How to Enable Indexing in Vista

[Guest]

Hi- My indexing has been turned off (I believe by Google Desktop, which
slowed the system down tremendously).

Can anyone tell me how to enable indexing? I've tried the "Control Panel >
System Maintenance > Indexing Options" and all the popup says is "Indexing is
not running" with no way to start it. All of the buttons are grayed out
except for "Close."

Any help will be added to your karmic bank account!

Thanks!
--Kevin

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Hi- My indexing has been turned off (I believe by Google Desktop, which
slowed the system down tremendously).

Can anyone tell me how to enable indexing? I've tried the "Control Panel
System Maintenance > Indexing Options" and all the popup says is "Indexing
is
not running" with no way to start it. All of the buttons are grayed out
except for "Close."

Try going to Control Panel and using the search box to search for Services.
I am not using a Vista machine at the moment, so try looking for something
like Indexing Service or something like that and set it to start
automatically.

Any help will be added to your karmic bank account!

Good, I have a big overdraft.

ss.

 

[Xenomorph]

make sure the "Windows Search" service is enabled and running.

 

[robert.stojanov]

Hi- My indexing has been turned off (I believe by Google Desktop, which
slowed the system down tremendously).

Can anyone tell me how to enable indexing? I've tried the "Control Panel >
System Maintenance > Indexing Options" and all the popup says is "Indexing is
not running" with no way to start it. All of the buttons are grayed out
except for "Close."

Any help will be added to your karmic bank account!

Thanks!
--Kevin

At the Run dialog write down services.msc after starting search for
Indexing service and see if it is started if not make it to start
automatically. These should work.

 

[Jerry]

Try this: Go to Computer and Right-Click on each Partition and select
properties. At the bottom of the Properties box you should have an Indexing
Option. The box should be checked for Indexing to be turned on. BTW it
should have been on by default.

 

[Celegans]

Try this: Go to Computer and Right-Click on each Partition and select
properties. At the bottom of the Properties box you should have an
Indexing Option. The box should be checked for Indexing to be turned on.
BTW it should have been on by default.

So it's not possible to search a CD/DVD if it's not indexed? Is this a new
design "feature"?

If one is working with networked drives that are mapped to Linux resources,
it's not possible to search files on these drives until they're indexed?
What if I don't want to index GB of files on a Linux network resource, but
what if I want to search selected wildcarded files in a selected directory
for a specific target string on that resource? This type of search worked
in Windows 2000. This search cannot not be done in Vista because the Linux
network drive is not indexed for Vista?

Searching "faster" with indexed files is nice, but what about all the files
that cannot be searched at all now? What about all the files that are not
indexed? Why isn't there an Vista Ultimate tool that allows searching all
files whether they are indexed or not? What did I really get for "Ultimate"
Vista?

Since Windows Vista search is defective, one now must buy a 3-rd party tool,
like SSScanner to do searches that used to work in Windows 2000?
http://www.kryltech.com/scanner.htm Shouldn't Microsoft just buy Kryloff
Technologies and help Vista customers with a better search -- one that can
always work? Note Kryloff even markets their product "SSScanner enhances
searches in Windows Vista" on their web page. My take: SSScanner fixes a
defective Vista search strategy. I've now got to pay Kryloff Technologies
$99.95 to fix Vista's search. Can I send the bill to Bill?

 

[Swingman]

"Celegans" wrote in message

Can I send the bill to Bill?

Sure you can ... but get someone competent to help, as you would obviously
injure yourself attempting to do it by yourself.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

All of the things you describe here can be done with the built-in Vista
search. If the indexer is not running or if you are searching a non-indexed
location then search is done without the index, which may be slower but will
still work.

