Reinstall Windows Explorer?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin
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M

Martin

On one of my computers, when I use the Search functionality in Windows
Explorer to find files that contain a specified word or phrase, it may
or may not find the files (sometimes it does - sometimes it doesn't).

I have several computers at my disposal - all running Windows XP Pro -
service pack 2 with all updates (except IE-7). I looked at the others
and noted that the search box appears slightly different on the one
I'm having problems with - for example, the middle box is labeled
"Containing text:" whereas on the others it says: "A word or phrase in
the file:".

I also have a computer running Windows 2000. I opened up its search
window and, much to my surprise, I see that it is exactly like the one
on the unit that I'm having the problems on!

How can this be?! It looks like I have a Win XP Pro computer with Win
2K search functionality! Yes, the XP unit is clearly XP. It's about a
year old; it's a brand name (IBM/Lenovo); it came with XP
pre-installed. It has SP2 on it. It has all the updates on it.

How is this possible? Is this the cause of the search problems?

How would I go about fixing this?
 
not sure why the search feature fails

but microsoft provides a "desktop search
freeware" that works pretty good. It is the
Vista style for searching that was redesigned
for use on winxp.
 
On one of my computers, when I use the Search functionality in Windows
Explorer to find files that contain a specified word or phrase, it may
or may not find the files (sometimes it does - sometimes it doesn't).

I have several computers at my disposal - all running Windows XP Pro -
service pack 2 with all updates (except IE-7). I looked at the others
and noted that the search box appears slightly different on the one
I'm having problems with - for example, the middle box is labeled
"Containing text:" whereas on the others it says: "A word or phrase in
the file:".

I also have a computer running Windows 2000. I opened up its search
window and, much to my surprise, I see that it is exactly like the one
on the unit that I'm having the problems on!

How can this be?! It looks like I have a Win XP Pro computer with Win
2K search functionality! Yes, the XP unit is clearly XP. It's about a
year old; it's a brand name (IBM/Lenovo); it came with XP
pre-installed. It has SP2 on it. It has all the updates on it.

How is this possible? Is this the cause of the search problems?

How would I go about fixing this?
Click to expand...

XP can be set to use the windows 2000 or "classic" style search. Apparently
somehow that was set on the one computer. To change back download TweakUI,
one of the Microsoft powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Run it and under the Explorer section untic the option in the right pane
"Use Classic Search in Explorer".

XP will find words in a file for any certain registered file extensions, so
one issue might be what type of file you're searching in. Additional
extensions can be added. See this MS knowledge base article.

Using the "A word or phrase in the file" search criterion may not work
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309173/EN-US/

Lastly you could tryout the free search tool, AgentRansack. It will search
for text in any file. It's a nice product.
http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/
 
XP can be set to use the windows 2000 or "classic" style search. Apparently
somehow that was set on the one computer. To change back download TweakUI,
one of the Microsoft powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Run it and under the Explorer section untic the option in the right pane
"Use Classic Search in Explorer".

XP will find words in a file for any certain registered file extensions, so
one issue might be what type of file you're searching in. Additional
extensions can be added. See this MS knowledge base article.

Using the "A word or phrase in the file" search criterion may not work
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309173/EN-US/

Lastly you could tryout the free search tool, AgentRansack. It will search
for text in any file. It's a nice product.
http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/
Click to expand...


Excellent, Rock - Thank you!

The TweakUI tool restored the Search dialog to the "XP" look. (now
that I did that, I vaguely remember setting it to the "classic" style
when I first set up the computer).

And, the KB article enabled me to figure out that the search was not
finding anything in the .php files (even though .php was in the list
of file-types to look in). When I added the suggested registry key
value (for treat them as plain text), it started working like I
expected.

Thanks again.

Martin
 
Excellent, Rock - Thank you!

The TweakUI tool restored the Search dialog to the "XP" look. (now
that I did that, I vaguely remember setting it to the "classic" style
when I first set up the computer).
Click to expand...

Hehe, yep I remember a few of those ---"oh yeah..now I remember I did
that" --- situations.
And, the KB article enabled me to figure out that the search was not
finding anything in the .php files (even though .php was in the list
of file-types to look in). When I added the suggested registry key
value (for treat them as plain text), it started working like I
expected.
Click to expand...

You're welcome Martin, glad to have been of service and thanks for posting
back.
 
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