Windows 10 Search Issues: Microsoft Labels It Resolved Without Issuing Fix

Troubleshooting software problems is never fun. It becomes downright infuriating when someone claims there isn't a problem because they haven't experienced it themselves. That isn't quite what Microsoft did when it said that reported issues with the KB4515384 cumulative update to Windows 10 were "resolved," because it analyzed data from many systems running the update to reach that conclusion, but it probably feels pretty similar.

A quick refresher: Microsoft released the KB4512941 cumulative update on August 30. It was an optional update, but those who decided to install it reported high CPU usage problems that consumed a lot of their processor's capabilities, with some reporting that SearchUI.exe was using up to 40% of their CPU. KB4515384 was supposed to fix that but also reportedly caused issues with Windows Desktop Search, the Start menu, Action Center and more.

As we've noted before, these complaints aren't indicative of how widespread a problem is, even if multiple people on several platforms all encounter the same thing. There are more than 825 million PCs running Windows 10 in a given month; the vast majority of them won't encounter any problems. Most people don't take to social media to say an update is working fine for them, so reports on those platforms will skew negative.

Microsoft appears to think the problem is overblown. On Thursday, it said it "has not found a Search or Start issue significantly impacting users originating from KB4515384." So it marked the problem as resolved in Windows 10's issue tracking dashboard. But that doesn't help the people who have issues with the update. The advised users to submit problems via its Feedback Hub; there's no solution offered for those who may have already done so. 

It's also hard not to suspect that a certain amount of apathy's involved. Microsoft said another issue, this time with Input Method Editors (IMEs) that also led to high CPU usage, resulted from "security related changes in this update" and offered steps for a resolution. Ta-da! Now Microsoft doesn't have to fix it itself.