The search function is a very convenient thing – you press the windows key and start typing, getting displayed the apps or files of interest as you type. For me this feature suddenly stopped working. A renew of the search index, as recommend on several sites did not solve the problem. The troubleshooting program of Windows identified a problem with folder access rights, but this was not the problem. The reason was that the search service was not started anymore for some reason, this might have happened at one of the past updates.

After having the problem identifed, issueing the command searchIndexer.exe /Embedding in an elevated console solved the problem for good.