Searching, sorting, and excluding files by attributes

[Roof Fiddler]

Vista has spiffy new organizational and search capabilities. It can quickly
show me all my files with names that begin with a specified string, and it
can quickly show me all my files that contain words that start with a
specified string. But how do I get it to:
Show me all my files with names that contain (not necessarily begin with) a
specified string?
Show me all my files that contain words that contain (not necessarily begin
with) a specified string?
Show me ALL of the files on my computer (including their full pathnames),
sorted by modification date?
Show me all of the files on my computer which were created after a specified
date, sorted by modification date?
Show me all of the files on my computer which were created after a specified
date and have extensions other than .exe and .dll, sorted by modification
date?
Show me all of the files and directories (including full pathnames) on the
system to which a specified user has write access?

 

[Geta Klew]

Show me all my files with names that contain (not necessarily begin with)
a
specified string?

Type the string without wildcards.

Show me all my files that contain words that contain (not necessarily
begin with) a specified string?

Same as above. For example if you're using Windows Mail to read this typing
ele in the Search box shows only messages that contain those lettes (such as
the word "delete").

Show me ALL of the files on my computer (including their full pathnames),
sorted by modification date?

Search outside the index (click Start, choose Search, click Advanced Search,
click Location and choose your location). You don't specify columns or sort
options in the search (it isn't SQL). You choose columns and sort the search
results by right-clicking and clicking column headings.

Show me all of the files on my computer which were created after a
specified date, sorted by modification date?

In Advanced Search choose Date Modifed, Is After, and the date. Sort the
search results using column headings.

Show me all of the files on my computer which were created after a
specified date and have extensions other than .exe and .dll, sorted by
modification date?

Those will be excluded automatically if you search the index or don't choose
the checkbox to include them. You could also use a syntax like NOT (*.exe OR
*.dll) in the search box.

Show me all of the files and directories (including full pathnames) on the
system to which a specified user has write access?

Don't know about this one.

 

[Roof Fiddler]

Type the string without wildcards.

It doesn't work. For example, if I press the start orb and type "windows" I
get lots of matches, but if I type "indows", I get no matches.

Same as above. For example if you're using Windows Mail to read this
typing ele in the Search box shows only messages that contain those lettes
(such as the word "delete").

Doesn't work. For example, I can type "message" or "bug" or "vista", and get
a bunch of results under the heading "communications". (I do use Windows
Mail for reading these newsgroups.) But if I type "essage", I get no
results.

Besides that, it won't find all relevant messages even if I do type the full
word; for example, if I type "lettes" (your typo of "letters", above), it
should find your message, but it finds nothing at all. If I type
"necessarily", it finds the original message which I sent, but not your
reply.
I've not turned off indexing or modified any of the default settings, so I
don't see why it doesn't work at least for full word matches.