When trying to "find" an old email from a specific person, I want Outlook to
begin by looking at my most recent emails first and then moving on
chronologically. Is there a way I can do that?

No, you can't control it. Outlook 2007 handles it correctly.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

Outlook Tips by email:
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"Jamie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:88C272B6-4419-4F2C-AE5A-(E-Mail Removed)...
> When trying to "find" an old email from a specific person, I want Outlook
> to
> begin by looking at my most recent emails first and then moving on
> chronologically. Is there a way I can do that?

Jamie wrote:
> When trying to "find" an old email from a specific person, I want
> Outlook to begin by looking at my most recent emails first and then
> moving on chronologically. Is there a way I can do that?

The search algorithm's in Outlook should be optimized to find messages
already, and any sort of tweaking would probably just serve to break
optimization. I'm not sure what the algorithm does in terms of age of a
message, but, what is currently wrong with how it is doing it? Is it speed,
or just the order in which the resulting search is returned to you?

--
f.h.

You don't use Outlook's Find much do you? It's not optimized at all - it
just searches - and unfortunately, it returns old messages in the search
results before new ones. Since most people use find to find something that
came recently, they have to wait because Outlook finds older messages first.
Because of this behavior, it seems to be a lot slower than it is.

FWIW, this is one of the top complaints in previous versions of Outlook and
one reason why the search engine was changed in Outlook 2007.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

Outlook Tips by email:
dailytips-subscribe-(E-Mail Removed)

Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com
Subscribe to Exchange Messaging Outlook newsletter:
EMO-NEWSLETTER-SUBSCRIBE-(E-Mail Removed)


"F.H. Muffman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:O2fI$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Jamie wrote:
>> When trying to "find" an old email from a specific person, I want
>> Outlook to begin by looking at my most recent emails first and then
>> moving on chronologically. Is there a way I can do that?
>
> The search algorithm's in Outlook should be optimized to find messages
> already, and any sort of tweaking would probably just serve to break
> optimization. I'm not sure what the algorithm does in terms of age of a
> message, but, what is currently wrong with how it is doing it? Is it
> speed, or just the order in which the resulting search is returned to you?
>
> --
> f.h.
>

Diane Poremsky [MVP] wrote:
> You don't use Outlook's Find much do you? It's not optimized at all -
> it just searches - and unfortunately, it returns old messages in the
> search results before new ones. Since most people use find to find
> something that came recently, they have to wait because Outlook finds
> older messages first. Because of this behavior, it seems to be a lot
> slower than it is.
> FWIW, this is one of the top complaints in previous versions of
> Outlook and one reason why the search engine was changed in Outlook
> 2007.

Ok, so I was using the term 'optimized' a bit judiciously =) I never really
paid attention to the order things were returned during the search. I've
never quite been impatient enough to sit and watch the window.

--
f.h.