 

[Celegans]

So what am I missing? In XP, I right click on a folder using Windows
Explorer and select search. There are separate search options, which I
found quite intuitive:
- "All or part of the file name"
- "A word or phrase in the file"

I almost always want to specify some sort of wild card for the files I'm
looking for, and I often am looking for a specific string in these files. I
quite often NEED both of these fields. Unlike Windows 2000, XP was a bit
lame when it didn't search all the files, and hits could be missed until one
found the obscure registry key to enable searching all files. I spent hours
trying to figure out why I couldn't find files in XP because of some obscure
change made by Microsoft. Windows Vista continues that frustration by
making searches harder than it was in Windows 2000 or before.

Now let's do the same thing in Vista. Right click on a folder to search
using Windows Explorer, and select "Search...".

There is a mostly blank screen with a note at the top saying "To begin, type
in the search box". Can I assume that this search box only knows about
what's been indexed? This whole screen is wasted space and could show more
options like before, but one must now click on the nearby icon for "Advanced
Search". Did usability experts really design this?

The Advanced Search screen is what I really want to see when I select
"Search" from Windows Explorer. This new Advance Search screen shows mostly
blank space (why is all the space wasted?), but doesn't show an option that
is equivalent to searching for "A word or phrase in the file". Where is
this search option "A word or phrase in a file" now "hidden"?

The help system has proven futile. Online searches via Google have proven
futile. I have already spent hours searching for why search doesn't work in
Vista. There is a checkbox for "include non-indexed, hidden, and system
files (might be slow)," which I'm assuming will search for files that are
not indexed, but how do I search for a particular string in a file? (The
command prompt "findstr" command isn't a good answer.)

I now launch a VMware virtual machine running Windows 2000, where I've
mapped my Vista file system. I must do searches from Windows 2000 on my
Vista machine to find files containing specific strings because Vista's
search either doesn't work or has a new obtuse user interface that is not
intuitive nor is explained anywhere I can find. At some point I may have to
pay the $100 to use SSScaner, because I figure out how to get search to work
in Vista.

I have had similar frustrations with Office 2007. Simple things that took
seconds, now take hours to find, or seemingly cannot be done. Recently I
wanted to split a table in Word 2007, which should have taken about two
seconds. Over an hour later after various Google searches, I finally
stumbled onto this online tool that shows the old Word 2003 interface and
how the same thing is done in Word 2007. You can select what you'd like to
do in the Word 2003 simulated interface, then an animation shows what to do
an simulated Word 2007 user interface.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx
At least in the "split table" case, this worked when online help didn't
address "split table".

If Microsoft really wanted to help its existing customers, this tool should
have been part of Word 2007, so one could quickly find out how to do a
familiar operation. Is there any similar tool that Microsoft provides that
does this with Windows Vista? Can I go to an online tool somewhere in
Windows XP, and be told where in Vista I can do the same thing, like
searching for a string in a file that may not be indexed? Looking for
search terms in the help system too often is futile, even when using the
exact name of the feature.

There are many good new features in Vista and Office 2007, but the
frustration level of not being able to do old simple things is also quite
high -- needlessly.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

- If you search from a specific folder then the search box searches all of
that folder, regardless of whether it has been indexed.

- The search box searches filenames and contents {and all other meta-data
about the files}. One caveat is that in non-indexed locations, by default
only filenames are searched. This behavior can be changed in the Search
Options dialog "What to Search -> Always search filenames and contents".

- If you just want to search for just filenames and not contents then use
the Advanced Search "Name" edit box, or type "name:" before the name in the
search box on the top-right.

 

[Celegans]

Re: How to Enable Indexing in Vista

All of the things you describe here can be done with the built-in Vista
search. If the indexer is not running or if you are searching a
non-indexed location then search is done without the index, which may be
slower but will still work.

Doug. Thank you for your response, but the Windows Vista search simply does
not work adequately like it did in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000,
and Windows XP (after a fix
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;309173 ). Microsoft
should fix this problem post haste so scientists and engineers can use Vista
to find scientific data -- which is what I'm trying to do.

See this article with history of Windows search and how Vista has made
things worse, not better (Vista has brought improvements, but how can they
be appreciated when things that worked now fail?)


