You disabled web results and search is still slow. That is not the fix failing — it is the fix revealing the second, bigger disease: a damaged or stalled search index. This guide shows how to prove it and how to rebuild the index the right way.
Honesty first, because this is where tweak culture usually lies to you: in most genuinely slow searches, the index is the main problem, not Bing. Bing removal stops the internet wait; it cannot repair the local database your searches actually run against. If the panel still crawls after the video's fix, work through this page before touching anything else.
Do one honest test before changing anything. Disconnect from the internet — or simply watch the panel — and search for a file you know exists in an indexed folder. With web results disabled, the panel is now local only. If results still arrive slowly, shuffle, or miss files that plainly exist, Bing was never your problem: the index underneath the search box is. The index is a database Windows Search maintains of your files' names, properties and (for documents) contents. Every Start search is really a query against that database — if the database is corrupt, stalled or half-built, local search crawls no matter what you do to the web half.
Indexing Options and open it. Note the status line at the top — "Indexing is not running" or a frozen item count is your first clue.Now the honesty part: a rebuild takes time. A modest PC re-indexes in an hour or two; a drive with hundreds of thousands of files can take a day of background work, and Windows deliberately slows indexing while you are actively using the machine. Search results will be incomplete until it finishes — that is expected, not a new fault. Leave the PC on, plugged in, and let it cook. Judging a rebuild after ten minutes is the most common way people conclude "the rebuild didn't work" and start breaking other things.
An index usually dies from company it keeps: hard power cuts mid-write, aggressive "cleaner" tools deleting system databases, a failing disk corrupting it, or third-party antivirus locking its files. While the rebuild runs, remove any registry-cleaner or PC-booster utilities from the machine — several of them treat the search database as junk to be purged, which recreates this exact problem on a schedule. And if the index corrupts again within weeks on the same PC, stop rebuilding and check the disk's health: a repeatedly corrupting database is often the first visible symptom of a drive that is quietly failing.
Apply the video's registry script first — then, if local search still crawls, this page's rebuild is your next step.
▶️ Watch Full VideoAnywhere from under an hour on a small SSD-based system to a full day on a PC with hundreds of thousands of files. The Indexing Options window shows a live item count — as long as that number keeps growing, the rebuild is working. Only worry if the count is frozen for hours while the PC is idle.
No. The rebuild deletes and recreates only the index database — a catalogue Windows Search builds from your files. Your documents, pictures and programs are untouched. While the rebuild is incomplete, searches may miss files that do exist, which resolves itself as indexing finishes.
Something is re-corrupting or purging the index. The usual suspects are cleaner and booster utilities deleting the search database, hard power cuts, or a failing disk. Remove the cleaner tools first, and if corruption returns on the same machine, test the drive's health before blaming Windows again.