Since I upgraded to Windows 10 I’m struggling to have my installed applications indexed in Start Menu. With applications installed via an installer it works fine but if I extract a program from an archive (like .zip or whatever) and place it manually to my Programs directory it’s not indexed.

I tried to add my Programs directory to the index but it took hours to index. Here is how I fixed it.

Check your current Indexing Options

Open you Start Menu and type index then click on Indexing Options.

Verify you have a least Start Menu in your indexed locations.

Add your application to Start Menu folder

  1. Go to %APPDATA%/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs

  2. Create a folder for the application you want to index

  3. Create a shortcut for you application

  4. Put the shortcut in the folder you created previously

Search for the application

It should work! ;)