Vista Indexing not working

Hi,

I hope that somebody can help: I am having trouble with getting to the indexing options under Vista Ultimate (32bit).

Normally to access the indexing options you would go to the control panel, however no indexing options are present in the control panel.

I also can not access the indexing options by searching for something and then clicking on "Search Tools" -> "Modify Index Locations..." (nothing happens - no error messages - nothing).

I also believe that the indexing is not working properly, since it does not search within files (which it should normally do).

I have checked and both the services: "Windows Search" and "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" (BIT) are running (I saw on another site to check that BIT was running).

I have tried:
"Open Windows Explorer, right click the system drive (Usually C:) and click
Properties. In the General Tab, make sure that "Index this drive for faster
searching" is checked." - It was I unchecked it restarted, then checked it, restarted, but did not solve problem.

I have also gone to "Control Panel" -> "Programs and features" and then turned on "Indexing Service", however from what i can see this should not have worked since it seems to be to do with legacy: XP, 2000, etc.

I have as yet not tried inserting the Vista DVD and reparing the installation.

I did notice that in the regestry under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows Search\
There is only
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows Search\Preferences\
and then 5 REG_DWORD's
I believe that there should be more tho..

(Oh I have noticed that C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Config is missing)

Hope that someone can help.

Just something to check, in the Programs and Features control panel, in the Turn Windows Features On/Off sub-panel, mine shows "Indexing Service" as not checked, but indexing seems to be working. You might check that in yours. It actually was something I was going to look into, whether this feature is "the" indexing or something extra, why it wouldn't be on by default, etc.

When you try to use Windows Vista, Windows Vista may not behave as expected. For example, some Windows Vista functions may not work, or Windows Vista may stop responding. This issue may occur if a Windows Resource Protection (WRP) file is missing or is corrupted.

For solution, see this MS article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

To: SalVatore
basically as i understand it the "Indexing Service" (Turn Windows Features On/Off sub-panel) is for backwards compatibility, say you have a program that was designed for Windows XP that uses the indexing service and you want to use it on Vista, then you should turn this on.. so i dont think that it makes much of a difference.

To: MrChris-
Thank you for the help, however unfortunitaly this did not work, however the automated service did repare something.

Thanks for both of your suggestions. Although unfortuinatly i am no closer to finding the problem.