Indexing problem help?

[Guest]

THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE (please don't dwell too much on "games" per se!)

My Search Index is behaving oddly.

I can't find e.g. Games - at least one other user says it works fine for him.

If I type "Gam" I get Programs - "Games Explorer"; Favourites, Files
"Microsoft Games", "games"... and some Communications.

if I add an e ("game") ALL RESULTS DISAPPEAR.

Please how do I fix this? Any idea what is wrong?

Thanks

[Vista HP]

 

[Guest]

Sorry about the duplicate - there was a Login-Live problem...

 

[Billy]

I will not tell you that I have seen THIS problem before, however in my 15
years of experience I have seen many things and I have been able to resolve
them through simple procedures.



My guess would be that the indexing program has been corrupted, and it needs
to rebuild the indexing files. Here is the procedure that I would use to do
that. If this does work for you, please email me at (e-mail address removed)
and let me know, so that I can add this fix to my own personal database.



Do this



Click on the Windows Pearl *Start Button*; Click on Control Panel; Once the
Control Panel window is opened, if you are not already in the classic view
mode, click on Classic View in the top left pane. Then on the right pane
double click on Administrative Tools; once the Administrative Tools window
is up, Double click on Services:



Once you see all of the Services listed in the right window pane, scroll
down and find the service Windows Search: Click on STOP if that option is
active: Now in the drop down dialog box for Startup Type, choose Disable:
click on apply, then ok. Close all open windows and reboot your system.



Once you are rebooted, follow the same procedure in order to get back to
your Services window; scroll down to Windows Search, in the Startup Type
drop down dialog box choose Enable; Click on Apply, then on OK. Close all
the open windows reboot once again. Once you are rebooted see if the search
feature works.



Good Luck

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion Billy - alas no go - details follow for the
edification of all

<snip>

My guess would be that the indexing program has been corrupted, and it needs
to rebuild the indexing files. Here is the procedure that I would use to do
that.

Hmmm... I thought a corrupt index might be possible... but the program?

Anyway, adjusting slightly for differences seen over the description (Vista:
double-click service or otherwise get its properties... service type is no
longer a direct drop down in the list)

I did this -

<snip> = Disable Windows Search service, reboot, reset Windows Search to automatic, reboot

No change... and it should be noted that before trying this I had completely
rebuilt the indexes (Indexing Options, Advanced). IMO disabling and
re-enabling the Search service should not affect the status of the indexes
themselves - and later examination after the final restart showed that the
count of indexed items was >50,000 in a time too short to have indexed that
many files, so I the hypothesis is not falsified.

I think there is a bug in Windows Search or a bug in Windows Indexing -
though having said that, as I noted, someone said that a "game" search worked
for them (I would be interested to hear of other experiences - I find it
difficult to see how an otherwise functional indexing/search system could
fail like this without a bug - so I now begin to doubt the positive report).

For further info, it seems (although I can find no information on this in
Help) that Indexing does not index Removable media.

Not indexing removable media is I think a very poor decision, which if it is
true. is exacerbated by the fact that there is no warning or advice when
adding specific locations to be indexed that the new locations will be
ignored! [I'll raise a new topic on this]

[I use Steganos encrypted safes for certain data - the media isn't actually
ever "removed" it just appears like that]

Indexes for R/W media could be stored on the media - and if something has
disappeared surely it's a microsecond to check the file name the index throws
up against a directory?

Almost everything I try in Vista is at least very slightly not-quite right -
and the aggravation is increasingly disproportionate.

 

[Joe Guidera]

It does not index removable media (since it doesn't know if it's going to be
there or not and you can have multiple "A" drives for example not sure how
it would know which one to tell you to load).

Thanks for the suggestion Billy - alas no go - details follow for the
edification of all

<snip>

My guess would be that the indexing program has been corrupted, and it
needs
to rebuild the indexing files. Here is the procedure that I would use to
do
that.

Hmmm... I thought a corrupt index might be possible... but the program?

