start menu - Windows 10: where do items in the "Search programs and files" box come from?

NB this question Windows 7 Start Menu: "Search programs and files" is only asking about the order of these items.

First point: I am a mouse-hater. I am not interested either in bringing up the "Start menu"... by far the most efficient way (IMHO) of starting up an app or a document of some kind is to type the first few letters and then select from the filter menu (if applicable).

This works for lots of programs and documents... mostly, though, I have had to add shortcuts to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu.

What I'd like is to be able to add a particular directory (e.g. I have a directory called "sysadmin"), so that by default this "Search programs and files" box goes looking for stuff there as well as anywhere else.

I'm aware M$ couldn't give a flying flick about what people may or may not like (NB I use Linux whenever humanly possible), but does anyone know whether this is possible to accomplish?

Answer

I found a sort of answer/workaround to this which will perhaps suit people who are annoyed as I am at not having the option of just pressing start, entering a couple of letters and launching a document. Others may find it too much of a rigmarole.

The key here is the "Start Menu" directory. On my sys this is at "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu".

If you put a shortcut to an app here, e.g. named Gremlin.exe - Shortcut, you'll find that you can then run it with the initial letters:

gre....  

However, putting a shortcut for a file does not work, not on my system anyway.

What I've done is this

1) first you have to get hold of a freeware utility app called hstart64.exe, and put it somewhere on your PATH (I put it, and all the things below, in a directory I've made called "SysAdmin"). Google for an hstart32.exe for 32-bit machines, I think there is one.

2) then make a shortcut of the file you want to open, and put it in SysAdmin. Let's say the name of this shortcut is Myfile.docx - Shortcut.

3) then make a .bat file in SysAdmin, e.g. myfile.bat, containing just the following line (don't forget the quotes):

"Myfile.docx - Shortcut"

4) then make a shortcut of this .bat file, and move it to the "Start Menu" directory.

5) then edit this shortcut as follows (don't omit quotes):

Target: "D:\My Documents\[...]\sysadmin\hstart64.exe" /NOCONSOLE "myfile.bat"

Start in: "D:\My Documents\[...]\sysadmin"

6) then rename this shortcut to sthg like edit myfile (or you could just rename it myfile - up to you).

you should then be able to launch this by going

edit my...

No doubt there are other possibilities for entering the filename as, for example, a parameter passed to the .bat file. But for me this is all about opening half a dozen files which I'm constantly opening... with minimal keystrokes.