File Search in Vista Worse than Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP?
http://www.pcmagvote.com/story.php?title=File_Search_in_Vista_Worse_than_Windows_95_98_2000_and_XP-1

Do you have a solution for scenario #2 in the comments to that article?

Comments from National Instruments:
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5604#toc6
"While Windows Vista searching capabilities may satisfy general users, they
MAY NOT BE ADEQUATE for engineers and scientists. Windows Vista helps you
quickly locate saved files based on metadata, but you cannot search file
content to identify meaningful information."
"For example, you might have thousands of files containing data from
experiments or tests. To make educated decisions based on that information
stored in those files, you must not only carry out complex searches to find
the files but also identify key information or establish trends within the
files; neither are tasks that Instant Search can accomplish. To find and
interpret data rapidly, you need additional tools, such as the National
Instruments DIAdem DataFinder."

Why won't Microsoft admit that search is a problem in Vista, that search in
Vista is "not adequate" and do something about it, instead of frustrating
scientists and engineers who are trying to search scientific/engineering
data using Vista?

 

[Dave]

You could make sure to use some of the 200 file types that WDS can index...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/technical/searchtype.mspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.DesktopSearchIFilters

http://www.ifilter.org/

 

[Celegans]

You could make sure to use some of the 200 file types that WDS can
index...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/technical/searchtype.mspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.DesktopSearchIFilters

http://www.ifilter.org/

Dave, this is NOT a workable solution.

Scientific instruments often create their own file types and sometimes these
files need to be searched. Sometimes the files were created years ago.
Sometimes the same file types are used by different vendors, so the file
type alone doesn't say what's in a file. Can Microsoft distinguish between
an FCS file that is Fluorescent Correlation Spectroscopy data and an FCS
file that has Flow Cytometry Standard data? Or FCS files that have very
different versions by vendor of Fluorescent Correlation Spectroscopy data?

Give us a way to search in Vista that DOES NOT require indexing. Why is
VISTA taking a feature away that's worked since Windows 95? Searching for a
string and file filter at the same time is so difficult?

How can I get Windows Explorer for Windows 2000 working under Windows
Vista?. Is the capability in Windows Explorer from Windows 2000 too much to
ask for in Vista so we can search scientific data? Just copying the Windows
Explorer from Windows 2000 to Vista doesn't work. Can the registry be hacked
to make it work?

I don't want everything on my machines indexed, but I DO want to be able to
do a guided search from a specified directory. Microsoft's "blind search of
everything" approach is not acceptable. Why isn't Microsoft willing to help
scientists search files without imposing indexing by Microsoft?

So, I'll never be able to search a Linux file system with scientific data
until Microsoft indexes all the Linux files?

I can't believe how much time I've wasted trying to get a workable search in
Vista. I can't believe how much time it took to figure out the search in XP
was flawed and was not looking at all files.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

Just to be clear my name is Dave {well David}, not Doug and my last name is
Wood, not Woods, and I'm not the same person as the other "Dave" also
posting on this thread. With that cleared up, I have a couple of comments,
but I don't have a perfect solution to what you are asking ...

First off, I guess I should say that I'm an engineer and I use Vista search
everyday. Okay I'm a developer at Microsoft on the Windows Search team, so I
would say that wouldn't I? But there are a number of scenarios where the
indexed Vista search has really made my life easier. Searching my Outlook
mail - I have a few thousand mails in my Inbox and a few hundred thousand
older mails in other folders. Keeping track of all my mail is hard, and
searching this stuff using the older search was unusably slow, but now takes
only a few seconds on Vista. Similarly searching all the docs, messages,
html files etc. in all my project folders in c:\users\dave and
c:\users\public works great for me.

The default search options are a complex compromise between making the
search fast, returning relevant results, being as complete as possible, and
not taking too much system resources. Microsoft aims to provide features
that work out of the box for the majority of users without customization. We
then, in principle, provide advanced options for people to customize the
search behavior if they need to. There are lots of advanced options, but
there are cases like yours where I do worry that we haven't provided enough
control - there is no "search unknown extensions as text" option, as you
say. This feedback has definitely been received by us.

