How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????

I set the partition to C: and the text to various things and it
woulnd't find the file.

I tried sessiion, sessionstore, sessionstore.js, sess*, and sess*.js .

Asterisks are acceptable in XP Search, aren't they?

Then I googled about Firefox and this file and found out from the web
where exactly it is, went there and found it, and made backup copies
of it and *.bak, and *-20.js, and almost by chance stored them two
directories higher, and those three files immediately showed up in the
still-open search window, without my clicking on Search again.

I presume XP search didnot find sessionstore.js because it's so deep
in the directory structure so that the fully qualified name is too
long for the Search function. Hard to believe since I didn't assign
the name, but when I make backup copies of sessionstore.js and .bak
and put them 2 levels higher in the directory, Search found them
immediately.

XP seems still bound by a DOS limitation on file name length! Or is it
a Windows 95 limit?

For people who have Firefox 3 or higher and who have the option turned
on to restart FF with the same windows and tabs.
(Tools/Options/General/Startup: When Firefox starts: Show my windows
and tabs from lafst time).

The full location is C:\Doecuments and
Setting\Administrator\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\nlnlnnll.default\sessionstore.js

where C: might be D:, Adminstratior might be another persona, n's are
numbers and l's are letters.. And more than one profile may exist,
but they contain very different things sometimes and only one was used
in your current or last session.

On 22 Aug 2011, micky <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????
>
> I set the partition to C: and the text to various things and it
> woulnd't find the file.
>
> I tried sessiion, sessionstore, sessionstore.js, sess*, and
> sess*.js .
>
> Asterisks are acceptable in XP Search, aren't they?

Yes, asterisks are allowed.

Windows Search found it for me, so it should for you, too. Are you sure
you turned on the "Search system folders" and "Search hidden files and
folders" Advanced Options?

You made a bunch of spelling errors in your post - are you sure you're
spelling the file name correctly in your search?

micky wrote:

> How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????

Because starting with Windows XP and after, Microsoft changed the search
function to only list files for which it has a viewer. If it cannot
view the file (show it to you) then the search will pretend that it
never found the file. In Windows 2000, and earlier, content of the file
was irrelevant when doing a search. From Windows XP, and later, the
search function finds files it can view (show).

Get something better, like FileLocator Lite (used to be called Agent
Ransack but they decided that name wasn't appropriate for business use
as companies didn't like a product with "ransack" in its name). Not
only will it find all files (and you don't need to keep remembering to
click the Advanced option to ensure you included hidden folders and
files) but you can use more wildcarding and even regular expressions to
ensure that you find just the file you want. Instead of, say, searching
on "amd.com" and having "str-decamd.com" found in a search, you could
use "^amd\.com$" which anchors the start and end of the string (and
escape the period since that means "any 1 character" in regex) so
exactly "amd.com" gets found.

You could install file indexing software, like Live Search or Google
Desktop or Copernic Desktop, but eventually they get in the way, like
having a handle on a file that you want to delete or otherwise need
exclusive write permission.

> I set the partition to C: and the text to various things and it
> woulnd't find the file. I tried sessiion, sessionstore,
> sessionstore.js, sess*, and sess*.js . Asterisks are acceptable in XP
> Search, aren't they?

There are special folders and special files, even when you enable the
search to show hidden files, that no Microsoft search will ever find.
Those are considered system files that end users should not touch.
Their search will skip over those special objects. Even if you
configure Windows Explorer to show you system files, there are critical
files that it will not show by default or in search results. If you're
digging in there, you better had know what you're doing hence the need
for 3rd party software to get beyond Microsoft's special file
protection. It's the same with the registry. There are special or
critical values or keys that regedit.exe and reg.exe cannot access.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:19:12 -0400, Nil
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On 22 Aug 2011, micky <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
>
>> How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????
>>
>> I set the partition to C: and the text to various things and it
>> woulnd't find the file.
>>
>> I tried sessiion, sessionstore, sessionstore.js, sess*, and
>> sess*.js .
>>
>> Asterisks are acceptable in XP Search, aren't they?

