My steam games disappeared from the search bar in windows 10 and the icons are blank after a fresh installation of windows, how do i get them back?

[rickje139]

I have recently installed my new SSD with a fresh installation of windows and installed steam and connected my already installed games from a differend hard drive,

but ever since i have installed a clean version of windows, i cant find my games in the windows 10 search bar anymore and the icons on the desktop are white and do not work.

 

 

How do i make my steam games re-appear and get the shortcuts + icons to work?!?

[bellabichon]

Are the games showing up properly in the library tab of the Steam app? Sounds to me like something went wrong in the installation. 

[rickje139]

2 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

Are the games showing up properly in the library tab of the Steam app? Sounds to me like something went wrong in the installation. 

Yes they are showing fine and installed inside of steam.

[cm992]

Delete the broken desktop shortcut. Right click on the game in your steam library go to manage and click add desktop shortcut

[rickje139]

1 minute ago, cm992 said:

Delete the broken desktop shortcut. Right click on the game in your steam library go to manage and click add desktop shortcut

I have changed a name of one of the broken shortcuts in my desktop and somehow all of them received their icon, but they still dont show up in the windows 10 search bar even when i add them as a desktop shortcut.

[rickje139]

Just now, lexusgamer05 said:

They won't show up in search because Windows doesn't know they're installed.

 

You'll need to reinstall them for them to show up

Is there a way to do it without re-installing 8tb of storage from the internet?

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, rickje139 said:

Is there a way to do it without re-installing 8tb of storage from the internet?

You need to add the drive they are stored on to the search index. I can't remember the procedure right now but that should help fix it.

[cm992]

6 minutes ago, rickje139 said:

Is there a way to do it without re-installing 8tb of storage from the internet?

So you did a fresh install of windows. Were your games on the same drive as windows? If so you'll need to redownload them. If they are downloaded you can use the method I stated earlier, delete any broken shortcuts and right click on a game in your steam library go to "manage" then click "add desktop shortcut"

 

EDIT: if the games are downloaded on another drive but arent showing up in steam you may need to start a download and point the directory to that drive at the correct location so steam realizes the game is installed

[rickje139]

3 minutes ago, cm992 said:

So you did a fresh install of windows. Were your games on the same drive as windows? If so you'll need to redownload them. If they are downloaded you can use the method I stated earlier, delete any broken shortcuts and right click on a game in your steam library go to "manage" then click "add desktop shortcut"

 

EDIT: if the games are downloaded on another drive but arent showing up in steam you may need to start a download and point the directory to that drive at the correct location so steam realizes the game is installed

The games are already installed and seen by steam, but windows just doesn't see them.

I need windows to see the games when i search the name in the windows search bar.

[rickje139]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

You need to add the drive they are stored on to the search index. I can't remember the procedure right now but that should help fix it.

The drives are already added to steam, steam can see it just fine, its windows that doesn't detect them.

[cm992]

Just now, rickje139 said:

The games are already installed and seen by steam, but windows just doesn't see them.

I need windows to see the games when i search the name in the windows search bar.

have you tried deleting the old desktop shortcuts creating new shortcuts like I described

[rickje139]

2 minutes ago, cm992 said:

have you tried deleting the old desktop shortcuts creating new shortcuts like I described

Yes, it still doesn't get added to the search bar.

The shortcut works now, but it doesn't show in the search bar.

 

 

[rickje139]

59 minutes ago, cm992 said:

have you tried deleting the old desktop shortcuts creating new shortcuts like I described

The only way i can make them show up is by creating a shortcut manually and moving it to a folder in documents, but then steam will be above the actual game im searching for, is there a way to move steam down in results?

[Lurick]

15 hours ago, rickje139 said:

The drives are already added to steam, steam can see it just fine, its windows that doesn't detect them.

No, in Windows you need to add the drive to the search index. Not steam.

 

Link:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/search-second-hard-drive-windows