One of the problems with searching ALL file types is that it assumes all
files are text-based, which an awful lot of files types are not. And even if
they are text-based the chances that they contain meaningful human-readable
data gets smaller, which tends to mean the likelihood of false matches in
search results goes up. As you say, Microsoft really doesn't know what an
..FCS file is if there's no associated app. We don't know if it is text,
binary, database, executable, office doc, excel spreadsheet, XML etc. So we
do the safest thing and don't search it. But I agree it's sometimes
frustrating not to have that option.

One thing to note is that in the Indexing Control Panel you can add any
individual unknown extension and set it to be searched. So if there's a
specific file type like .FCS you can add this and the changes get stored in
the registry and future searches {indexed or non-indexed} will search this
file as plain text.

And finally, of course I can't comment on marketing materials promoting a
product put out by another company.


Dave Wood

 

[Celegans]

Dave Wood:

I work with thousands and thousands of scientific files -- from Windows,
Linux and sometimes Macs. Many Linux folks don't bother with file
extensions and don't "honor" Microsoft's rules. So I can't search Linux
files now in Vista? I don't work with Macs much, but a few years ago I
wrote a program to add Windows file extensions to many Mac files when they
were imported to Windows. If Microsoft doesn't "bless" a file, it cannot be
searched now in Vista? Don't you understand how myopic your current design
is? This isn't Google searching the universe. I want to search MY PC and
Windows Vista will not search all MY files on MY PC without indexing.

Perhaps it's good that you made your life simpler with the search that
Microsoft implemented, but perhaps Microsoft should worry more about
customers with search problems. I could agree that indexing mail may be a
good idea, but I don't agree that indexing all file systems everywhere is
needed before a file search can be done by Vista.

Microsoft needs to make decisions that work for the majority, but what about
minority rights here? You decide that now I cannot solve certain problems
that could be solved using Windows for over a decade! How myopic was that
decision? Microsoft made search fast, but it gives the wrong (i.e.,
incomplete) answers sometimes? This isn't Google where finding anything of
interest is better than nothing. I want to search a very specific machine
(often MY machine) for very specific files (usually MY FILES), sometimes for
very specific string(s), and Microsoft has made that task impossible with
Windows Vista? Isn't it a bit arrogant of Microsoft to take away tools that
have worked since Windows 95 and make all search decisions for customers? I
paid more for "Ultimate" Vista, why can you at least let "Ultimate" Vista
users search all their files?

I don't want FORCED INDEXING OF ALL FILES -- the Index Control Panel is a
BAD IDEA. Give me Windows 2000 Windows Explorer and let me decide how files
will be searched -- let me use the Vista search index for a "quick and
dirty" search, or let me use "brute force" in an exhaustive search of all
files. Why can't we be given that option? I may want to occasionally
search binary files for strings, but I never want to index what may be in
those binary files.

I have spent years (decades) organizing files. I have personal files that
go back to 1980 -- yes files that existed before PCs did. I usually don't
need the "blind search" that Microsoft is pushing. You guys want to index
only certain files (you'll never get the list right) and then you can only
find things in the index. I want (I NEED) a guided search. I can get
close. I usually know what directories likely contain the files of interest.
Sometimes the files are mostly binary, but I may be looking for a particular
string. Sometimes I'm only searching by file names. Sometimes I want a
combination of filename(s) and particular string(s). Why should Microsoft
care if I'm trying to search binary files containing scientific data that
sometimes have strings of interest?

I will advise against us buying Windows Vista until Microsoft fixes the
Vista search problem (but Microsoft probably doesn't care about a few
hundred licenses). Our IT people already refuse to even look at Vista for
other reasons -- I'm a maverick for looking at it now..