The full location is C:\Doecuments and
Setting\Administrator\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\nlnlnnll.default\sessionstore.js
>
>Yes, asterisks are allowed.
>
>Windows Search found it for me, so it should for you, too. Are you sure
>you turned on the "Search system folders" and "Search hidden files and
>folders" Advanced Options?

Thanks, that did it!

I have hidden files visible in the Folder Optons, and didn't know I
have to set it here too.
Also, it's not the file that's hidden. Have to go all the way up
to Application Data to find the directory that is hidden. I don't
know about this because I always have everything unhidden.

I'm using a temporary computer, and may or may not have set this
correctely years ago in the usual computer.

Another intresting thing is that those two files that I moved up to
the Firefox directory.were still under the hidden drirectory, but they
showed up... for a while. When I looked at the results today,
whithout having run Search again, they were gone!!

Also. Application Data in winME was not a hidden file, which is why
it showed up.

I'm glad that they didn't screw up because of their own length
limitation, but I think the default on hidden should be whatever
Folder Options is set for.

>You made a bunch of spelling errors in your post - are you sure you're
>spelling the file name correctly in your search?

No that was not the problem. I'm also at a temporary location, with
the keyboard on a TV table and the monitor so far I have to lean over
to see it well, which is one reaosn I used ses*.js.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:36:41 -0500, VanguardLH <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>micky wrote:
>
>> How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????
>
>Because starting with Windows XP and after, Microsoft changed the search
>function to only list files for which it has a viewer.

That can't be true, because the same search found, in my backup
partition, the same file with the same extension. I suspect because
this was a backup of winME and the fully qualified name was much
shorter, it displayed it. (For the benefit of newbie readers, WinME
doesn't have separate personas and separate sets of application data,
so the file name is shorter. (Or because Application Data in winME is
not a hidden directory. After all, it's everyone's application data,
so why bother to hide it, I guess.)

> If it cannot
>view the file (show it to you) then the search will pretend that it
>never found the file. In Windows 2000, and earlier, content of the file
>was irrelevant when doing a search. From Windows XP, and later, the
>search function finds files it can view (show).
>
>Get something better, like FileLocator Lite (used to be called Agent

I'll look into that. I wouldn't mind another search program, although
there is little point to installing software on this temporary
computer.

Thanks.


>Ransack but they decided that name wasn't appropriate for business use
>as companies didn't like a product with "ransack" in its name). Not
>only will it find all files (and you don't need to keep remembering to
>click the Advanced option to ensure you included hidden folders and
>files) but you can use more wildcarding and even regular expressions to
>ensure that you find just the file you want. Instead of, say, searching
>on "amd.com" and having "str-decamd.com" found in a search, you could
>use "^amd\.com$" which anchors the start and end of the string (and
>escape the period since that means "any 1 character" in regex) so
>exactly "amd.com" gets found.
>
>You could install file indexing software, like Live Search or Google
>Desktop or Copernic Desktop, but eventually they get in the way, like
>having a handle on a file that you want to delete or otherwise need
>exclusive write permission.
>
>> I set the partition to C: and the text to various things and it
>> woulnd't find the file. I tried sessiion, sessionstore,
>> sessionstore.js, sess*, and sess*.js . Asterisks are acceptable in XP
>> Search, aren't they?
>
>There are special folders and special files, even when you enable the
>search to show hidden files, that no Microsoft search will ever find.
>Those are considered system files that end users should not touch.
>Their search will skip over those special objects. Even if you
>configure Windows Explorer to show you system files, there are critical
>files that it will not show by default or in search results. If you're
>digging in there, you better had know what you're doing hence the need
>for 3rd party software to get beyond Microsoft's special file
>protection. It's the same with the registry. There are special or
>critical values or keys that regedit.exe and reg.exe cannot access.

On 22 Aug 2011, VanguardLH <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> Because starting with Windows XP and after, Microsoft changed the
> search function to only list files for which it has a viewer.

I don't think that is accurate. It may true be for Vista and up, but
not XP.

