Being able to find your favorite applications using substrings makes your workload just a bit easier to deal with, but what do you do when this useful search feature stops working? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to solve a reader’s ‘broken’ search feature problem.
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.
The Question
SuperUser reader Rich wants to know why the application search feature in Windows 8 no longer matches substrings:
Could it be as simple as a changed setting, or is there something more going on here?
So now, if I type chrom, I get, No apps match your search, but when I type the final e, Google Chrome pops up. Similarly, IE used to bring up Internet Explorer, but now I have to type the whole word Internet before anything is found.
Did Microsoft really change the functionality to make it much less useful, or is there a setting somewhere that has somehow been altered to create this change in behavior?
The Answer
SuperUser contributor Samuel Nicholson has the answer for us:
Special Note: This solution is specific to Windows 8. The system updates to Windows 8.1 have taken care of this and substrings are now automatically matched when searching for applications.
Control Panel –> Folder Options
Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.
