Windows Vista Search Not Working

[Guest]

When I click on the Start Icon and do a "start search" some of my files DON'T
show up! For example I have a folder in "Documents" named "Banquet" In that
folder I have at least 6 Word documents with the word "Banquet" in the file
name and 2 PowerPoint files with the word "Banquet" in the file name.
However, when I do a search for the word "Banquet" NONE of those files show
up! I have Vista Ultimate and this is THE ONLY problem I've had with it.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties. Click Start menu, Customize. Under the section named "Search files", select the option "Search this user's files". Click OK, OK.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


When I click on the Start Icon and do a "start search" some of my files DON'T
show up! For example I have a folder in "Documents" named "Banquet" In that
folder I have at least 6 Word documents with the word "Banquet" in the file
name and 2 PowerPoint files with the word "Banquet" in the file name.
However, when I do a search for the word "Banquet" NONE of those files show
up! I have Vista Ultimate and this is THE ONLY problem I've had with it.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Ramesh, went into those settings and what you described is exactly what my
settings are. I changed them to "search entire index" then back to "Search
this user's files" I even restarted for good measure and still no luck.
This is the one feature in Vista that I was very excited about... excitement
quickly fading. I just did some more testing and it doesn't seem to be
recognizing ANY of my files in "Documents." It IS recognizing my e-mails
though. Any more suggestions? Should I call Tech support? What number
should I call? Thanks for any help. Mike D

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Thanks for the info, Mike. I'll try to repro the problem and post back.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh, went into those settings and what you described is exactly what my
settings are. I changed them to "search entire index" then back to "Search
this user's files" I even restarted for good measure and still no luck.
This is the one feature in Vista that I was very excited about... excitement
quickly fading. I just did some more testing and it doesn't seem to be
recognizing ANY of my files in "Documents." It IS recognizing my e-mails
though. Any more suggestions? Should I call Tech support? What number
should I call? Thanks for any help. Mike D

 

[Puppy Breath]

It should work without having to change any default settings. Maybe those
files aren't indexed yet. Indexing has low priority, it only runs during
idle time so as to not slow you down when you're doing things.

You might want to make sure the Start menu searches are set up correctly.
Right-click the Start button, choose Properties, click Customize, scroll
down and make sure all the Search options are selected (checked). Then click
OK.

Click the Start button, type

inde

click Index and Indexing Options, make sure Users is listed under Indexed
Locations.

Click the File Types tab and make sure all of the necessary docment types
are selected.

If all else fails you can click the Rebuild Index option on the Index
Settings tab. It might take a while to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.
Best if you just let the computer sit unused to indexing has full resources.
But it should definitely be a quick and easy find.


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[cheese__monkey]

When I click on the Start Icon and do a "start search" some of myfilesDON'T
show up! For example I have a folder in "Documents" named "Banquet" In that
folder I have at least 6 Word documents with the word "Banquet" in the file
name and 2 PowerPointfileswith the word "Banquet" in the file name.
However, when I do a search for the word "Banquet" NONE of thosefilesshow
up! I haveVistaUltimate and this is THE ONLY problem I've had with it.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

I have exactly the same problem. I have a whole bunch of Office 2003
Powerpoints and Word documents which just don't seem to be indexed -
if i check the box marked "Include non-indexed files" then it finds
them, but this is the same as the old XP search i.e. sloooow. They're
in my Documents folder so it's not like i've put them in a weird
place. I've tried "Rebuild index" a couple of times and it indexes
some things (like plain text files) but still not those darn Office
documents. You think they could make it work with their own product!

 

[cheese__monkey]

I figured it out - some files had the "don't index" attribute set -
for some reason the flag got added when I copied the files from my XP
machine.

So to fix it: select all files you want to be indexed, right click ->
properties -> advanced -> make sure "Index this for faster searching"
is ticked.

The indexing was set up correctly but I'd accidentally excluded
specific files from being indexed.