BUG? Search for text in files doesn't work

[GERRY PETERS]

I tried many times in vain to get my XP computer to search a directory over
my network in a Win98 computer. The directory has CD creator files in which
I saved songs for archiving. The CD creator files have no description about
the song titles in their file name, but the song title names are listed
inside the CD file, so if I search for a song title as text inside of a
file, then the search should list the CD creator files that have those song
titles in them.

I do this all the time with Win98 + Win98SE and it works fine. In fact after
I failed in XP I used another Win98 computer and it successfully found the
files I was looking for

Is this a bug in XP? Has anyone successfuly performed a text search in XP
(SP1) to locate a specific file?

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I tried many times in vain to get my XP computer to search a directory over
my network in a Win98 computer. The directory has CD creator files in which
I saved songs for archiving. The CD creator files have no description about
the song titles in their file name, but the song title names are listed
inside the CD file, so if I search for a song title as text inside of a
file, then the search should list the CD creator files that have those song
titles in them.

I do this all the time with Win98 + Win98SE and it works fine. In fact after
I failed in XP I used another Win98 computer and it successfully found the
files I was looking for

Is this a bug in XP? Has anyone successfuly performed a text search in XP
(SP1) to locate a specific file?

Try groups.google.com 'Windows XP search for text broken' (or similar)
and read all about it. Basically WinXP's search engine got a little dog,
but lost the ability to find text in any-old-generic-file .. it now only
looks in files for which it has a filter to tell it how to extract the
text. Major step backwards for most of us (yes, it even worked OK in
Win2k, so it's a recent 'broke').

There is a decent, fast, free, WinXP search engine at:
http://www.agentransack.com/index.asp
which most folks (who need the facility) prefer.

 

[Sal]

That DOG!!! I hate that little dog! I keep thinking that, at any moment, it
is going to urinate on me, or worse...

 

[Alex Nichol]

I tried many times in vain to get my XP computer to search a directory over
my network in a Win98 computer. The directory has CD creator files in which
I saved songs for archiving. The CD creator files have no description about
the song titles in their file name, but the song title names are listed
inside the CD file, so if I search for a song title as text inside of a
file, then the search should list the CD creator files that have those song
titles in them.

I do this all the time with Win98 + Win98SE and it works fine. In fact after
I failed in XP I used another Win98 computer and it successfully found the
files I was looking for

Is this a bug in XP? Has anyone successfuly performed a text search in XP
(SP1) to locate a specific file?

XP search only searches for text in a very limited number of types -
they must either have registry entries saying they are pure Text (.TXT
and not much else) or have known ;filters' to handle embedded format
controls, so that Search can avoid being confused by thinking those are
characters in 16 bit Unicode (eg .doc, .htm). You can add a file type
to the 'pure text' collection, but I doubt if you would get satisfactory
results from your CD music files

This will presumably prevent it trying a search across a network as
well. There are third party tools that do not have this restriction -
notably www.agentransack.com and I would expect these to run across a
network to a share.