Windows Explorer no longer finds words in files

[Guest]

Hello,

I have WinXP with all updates. For as long as I can remember on all
versions of Windows I've had, in addition to using Windows Explorer to search
for files by name I could also use it to search for words within files. Then
all of a sudden one day (I don't remember exactly when) it could no longer
find anything within files, although searching for file names still works.
I've had to switch for WinGrep for this functionallity but I'd like to be
able to use Explorer too. Here are my Explorer settings regarding the search
criteria (Are there some other settings somewhere that may have gotten
trashed?):

When was it modified? Don't remember
What size is it? Don't remember
Type of file: (All Files and Folders)
Search system folders? Yes
Search hidden files and folders? Yes
Search subfolders? Yes
Case sensitive? No
Search tape backup? No


Thanks,
Ray

 

[Jeff Teel]

Sounds like "Indexing" got disabled or something has happened to the data
files that hold the indexing information. I know this didn't answer your
question. I don't have the indexing service running on my XP machines so I
don't have first hand experience with it. I just have it running on my SQL
server. I see there are several ways to configure indexing by clicking
Start/Search/Change Preferences/With Indexing Service (for faster local
searches)

Jeff

 

[Guest]

Thanks Jeff,

That fixed it. Indexing had been turned off, although I don't understand
why that should prevent Windows Explorer from finding words in files. I
thought that indexing merely eliminated the need to search unmodified files
each time a search was done, so not having indexing turned on would merely
slow things down rather than preventing them from working.

Indexing probably got turned off when I installed the Google desktop, since
it does indexing of its own. I don't know what effect turning Windows
Explorer back on will have on Google, but I guess I'm about to find out

Ray

 

[Jeff Teel]

Great Ray

I'm glad you were able to get it working. I found some information about
Indexing that may answer some of your questions. This information was taken
from the Windows XP help file.

Indexing Service overview
Indexing Service is a service that extracts the information from a set of
documents and organizes it in a way that makes it quick and easy to access
that information through the Windows XP Search function, the Indexing
Service query form, or a Web browser. This information can include text from
within a document, (its contents), and the characteristics and parameters of
the document, (its properties), such as the author's name. Once the index is
created, you can search, or query the index for documents that contain key
words, phrases, or properties. For example, you can query all documents
containing the word "product" or you can query for all Microsoft Office
documents written by a specific author. Indexing Service returns a list of
all documents that meet your search criteria. For information on the
different ways to create a query, see Using the Indexing Service query
language.

Indexing Service uses a document filter to read through a document and
extract text and properties to pass to the indexer. This process is called
indexing. For more information on indexing, see Indexing.

Indexing Service automatically stores all the index information in the
System or the Web catalogs. For more information about catalogs, see
Catalogs.

Indexing Service can index the following types of documents in several
languages:

a.. HTML
b.. Text
c.. Microsoft Office 95 and later
d.. Internet mail and news
e.. Any other document for which a document filter is available
Indexing Service is designed to run continuously and requires little
maintenance. After it is set up, all operations are automatic, including
index creation, index updating, and crash recovery if there is a power
failure. For information about administering Indexing Service, see
Administering Indexing Service.