When you'll see this error
STATUS_NO_MORE_MATCHES (0XC0000273) usually pops up when something's scanning files or registry keys and keeps asking for more after there's nothing left. Typical triggers:
- A backup program like Acronis or Veeam bombs out during a file scan
- Windows Search indexer gets stuck on a corrupt file or locked folder
- Old antivirus (Norton, McAfee from 2018 era) keeps rescanning the same folder
- Some registry cleaner tool fails mid-scan
The error itself means "there are no more matches for the current index enumeration." In plain English: some code asked the system to list files or registry values, got through all of them, but then asked again. The system said "I already gave you everything, stop asking."
Root cause
What's actually happening here is a bug in the calling program. The NT kernel uses a pattern where you call a function like NtQueryDirectoryFile to start listing files, then keep calling it until it returns STATUS_NO_MORE_FILES. But if the program has a logic error — say it tries to resume an enumeration after closing the handle — it gets this code instead of a clean stop.
The reason this matters: the error isn't harmful by itself. It won't crash Windows. But it can hang the app that triggered it, eat CPU, or fill event logs with junk. The real fix is finding what program is misbehaving.
Fix it: step by step
- Find the culprit in Event Viewer
Open Event Viewer (press Win+R, typeeventvwr.msc, hit Enter). Go to Windows Logs > System. Look for events with source "Ntfs" or "Kernel-General" and ID 0xC0000273. Double-click one — the Process ID field tells you which program. Note that PID. - Match PID to program
Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), go to Details tab. Find the PID column (if missing, right-click column headers and add it). Look for your PID. Common offenders:SearchIndexer.exe,MsMpEng.exe(Defender), or your backup tool. - Stop the offending service temporarily
If it's SearchIndexer, open Services (Win+R,services.msc), find "Windows Search", right-click > Stop. Leave it stopped for 10 minutes. If the error stops appearing in Event Viewer, you've found it. Restart the service later — you'll fix it in step 4. - Rebuild the search index
If Windows Search is the problem: go to Control Panel > Indexing Options > Advanced > Rebuild. This forces a clean re-index. Wait for it to finish — could take hours on big drives. After rebuild, the corrupt cache that caused the loop is gone. - For other software: update or reinstall
Backup tools and old antivirus often have known bugs with file enumeration. Check the vendor's site for a patch. If no update exists, uninstall the program and try a newer alternative (I recommend sticking with Defender on Windows 10/11 — it's good enough).
If it still fails
Sometimes the error comes from a kernel driver, not a user-mode program. Run driverquery in a Command Prompt (Admin) to list all drivers. Look for third-party ones — anything from 2017 or earlier is suspect. Disable non-Microsoft drivers one by one using sc config or Device Manager. Restart after each change.
Also check if you have any "registry cleaners" installed. Programs like CCleaner's registry feature can trigger this when they scan keys and then try to re-scan the same branch. Uninstall those — they don't actually help performance anyway.
Last resort: do a clean boot. Run msconfig, select "Selective startup" and uncheck "Load startup items." Restart. If the error vanishes, add items back half at a time until it reappears. That narrows it to a specific startup program or service.
Real-world case: I once saw this error on a Windows 10 21H2 machine where the user had both Dropbox and Google Drive running. Both were scanning the same folder tree. After uninstalling Dropbox (which was the older version), the error stopped dead.