"winget search (any text) -s msstore" shows oddly few results.

[DandelionSprout]

Relevant area(s)

WinGet CLI

Relevant command(s)

winget search

Brief description of your issue

Considering the amount of packages in the msstore source is likely in the 4- or low-5-digits, far too few of them show up when using relatively broad search terms.

For instance, at the time of writing winget search a -s msstore shows 16 results. In contrast, winget search a -s winget shows 13,097 results.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open PowerShell 7.6.4 in Windows Terminal.
2. Run winget search (any text without these parentheses) -s msstore
3. See that there's particularly many results showing up for any of the chosen texts.

Expected behavior

All results in the msstore source that involve the letter A show up when running winget search a -s msstore.

Actual behavior

A vast supermajority of apps in the msstore source that involve the letter A, doesn't show up when running winget search a -s msstore.

Environment

Windows Package Manager (Preview) v1.30.90-preview
© 2026 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

Windows: Windows.Desktop v10.0.26200.8246
System Architecture: X64
Package: Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller v1.30.90.0

WinGet Directories
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Logs                               %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\DiagOutputDir
User Settings                      %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\settings.json
Portable Links Directory (User)    %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WinGet\Links
Portable Links Directory (Machine) C:\Program Files\WinGet\Links
Portable Package Root (User)       %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages
Portable Package Root              C:\Program Files\WinGet\Packages
Portable Package Root (x86)        C:\Program Files (x86)\WinGet\Packages
Installer Downloads                %USERPROFILE%\Downloads
Configuration Modules              %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WinGet\Configuration\Modules

Links
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Privacy Statement   https://aka.ms/winget-privacy
License Agreement   https://aka.ms/winget-license
Third Party Notices https://aka.ms/winget-3rdPartyNotice
Homepage            https://aka.ms/winget
Windows Store Terms https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/storedocs/terms-of-sale


Group Policy                               State
--------------------------------------------------
Enable Windows App Installer Hash Override Enabled

Admin Setting                             State
--------------------------------------------------
LocalManifestFiles                        Enabled
BypassCertificatePinningForMicrosoftStore Disabled
InstallerHashOverride                     Enabled
LocalArchiveMalwareScanOverride           Enabled
ProxyCommandLineOptions                   Disabled
ConfigurationProcessorPath                Disabled
DefaultProxy                              Disabled

[github-actions]

Possible duplicate(s):

Thank you for submitting this issue.

The issue(s) below may already track your request or bug. Please take a look — if one of them matches, give that issue a 👍 and close this one as a duplicate. Older or curated issues are preferred as the canonical one to follow.

• winget search with empty query results in a 'No packages found' error for msstore source #2944 — Reports that winget search against the msstore source returns very few or no results for broad/empty queries, which is the same underlying behavior described here.

Template: msftbot/duplicate/surfaced by Duplicate Surfacing

[DandelionSprout]

That issue report involves search strings with no characters at all, whereas this issue report involves search strings with at least 1 character.

[Trenly]

I believe this is entirely controlled by the MSStore and not WinGet. You can see this by running the REST query yourself -

$headers = @{
    "Content-Type" = "application/json"
    "User-Agent"   = "winget-cli WindowsPackageManager/1.29.280 DesktopAppInstaller/Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller v1.29.280.0"
    "Version"      = "1.6.0"
}

$body = @{
    Filters = @(
        @{
            PackageMatchField = "Market"
            RequestMatch = @{
                KeyWord   = "US"
                MatchType = "CaseInsensitive"
            }
        }
    )
    Query = @{
        KeyWord   = "a"
        MatchType = "Substring"
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 5

$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://storeedgefd.dsx.mp.microsoft.com/v9.0/manifestSearch" `
    -Method Post `
    -Headers $headers `
    -Body $body

$response.data.count