Search Behavior not Understood

[John Hanley]

When I search for instances of .mswmm files (from Windows Movie Maker) using
a normal search in Indexed Locations, no files are reported; however if I
check the "Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files", the .mswmm files
do show up in the search results. The same thing happens with .msdvd (from
Windows DVD Maker). It is as if these two types of media files are not
indexed. I am not conscious of having tried to exclude these types of files
from indexing. Why don't they show up when searching Indexed Locations?
Thanks.

 

[Puppy Breath]

Most likely the folder in which the files are located isn't an indexed
folder. When you do a search from the Start button, only folders in your
user account are searched. So maybe the files just aren't in those
locations.

There are lots of ways to customize searching. You can right-click the Start
button, choose Properties, click Customize, then tweak some of the settings
down in the long list of options that appears.

You can also click the Start button, type

inde

and click Indexing Options. Then use the Modify and Advanced buttons to
control what is/isn't included in the search options.

You can also get more info about all this stuff by clicking start, choose
Help and Support, and searching the help for:

index

The "Improve Windows searches using the index: frequenly asked questions"
page is a good starting point.