How to get Vista Search like XP was?

[Guest]

Hi,

I am having problems finding things with the search in Vista. With XP when I
set it to search system and hidden files it stayed that way. It also didn't
give me ABSOLUTELY everything including emails, favourites etc.

All I want to do is to be able to search for a file name and have it list
ONLY the files that have that name. However, I want it to search everywhere.
I would rather it be thorough and find the name than be "fast" and not.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Lara

 

[joepercussion1]

check the control panel, i believe their is a setting for that somewhere,
but i can not remember. Their has to be an option for that. If not, use
Google Desktop

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Thats probably because the Indexing Options have not been set to index the
entire contents of the hard disk. Windows Instant Search only finds items
that have been indexed. Open Control Panel > Indexing Options > Modify >
Show all locations > check the drive on which Vista is installed. For
example mine is called "Local Disk C:" this will then index the entire drive
but take a whole lot longer.

Click Start > Search, type in your query in the Search box, you can use the
"Show only:" content filters to filter the content you are searching or the
Advanced Search tools.

 

[Just FYI]

Or, if you're starting the search from the Start menu, type the whole file
name, including the extension, to cut down the number of search results. Or,
right-click the Start button, choose Properties, click Customize, and clear
Search Communications, Search Favorites and History. You could clear Search
Programs too, if you don't want to start programs that way.

If you want to do old Search Companion style searches, click Start, choose
Search, click Advanced Search, and choose the checkbox to search non-indexed
locations. Then use the Location box to specify what you want to search
(e.g. Everywhere or C, and use the rest of the boxes to specify what
you're looking for.

I'd stay away from third-party file managers that were designed for XP if I
were you.

 

[Donald Lessau]

...
All I want to do is to be able to search for a file name and have it list
ONLY the files that have that name. However, I want it to search
everywhere.
I would rather it be thorough and find the name than be "fast" and not.

Simply change your file manager. Try XYplorer (http://www.xyplorer.com/):
its (no-index) file search does exactly what you want and is fast, too.

Don

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Thanks. I have got those boxes cleared and yet it still finds favorites. I
don't use third party if I can help it although I have found I have had to go
to 3rd party programs to do what XP used to do but Vista doesn't (like import
photos).

I will try adding locations to the index. I don't want the entire drive but
often I search for .ini files or "system" files.

Cheers,
Lara

 

[Guest]

I have a slightly different question:
How do I get the search box back up on the Taskbar like in Windows Desktop
Search 3.01 on XP?
I know I can get to it by pushing the Windows key but I find (after a couple
months of Vista usage) that I frequently forget that it will search the web
as well, so I get a bunch of results returned from the web that have nothing
to do with what I'm looking for (searching my desktop).

Also, how come nobody built a Vista desktop search gadget that would
accomplish the same thing? It seems like everyone just rebuilds the same
clocks over and over again...

 

[Richard Urban]

Winkey | Search = will search you local computer by default.

You have to physically click on "Search the Internet" to have it do so.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

Are you sure about that?
It's come up with web results quite often when I hit the Enter key (which I
was used to doing in XP's Taskbar box). Not 100% of the time, but enough to
make it not reliable. I think it depends on how fast you hit the Enter key,
which I usually do out of habit after typing in what I'm searching for.
Sometimes the live search will come up with desktop results but a lot of
times it will "suggest" web results, in which case the Enter key will open
the browser window and search the wrong space.
I have two Vista computers and frequently I make the same mistake, and get
taken to Google instead :-(

 

[Richard Urban]

You can test this by typing something in Winkey | Start. Type something like
a text file that you know is only on your computer. When I do this the
search is restricted to my computer.

Before you hit enter, look one line down to see Search the Internet.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

Yes, I realize I can wait until the results are displayed. But typically
because I mostly search emails there are so many overlaps in the results I
need to expand to the full Explorer window in order to discern the
differences, e.g. author, sent date, etc.
I also know that I can use the mouse and click on the "See all results" line
to restrict to the desktop (which is not intuitive if you ask me), but I
thought the point of desktop search is SPEED?

Anyway, MS should have a way to control the default search, whether it goes
to web or desktop. They had this in the XP versions of WDS, don't know why
they got rid of it.

Bring back the Taskbar option and that would solve my problems too!