I have to confess that although I've been using MS Windows for nearly
two decades I still haven't cracked the code for using some of it's
most basic features, such as the "Search" utility.

For example, if I enter multiple search terms, it searches as if I had
entered the Boolean operator "OR" between the terms.

And it doesn't search for whole words, but returns as "hits" any
folder or file name that contains any of the search terms within words
in the file or folder names. Hmmm? I'm having trouble explaining
this. I guess didn't state that very clearly did I?

Perhaps an example will help me make myself clear.

For example, I have a couple of MP3 files of the song "Stand By Me" on
my C: drive. As far as I know, those are the only files I have
containing the search string "Stand By Me."

Yet, if I search for "stand by me .mp3" the Win2K "Search" utility
returns 2,287 hits, including innumerable instances of such file and
folders names such as:

DATACACHE_GETMEDIA_LOC_EN...
MENUEDIT...
QUICKTIME...
etc...

Along with every single MP3 file on my hard drive.

Not very helpful.

So, I'm wondering how I can configure the Win2K "Search" utility so
that its default settings are something like the way the Google web
search works, i.e., get it to automatically insert the Boolean
operator "AND" between words, search for whole words only, and search
for whole strings enclosed between double quotation marks.

If such settings are not available to users of the Win2K search
utility, then is there a free replacement that works in the way I have
described?

Try quoting strings that contain spaces such as;

"stand by me"


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"Clueless in Seattle" wrote:
>I have to confess that although I've been using MS Windows for nearly
> two decades I still haven't cracked the code for using some of it's
> most basic features, such as the "Search" utility.
>
> For example, if I enter multiple search terms, it searches as if I had
> entered the Boolean operator "OR" between the terms.
>
> And it doesn't search for whole words, but returns as "hits" any
> folder or file name that contains any of the search terms within words
> in the file or folder names. Hmmm? I'm having trouble explaining
> this. I guess didn't state that very clearly did I?
>
> Perhaps an example will help me make myself clear.
>
> For example, I have a couple of MP3 files of the song "Stand By Me" on
> my C: drive. As far as I know, those are the only files I have
> containing the search string "Stand By Me."
>
> Yet, if I search for "stand by me .mp3" the Win2K "Search" utility
> returns 2,287 hits, including innumerable instances of such file and
> folders names such as:
>
> DATACACHE_GETMEDIA_LOC_EN...
> MENUEDIT...
> QUICKTIME...
> etc...
>
> Along with every single MP3 file on my hard drive.
>
> Not very helpful.
>
> So, I'm wondering how I can configure the Win2K "Search" utility so
> that its default settings are something like the way the Google web
> search works, i.e., get it to automatically insert the Boolean
> operator "AND" between words, search for whole words only, and search
> for whole strings enclosed between double quotation marks.
>
> If such settings are not available to users of the Win2K search
> utility, then is there a free replacement that works in the way I have
> described?