non-M365 connectors almost unsusable. Also losing the ability to add our custom icons and thumbnails is a big loss to the user experience. Anyone else?

Search "Sites vertical" returns nothing

Martin-Coupal — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 12:43:26 GMT

Is it normal that this search request returns nothing? I've tested in multipe tenants and same results...

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/search.aspx/sites?q=*

Is Microsoft Search meant to still be available in Office apps?

catmanjan2010 — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 02:28:04 GMT

According to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftsearch/overview-microsoft-search

The first picture under the heading What users see, and the description, imply that users are meant to be able to use Microsoft Search from within Office apps, however, at least in 2 of our tenants, it appears to now just search within the document.

Is this a bug?

Is Microsoft Search meant to still be available in Office apps? - Microsoft Q&A

Help Needed to Make PowerApp Visible in Search Bookmark

Dnhems — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:01:59 GMT

Hello everyone,

I have a problem that I can't seem to solve and I hope someone here can help me. I created a PowerApp that I want to make visible through a bookmark in Search. When I select, copy, and paste the app ID from PowerApps into the field in the bookmark settings, I get a message saying it's incorrect.

For comparison, I created a page on a SharePoint site, placed the PowerApps web part there, and pasted the same ID. It works fine there.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong or what I might be overlooking? Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks in advance!

No results coming back from search in SharePoint Online

karen_dredske — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:42:21 GMT

I have a client with a SharePoint communication site that is used as a document repository where the search results are bringing back nothing. There are 1.8 million files in the library. It has been almost a month since the files were migrated to SPO. We tried a query using the SharePoint Search Query Tool which brings back results, but doing a search on the library or the site brings back zero results.

How do I troubleshoot this situation? I have already checked to be sure that the appropriate columns are being indexed and have been since the files were added last month. I don't want to reindex the library if I can help it since there are so many files in there. Is there anything I can do other than have my client submit a Microsoft support ticket?

Missing Answer Analytics

Mel_C13 — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 16:59:26 GMT

Hi there

I am wondering if anyone else has lost their Answer Analytics in the Search and Intelligence center. Mine have been missing since August, ticket opened with Microsoft but no answers have been given. Is anyone else having this same issue?

I would like to be able to understand how my bookmarks are performing but I have no other way to measure this that I know of. Any suggestions?

Microsoft Graph API for search suggestion

SamirPathak — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 22:05:30 GMT

Is there any API to get search suggestion for Microsoft search? I see an API call to https://substrate.office.com/search/api/v1/suggestions?query=contos through default Microsoft Search box which returns suggested Files, Sites, People etc.

What is equivalent MS search graph API call to get this suggestion ? I need to build custom search box with query suggestion like one below.

I checked PnP modern search box webpart configured with Microsoft Search but it not returning any suggestion, any help there?

Does Microsoft a way of searching an organization's code for Windows Enterprise organization?

afrstat — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:33:18 GMT

Has there ever been a Microsoft product that allows one to search by code syntax (in internal cloud) of certain specific extension files--like Gitlab or Bitbucket can do?

At my organization, the Sharepoint and even the Azure's Microsoft graph is moving toward """Content""" and AI-based search. During this transition, I have found its often harder and harder to find certain files and emails in my organization based on symbols that document might contain.

These are examples of symbols that are really important to my business...

%m+%  # perhaps the most important symbol to the accounting and finance
%w+%  # the biweekly version of the same symbol
%>%
|>

Its come to the point, that I have a local OneDrive copy where thousands 1000 kb or less (1.2 Gb of storage space) file are saved just so I can use more simplistic search methods over these files. But I feel like its such a waste.... if there was a better method.

So I was curious if anyone at Microsoft has ever come up with a cloud based solution to the code search and exact search problem that has become worse as a result of reliance on OpenAI

All Sources tab for search heavily weighted for M365 content

amwallSAS — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 21:16:37 GMT

Is anyone using non-M365 connectors for their search at https://www.microsoft365.com/ or https://www.office.com/?

We have a lot of content in Wordpress, ServiceNow, Saba, etc...that we are trying to return in the search results for employees. Unless they use the connector source in the All Sources tab, the results are pages and pages of Microsoft content if you ever get to the connector content you are looking for.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Customize the results for the People card

amwallSAS — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:16:56 GMT

Is there a way to add or remove fields on the People card results in Microsoft search?

‎Intelligent Search IP Kit

Mirek_N — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 08:03:49 GMT

Hi,

I would like to kindly ask you for help. Currently I have studied Microsoft search and options how to improve it. I have found these search components on this official video (https://youtu.be/jKpIDBalLW0?si=M_qVbY4KWOrZEVy7&t=2103). Unfortunately I have not found any further information where to find those components to use it. Does anyone have an experience with that? It will be really useful and I really appreciate it. I have tried to send an email to mentioned address but unfortunately it does not exist anymore. Thank you for your response.

Best regards and have a nice day

Mirek 🙂

Identify replies in Microsoft Search API search Teams messages response

yairjigso — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:32:55 GMT

Using Microsoft Search API to search Teams messages, how do I tell if a hit is a channel message (post) or a reply to one? They look exactly the same in the response.

Adding the field "replyToId" to the request doesn't add it to the response. I can't see any difference between the hits.

Currently, after getting the search response, my code calls the API's get-message to get the data of each message, but it fails for messages that are actually replies.

SharePoint crawler not picking up new pages with new site columns

Erkan75 — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 18:06:21 GMT

I'm experiencing a weird issue with search in 3 different tenants. If I add a new site column to a Site Page derived content type and publish a new page with the new column populated, the new page doesn't get indexed. Since the page with values isn't indexed, SP Search doesn't provision the new crawled properties, either. Other new pages get indexed if the new column is empty. Does anyone else have a similar issue?

PS: This started this week after the new SP updates were pushed to tenants with the new Title Area options, page co-editing, etc.

🚀 Enable Your SaaS and Data in Copilot | Input Needed! 🚀

dannyyao — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 09:05:18 GMT

We need your feedback on new connectors, that empowers your Copilot with your own enterprise data.

We're exploring new connectors for WordPress, Azure File Share, Google Drive, GitHub, Zoom, Salesforce Knowledge Base, Stack Overflow, PostgreSQL, Zendesk, Veeva Vault, Jira Data Center, and iManage. Your input is crucial to ensure these connectors meet your needs!

If you're interested in any of these connectors, please take a moment to share your thoughts and feedback by filling out our short form here.

Your feedback will help shape the future of these tools.

Thanks for your support!

Danny Yao, Product Manager, Microsoft

Cannot add custom filters for RefinableString200+

Erkan75 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:37:42 GMT

We're using RefinableStrings 200-219 per our client's request. We need to create custom filters in M365 Search verticals using these refinables. However, the M365 Search Admin Center only lists RefinableStrings up to 199. I checked for an API or PS script but couldn't find anything available.

Search Tips customization

amwallSAS — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 19:35:33 GMT

Is there a way to customize the Search Tips at the top of the search page

Why are Answers only showing in tenant search?

Åse Strömsrud — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 09:12:35 GMT

When we enable Microsoft Search Answers (Bookmarks, locations, Q&A...), they are only shown in the highest search level - Organization. Why is that?

If , for example, a users searches for an office location and search in the HR site on the Intranet, the user doesn't get any result if he/she doesn't move up in search hierarchy to Organization level.

This is not intuitive and in my and my colleagues opinions, make the features pretty useless.