Indexing settings should affect start menu search.

Then it's broken because they don't. I have the folder containing cal.exe excluded, I cleared and rebuilt the index and it still comes up first when I type "cal" in the start menu.

Where is this folder located, how do you exclude it, can you show a screenshot? Did you enable full disk indexing?

It's located at C:\devkitPro\msys2\usr\bin\cal.exe It does not show in the official Windows 11 start menu search, only the custom StartAllBack ones. I have not changed any Indexing options from their defaults, other than excluding the folder cal.exe is in, both the exact folder it is in and the top most parent (since I don't want devkitPro stuff in my searches anyways). I have attached a bunch of screenshots for you. [Screenshot 2023-07-08 1](//muut.com/u/startisback/s3/:startisback:VCwU:screenshot202307081.png.jpg) [Screenshot 2023-07-08 3](//muut.com/u/startisback/s1/:startisback:iHXV:screenshot202307083.png.jpg) [Screenshot 2023-07-08 4](//muut.com/u/startisback/s1/:startisback:eQfw:screenshot202307084.png.jpg) [Screenshot 2023-07-08 2](//muut.com/u/startisback/s2/:startisback:uKNL:screenshot202307082.png.jpg)

As told in settings, exclude works only for enhanced settings (full disk search). C:\devkitPro should not be indexed as per your indexing settings. Try rebuilding search index.

As I already said, I did re-build the index already.

I'm still trying to figure this out and I have determined that it has nothing to do with indexing. I uninstalled devkitPro entirely, which eliminates the "cal.exe" entry from the search, and then reinstalled it on a different drive (which is not indexed at all and nothing else from that drive appears in the search) and "cal.exe" once again appears in the "Programs" search result. Somewhere it is being registered as an installed program, but I do not know where. I cannot find any reference to it in the registry, there is no shortcut for it in either start menu folder (and it does not appear in the start menu except for when I search). I did click the "Programs" text at the top of the search and it opens an Explorer window with a long search path of "search-ms:displayname=Start%20Menu%20Search%20Results%20in%20Programs &crumb=System.StartMenu.Group%3A%3Dprograms&crumb=System.Generic.String%3Acal&crumb=location:%3A%3A{DAF95313-E44D-46AF-BE1B-CBACEA2C3065}" which includes "cal.exe" in the results, however if I copy this path/search to a new Explorer window myself, it doesn 't even work. I have attached screenshots showing that "cal.exe" is in a now completely unindexed location on a drive that is completely unindexed so it is appear because of how StartAllBack is searching for programs and I would like to know how this search works/where it pulls the results from so I can remove/exclude entries. [2](//muut.com/u/startisback/s2/:startisback:eipW:2.png.jpg) [1](//muut.com/u/startisback/s3/:startisback:lNrF:1.png.jpg)

I figured out the source now. The search that StartAllBack performs includes paths in the PATH variable...

One more discovery right after I made that comment. The "Programs" heading will display basically anything in a PATH location. For example, I renamed "cal.exe" to "cal.bak" and now it no longer comes up when I search "cal", however if I type "cal.bak" it will come up under "Programs" even though ".bak" is not an application. This also happens with files that have no extension in the same folder, if you type their name in full they show up under "Programs" even though Windows does not classify them as an application. I think this is Windows behaviour but I think StartAllBack needs the search query changed to only display programs properly.