Since I installed Outlook 2010 technical preview I have not been able to search emails using the ‘search mail’ boxes in Outlook (which links into Windows desktop search). I had not realised how much I used the feature until it did not work. When I tried a search I was shown a dialog saying there was 40000+ items waiting to be indexed, and this number was not changing. It seemed that the indexing of Outlook contents had stopped.

The solution I found was to reset the indexing process.

  1. In Outlook select the back stage (brown button)
  2. Select Outlook options
  3. Select Search
  4. Select Indexing Options button
  5. Use the modify button to remove all options from the locations to be indexed
  6. Use the advanced button to select a re-index (with nothing selected)
  7. Use modify button again to re-select all the item you want to index (including Outlook)
  8. Finally use the advanced button again to select the re-index option to restart the process
  9. I then had to wait 24 hours, but at least I could see the index items count going up at the top of the Indexing options dialog until I got the message Indexing complete..