Anyway, adjusting slightly for differences seen over the description
(Vista:
double-click service or otherwise get its properties... service type is no
longer a direct drop down in the list)

I did this -

<snip> = Disable Windows Search service, reboot, reset Windows Search to
automatic, reboot

No change... and it should be noted that before trying this I had
completely
rebuilt the indexes (Indexing Options, Advanced). IMO disabling and
re-enabling the Search service should not affect the status of the indexes
themselves - and later examination after the final restart showed that the
count of indexed items was >50,000 in a time too short to have indexed
that
many files, so I the hypothesis is not falsified.

I think there is a bug in Windows Search or a bug in Windows Indexing -
though having said that, as I noted, someone said that a "game" search
worked
for them (I would be interested to hear of other experiences - I find it
difficult to see how an otherwise functional indexing/search system could
fail like this without a bug - so I now begin to doubt the positive
report).

For further info, it seems (although I can find no information on this in
Help) that Indexing does not index Removable media.

Not indexing removable media is I think a very poor decision, which if it
is
true. is exacerbated by the fact that there is no warning or advice when
adding specific locations to be indexed that the new locations will be
ignored! [I'll raise a new topic on this]

[I use Steganos encrypted safes for certain data - the media isn't
actually
ever "removed" it just appears like that]

Indexes for R/W media could be stored on the media - and if something has
disappeared surely it's a microsecond to check the file name the index
throws
up against a directory?

Almost everything I try in Vista is at least very slightly not-quite
right -
and the aggravation is increasingly disproportionate.

 

[Guest]

It does not index removable media (since it doesn't know if it's going to be
there or not and you can have multiple "A" drives for example not sure how
it would know which one to tell you to load).

Thanks for the confirmation - can you give a source for that information in
a Microsoft originated document (e.g. Help file)?

Information gratefully received - and it reinforces my point: - why the hell
does it allow me to add removable locations to the Index Locations list then?
(And/or why not store the index on the removable medium if space permits?).

Not a satisfactory situation overall... but I appreciate the input. Would be
nice to hear an explanation from MS!

 

[Michael Palumbo]

I will not tell you that I have seen THIS problem before, however in my 15
years of experience I have seen many things and I have been able to resolve
them through simple procedures.



My guess would be that the indexing program has been corrupted, and it
needs to rebuild the indexing files. Here is the procedure that I would
use to do that. If this does work for you, please email me at
(e-mail address removed) and let me know, so that I can add this fix to my
own personal database.



Do this



Click on the Windows Pearl *Start Button*; Click on Control Panel; Once
the Control Panel window is opened, if you are not already in the classic
view mode, click on Classic View in the top left pane. Then on the right
pane double click on Administrative Tools; once the Administrative Tools
window is up, Double click on Services:



Once you see all of the Services listed in the right window pane, scroll
down and find the service Windows Search: Click on STOP if that option is
active: Now in the drop down dialog box for Startup Type, choose Disable:
click on apply, then ok. Close all open windows and reboot your system.



Once you are rebooted, follow the same procedure in order to get back to
your Services window; scroll down to Windows Search, in the Startup Type
drop down dialog box choose Enable; Click on Apply, then on OK. Close
all the open windows reboot once again. Once you are rebooted see if the
search feature works.



Good Luck

Why go through all that?

In Control Panel click "Indexing Options", click "Advanced", from there you
can have it rebuild (this will remove the current index and totally rebuild
it using your set options) or choose "Restore Defaults", that will set all
options for indexing to the default setting and also remove the current
index and rebuild it using the default options.

Mic

 

[Joe Guidera]

Hmm, let me try that again then. Last time I tried it wouldn't let me add a
removable disk (e.g. floppy) to the index. Hold on.... Hmm, on mine it's
only showing fixed disk locations.

J

 

[Guest]

Hmm, let me try that again then. Last time I tried it wouldn't let me add a
removable disk (e.g. floppy) to the index. Hold on.... Hmm, on mine it's
only showing fixed disk locations.

That's interesting! the locations I added to the list are on a Steganos Safe
- file hosted on C: mounted as a "Device with Removable Storage" with drive
letter mapping - this is the same category as the DVD drive, although I've
just put in a data disk and confirmed that the DVD is not available to add
locations from, nor do mapped network drives appear as available sources.

Wonder what the difference between two devices in the same category is?

OK, it's a Vista bug. Nuff said.

Thanks for the detail!