Is a 3rd party search tool my only real option since Microsoft will never
admit how bad the current design is? Ultimately, will Microsoft "fix" the
"problem" by a combination of marketing hype and ignoring it? I need a
solution, but Microsoft is not helping.

Repeating this question which would be a "good enough" solution:
How can I get Windows Explorer from Windows 2000 working in Windows Vista?
(without using a VMware virtual machine)

 

[mjones]

I am reposting something here which I posted into another thread
dealing with the same issue.

FYI - You don't need to "index" anything in order for the content
searching capabilities of Vista to be better than any previous
versions of Windows. It is full adequte for engineers and
scientists. The problem is that no one has taken the time to really
mess around and try and resolve the problem for these types of users.
I have done so this morning and finally figured it all out. But...
scientists should have figured it out before I did lol.

Here is my original post in the other thread from this morning:


Hello

This post may make everyone happy. I had this issue with XP before
when trying to search through the contents of thousands of EDI files
on a mapped network drive. The Microsoft KB article fixed the
problem. So... I just set up my new workstation this past week with
Windows Vista Ultimate and guess what? I have the same issue. When
XP first came out I got the hotfix from my MAPS support before
service
pack 1. I called them yesterday to see if there was a fix for Vista,
nope. They told me to try the XP fix and low and behold... IT WORKS.
Here are the steps you need to take:


First go and open up this MS KB because you'll need it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309173/EN-US/


1. In the search settings on Vista you NEED to turn on the setting
to
"...always search file names and contents..." or whatever is says (I
am not going back there to look at the exact syntax) lol. Otherwise
it will only search the contents of indexed files.


2. You need to open up at least 1 of each of the "unknown" file types
with notepad and tell Vista to ALWAYS use notepad for this type of
file so that it will register the file type. I am searching through
files named *.TDF, *.ORD. *.BAK, etc.


3. BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY before doing any modifications...


4. You need to create the DWORD registry setting (or set it to 1 if
it
is there) in the method 2 part of the KB article.


5. You then need to create the registry keys for "PersistentHandler"
for each of the newly registered file types AS SHOWN at the bottom of
method 1 in the KB article. Make sure you copy and paste the value
that is shown for the text filter into the default - don't go trying
to type it out each time.


6. REBOOT or log off and back on. If you don't do this IT WON'T
WORK!


I hope that everyone will benefit from this post but I obvioulsy
offer
NO WARRANTY and/or support if you destroy your registry lol...


Anyways, it works perfectly for me as I am now able to search through
thousands of files on a mapped netowrk drive and I am happy so you
should be as well once you get it all straightened out. Don't blame
Microsoft either - they are just doing what is best for the majority
of users by making the search fast and effective - most users are not
looking for text within a 1/2 million files that are wacky
unregistered extensions.


Have fun!
Marc

 

[mjones]

Sorry I forgot this part again...

I should have mentioned that in step 2 - if the files are too big to
open in notepad then you will need to register the file types
manually
in the registry then enter the key for each in step 5.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

Yes. Note that this is basically doing the same thing as opening the
Indexing Options Control Panel -> Advanced -> File Types and using the "Add
New Extension" button to add the file extensions you want indexed. I think
this will make basically the same changes in the registry as you are doing
yourself.

 

[mjones]

Yes you can add a file type there but you can't create the
PersistentHandler key there - you have to edit the registry to do so.

On another note - I have no clue how you can make this work for files
with no extensions (no file type at all) because you can't create a
class entry that is null. You can add the file type with just a
period and no extension but it doesn't apply to files with no
extension unles you name them like "something. " not just
"something "

So I can't help with that. But, you can use findstr in a command
prompt to search through files with no period and no extension. I
have never had to do that before until I just tested it now.

Marc

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

No the Control Panel absolutely does add the PersistentHandler into the
registry. In the Indexing Options Control Panel on the File Types tab, type
your extension, click Add New Extension and then select "Index File
Properties and Contents". Then check your registry. I just tried to be sure.