An old bug seems to have resurfaced in the current build of Office 2010 Beta. Normally, you should be able to use Windows Desktop Search to return search results from your OneNote notebooks. But on 64-bit versions of Windows, while the search results show up, they have generic Explorer icons and clicking on them doesn’t do anything. The problem is that the system isn’t seeing the right version of the OneNote Search Connector DLL. If you’re seeing this problem, read on to find out how to get your searches working properly on Windows x64.
Note: This fix involves changing the Registry. If you’re not comfortable with that, you may have to just put up with wonky search results. As always, you should backup your Registry before making any changes, and I take no responsibility for any damage these instructions may cause.
I should also mention that I’m doing this on Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Other versions might require a different fix.
As I said, the problem is that the OneNote Search Connector DLL isn’t registered properly. On Windows x64, Explorer needs to know to look for the 64-bit version of the DLL, found in the “Program Files” folder (not “Program Files (x86)”). On my machine, the appropriate keys were simply missing from the Registry. These are the keys you’ll need to create:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0875DCB6-C686-4243-9432-ADCCF0B9F2D7}]
@="Microsoft OneNote Namespace Extension for Windows Desktop Search"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0875DCB6-C686-4243-9432-ADCCF0B9F2D7}\InprocServer32]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\ONFILTER.DLL"
"ThreadingModel"="Both"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0875DCB6-C686-4243-9432-ADCCF0B9F2D7}\ProgID]
@="OneIndex.ShellFolder.1"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0875DCB6-C686-4243-9432-ADCCF0B9F2D7}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:20180000
"WANTSFORPARSING"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0875DCB6-C686-4243-9432-ADCCF0B9F2D7}\VersionIndependentProgID]
@="OneIndex.ShellFolder"
To make your life easier, you can download the appropriate registry file here. Just save the file to your desktop and double-click it to create the appropriate Registry keys.
Note: If your copy of Office 2010 Beta is installed on a drive other than C:, you’ll need to edit the Registry file to reference the correct drive before it will work.
Once you create the Registry keys, clicking on OneNote search results should take you to the appropriate page in OneNote. You should not need to reboot or rebuild your search index.
On my machine, however, there was one more problem. The “heading” under which the search results appeared in the Start menu was still labeled with a long, meaningless codename, prefixed with “oneindex14–“. It turns out the fix for this is easy, too.
Just open the start menu, type “%UserProfile%/Searches” and hit Return. In this folder, you should see a couple of items under the heading “Search Connector.” Find the one that’s named after the weird code, and simply rename it to “Microsoft OneNote,” like you would rename any other file. Your OneNote search results should now appear in the Start menu under that name.
Thanks to John Guin at the OneNote Testing team at Microsoft, whose original blog post about Office 2007 led me to cook up this solution.
Niel – Thanks. I have implemented this hack (also running Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit with Office 2010 Beta). I noted there were other keys involving ONFILTER.DLL. Should they still be in the registry?
Also – I noted that no OneNote entries were being picked up in a search that should have found OneNote items. Hmm. Before finding your fix, OneNote entries were being found, but upon clicking the item found, I would receive a error dialog saying Win could not find Oneindex14…..
I have re-indexed just to be certain. Will post back.
Bill
Neil – I may have solved the issue about OneNote entries not showing up in a search: in search properties/Advanced/file types for the OneNote entry ‘one’ I had clicked “index properties and file contents” based on something I had read earlier that might have solved the OneNote indexing issue. So just for the hell of it, I changed it back to the default “index properties only” and now OneNote entries are appearing in a search.
One thing that is happening that is somewhat strange is that I am still seeing in the Modify/Change Selected Locations an entry for ‘oneindex14://S-1-5….’. I had previously deleated that because the pop-up message indicated that this location is currently unavailable and to uncheck it. And so has reappeared. I don’t know if this may be the reason I’m starting to see OneNote entries in a search. As such I’m hesitant to delete it a 2nd time.
Yes, I see that ‘oneindex14://…’ entry, too. I couldn’t figure out a way to fix it, so I just don’t worry about it for now.
I can also confirm that all my OneNote file types are set to “index properties only” in my Advanced settings. The OneNote search component must be doing something separate to get its results.
After fixing the original problem (not being able to open a OneNote search entry from the Win 7 search window) earlier this year with the above instructions , the issue reappeared. The Registry contains all of the correct entries per the above, yet no ON entries are clickable. Why all of a sudden this changed, I do not know.
Would a re-install of Office 2010 Beta be warranted?
Bill
I double checked and it’s still working for me. Not sure why it might have slipped out of whack on your system.
One thought is that the final code for Office 2010 is coming soon. If you’re planning to go ahead and upgrade, maybe wait until then. I have a meeting with Microsoft to see the final on April 26; I expect it will ship shortly after that (May 15?).
I have installed the RTM version of office 2010 and surprisingly have found that while OneNote entries appear on a Windows search (“See More Results screen”), clicking on them does nothing. The registry seems to be correct in that it contains the root entries you have noted.