On 22 Aug 2011, micky <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> I'll look into that. I wouldn't mind another search program,
> although there is little point to installing software on this
> temporary computer.

I like Agent Ransack, which can search for file names and content, even
using regular expressions. It's more flexible than Windows Search. But
I was recently turned on to Everything, which searches only file names.
It maintains an index, and is blindingly fast. Most of my searches are
for file names, so Everything gets uses a lot more lately than Ransack.

http://www.voidtools.com/

micky wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:36:41 -0500, VanguardLH <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>micky wrote:
>>
>>> How come XP Search won't find a file that is there?????
>>
>>Because starting with Windows XP and after, Microsoft changed the search
>>function to only list files for which it has a viewer.
>
> That can't be true, because the same search found, in my backup
> partition, the same file with the same extension. I suspect because
> this was a backup of winME and the fully qualified name was much
> shorter, it displayed it. (For the benefit of newbie readers, WinME
> doesn't have separate personas and separate sets of application data,
> so the file name is shorter. (Or because Application Data in winME is
> not a hidden directory. After all, it's everyone's application data,
> so why bother to hide it, I guess.)

You actually have a backup program that uses .js as the extension for
its backup files?

The example you gave for the file path was:

C:\Doecuments and Setting\Administrator\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\nlnlnnll.default\sessionstore.js

That's not very long. Doesn't even come close to the old 256-character
DOS limit. That's only 113 characters long; however, I don't know what
was the actual account name under which you were searching (to know its
length) or how large the n's and l's expand for numbers and letters. Of
course, that path probably doesn't exist ("Doecuments" versus
"Documents" and "Setting" versus "Settings").

Looks like you already found your solution: enabling searching in
"system folders" (probably not what fixed your immediate problem) and
"showing hidden folders/files" (which is probably what let you see the
file). As mentioned (2nd paragraph of my reply, and I see Nil mentioned
it 19 minutes earlier), you have to use the Advanced setting to list
system and hidden objects. That Advanced isn't enabled by default (or
stays the same from its prior use) is one of the reasons that I don't
like Microsoft's search companion is that it defaults to OFF for the
advanced settings. You have to remember to enable advanced settings and
then elect to show system and hidden objects. Not needed with
FileLocator Lite. It finds everything (well, everything through the
system API for file objects but not if a rootkit is hiding files).

Nil wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Because starting with Windows XP and after, Microsoft changed the
>> search function to only list files for which it has a viewer.
>
> I don't think that is accurate. It may true be for Vista and up, but
> not XP.

It's an old "bug" (behavior change) that users complained about when
Windows XP showed up and users noticed files weren't getting found that
they knew existed, like seeing the file in a DOS shell (command prompt)
using the 'dir' command.

http://www.petri.co.il/windows_xp_search_bug.htm

The PersistentHandler registry entry defines the viewer (aka handler)
for that filetype. Method #2 is a fix to the file indexing which I
never enable (and expressly disable or check it's disabled after a fresh
install of Windows XP).

One of the reasons Agent Ransack (renamed to FileLocator Lite) and other
search tools became popular was they overcame the deficiences of the
"new" search companion that came in Windows XP. Searches that worked in
Windows 2000 stopped working in Windows XP.

On 22 Aug 2011, VanguardLH <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> It's an old "bug" (behavior change) that users complained about
> when Windows XP showed up and users noticed files weren't getting
> found that they knew existed, like seeing the file in a DOS shell
> (command prompt) using the 'dir' command.
>
> http://www.petri.co.il/windows_xp_search_bug.htm

This article is about finding text content in files. There may be a bug
with that function, but it doesn't apply to this thread, which is about
finding files by name. There is no bug about that, as far as I can
tell. I can generate a file with a name that is not associated with any
file type, and Windows search finds it with no problem.

> The PersistentHandler registry entry defines the viewer (aka
> handler) for that filetype. Method #2 is a fix to the file
> indexing which I never enable (and expressly disable or check it's
> disabled after a fresh install of Windows XP).

Me, too. One of the first things I do on a new XP install is turn
indexing all the way off.