With windows 8.1, my usual desktop metaphor for calling programs and the optimal alternative are less easy to implement; this is especially true for programs that are only occasionally used. I have historically created a folder called “More” and placed favourite’s to the program into the folder. (This is in order to keep my desktop and wallpaper clean.) This doesn’t work so well on smaller screens when you want the whole screen to display the working program.

The preferred way is to use the new windows search facility but when a program is installed using the unpack facility and copied to the appropriate preferred location, in my case, C:\Program Folder* then the search index does not include the new programs. This should be fixed by extending the index to include the program files folders. Microsoft comment here and Laptop Mag comment here. I could & probably should pin the programs tom the start bar but I the number of programs I install makes this unattractive. NB this is a work machine so windows media player and itunes are not necessary for me.

I didn’t find this helpful i.e. it didn’t solve the problem.

I was advised to check out the “start menu”.

My index included the start menu but there are three of them. C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu contains a list of folders each of which contains a short cut to a program. I have created a folder/shortcut object for each of the programs otherwise missing in this folder. This seems to have fixed the index.

This is a problem caused by installations based on unpacking the archive. These then need to be copied to a further location. If I had chose to make a program folder in C:\Users\Me then I suspect I wouldn’t have the problem.

  1. Place the programs in an indexed location, whichg nis what this article is mainly about
  2. Or Pin the program to the task bar

I have still not made the ‘More’ folder visible to the search despite it being in C:\Users\Dave\Desktop, should be there.

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