Explorer Search Pane Missing Search Options

I have a computer runinng an English version of Windows XP. When I click
search after having clicked on the start button, I do get Windows Explorer
with the search button pressed and the search pane activated. however, the
search pane is blank. Except for the animation dog at the bottom of the blue
search pane there is nothing.

How do I bring the search options back to the search pane?

Any great ideas out there?

Thank you very much in advance.

On Jan 10, 10:16*pm, Shinano <Shin...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> I have a computer runinng an English version of Windows XP. When I click
> search after having clicked on the start button, I do get Windows Explorer
> with the search button pressed and the search pane activated. however, the
> search pane is blank. Except for the animation dog at the bottom of the blue
> search pane there is nothing.
>
> How do I bring the search options back to the search pane?
>
> Any great ideas out there?
>
> Thank you very much in advance.

Hello Shinano,

Search doesn't work or fails

Go to Start => Run and type in - or copy/paste - each of the commands
listed below, one at a time. Hit Enter after each. Note that there is
a single space after regsvr32.

regsvr32 wshom.ocx
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 urlmon.dll
regsvr32 vbscript.dll

-------------------------------------------------------

If that doesn't fix the problem, do this:

Go to Start => Run and type in:

%systemroot%\inf {No spaces}

Click OK.

Locate the file Srchasst.inf
.
Right-click the file, and click on Install. You will be asked to
insert your Windows XP installation CD in the drive.

This will reinstall the Search Assistant.

-------------------------------------------------------

One thing you could try is to turn off the file Indexing Service,
especially if you see cisv.exe grabbing a high percentage of cpu. The
data may have become corrupted. Anyway,

check if it's enabled either of these ways:

In the Search window click on 'Search Options'. Click on the 'Indexing
Service' link. If it's enabled, click the radio button 'No, do not
enable...'. Click the 'Advanced' button and in

the window that opens, right-click => All Tasks => Empty Catalog.

or ...

If you can't get access via the Search window, go to Start => Run and
type in "ciadv.msc" {without the quotes}.
In the window that opens, do as above.
Next, Go to Start => Run and type in "services.msc" {without the
quotes}
Locate the Indexing Service. If it's running, Stop it and set it to
Manual or Disabled.

If this doesn't work, you can restart it if you want.

------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------

Or, to use Classic Search instead of XP Search:

Copy the text below between the dotted lines, but not the dotted lines
themselves. Open Notepad and paste it in. Save the result in a
suitable location as search.reg - making

sure that the default .txt extension doesn't appear in the file name
(Save as type = All Files).
Double-click on the saved .reg file to merge the contents.
Restart

---- cut below here ---

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer
\CabinetState]
"Use Search Asst1"=-
"Use Search Asst"="no"

---- cut above here ---