WinXP SEARCH misses things?

[George]

Either SEARCH doesn't work right or I've got a setting wrong...it's missing
some text that exists in documents. Here's the deal...

I'm using WinXP with SP-2. Back around 1993 I used to use WordPerfect. I
wanted to scrub some of these old documents of certain info, like say a
birthday of let's say "contains a word or phrase of" 12-15-72. I made sure
the basics were set right...search hidden, search subfolders, uncheck case
sensitive, etc. But this happens...

On my WIN-XP PC, SEARCH flatly *fails* to find numerous WordPerfect (and
possibly other) documents that actually DO contain 12-15-72. (Does it have
a problem with the dash?)

On an old Win98 PC (on the same LAN), I can point the FIND function (the
predecessor name for "search") at the same folder, and Win98 DOES find all
(about a dozen) documents that contain 12-15-72.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Text is text, and it does't make sense
that WinXP search would be worse that Win98. In fact, it's not very useful
if it's this unrealiable...but I suspect I've got something set wrong.

(I know there are other search programs out there...but the focus here is on
WinXP and getting it to do the search job...not dismissing it and installing
something else, surely WinXP search can do the job).

Thanks,
George

 

[Matija Hrovat, Avtenta.Si]

Hi,
does your search work if you search within txt documents ?
Take a look at:
http://www.mostlycreativeworkshop.com/article59.html

 

[S.Sengupta]

Troubleshooting Search Issues in Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_s.htm#search

and scroll down to text.

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm using WinXP with SP-2. Back around 1993 I used to use WordPerfect. I
wanted to scrub some of these old documents of certain info, like say a
birthday of let's say "contains a word or phrase of" 12-15-72. I made sure
the basics were set right...search hidden, search subfolders, uncheck case
sensitive, etc. But this happens...

On my WIN-XP PC, SEARCH flatly *fails* to find numerous WordPerfect (and
possibly other) documents that actually DO contain 12-15-72. (Does it have
a problem with the dash?)

It only searches for text in a very limited number of types - they must
either have registry entries saying they are pure Text (.TXT and not
much else) or have known 'filters' to handle embedded format controls,
so that Search can avoid being confused by thinking those are characters
in 16 bit Unicode (eg .doc, .htm). You can add an additional type as
pure text provided you know that it *is* that, and that it does not
already have a 'PersistentHandler' in the registry. But I would not do
it for WP files that will contain formatting sequences. Try agent
ransack, from www.agentransack.com