Solved Search charm does not find apps / programmes

Upgraded Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit to Windows 8 Pro, and all went well. However in the last few days I found that the search charm won't find most of my programmes any more. I type in the name, and it claims to find nothing, so I have to open an explorer window, navigate my way to the correct executable and start it there. Boring!

I read that a Windows update could cause this (kb2756872), so I uninstalled that one, but it made no difference, so I reinstalled it.

I also re-enabled Windows Indexing (off because I now have an SSD) and Superfetch (ditto). Still nothing.

Any solutions, anyone? Thanks!

not to be silly but are you first highlighting the icon of the location of where you want to search, I.E. apps, store,files etc?

Thanks for the reply - you mean in the list below the search box, Apps, Settings, Files, plus the elective ones below? Yes, of course! Apps is highlighted. The search is strangely choosy, in that some progs I had installed before the upgrade will crop up (eg Firefox) and some won't (eg MediaMonkey, Spybot). Makes no difference whether I type part or whole, or even executable name, with .exe, those ones remain stubbornly unfound.