WinXP "Search" utility

B

bpa_retired

Today I tried to use the Windows 'Search' utility and encountered a problem.

Upon clicking on 'Search' (from START menu) an ERROR window was displayed
with the message " A file that is required to run Search Companion cannot be
found. You may need to run setup."

I am not sure what 'You may need to run setup' means.

Yesterday morning the (2) May Windows Updates were installed --with no
noticeable after effects. Yesterday afternoon the 'Search' utility was
indeed used with no problems. After turning the PC on this morning the
utility does not work.

OS is WinXP Pro SP3 with current updates.

Help/suggestions would be appreciated.
 
B

bpa_retired

Add'l info
Last night I found an empty directory under c\windows called "SxsCaPendDel"
which I did not recognize. A "search" showed no other references. I
temporarily changed the name before shutting down the PC. Today, I find that
the "search" does not work. Restoring the original directroy name did not
help.
 
E

Erwin Moller

bpa_retired schreef:
Add'l info
Last night I found an empty directory under c\windows called "SxsCaPendDel"
which I did not recognize. A "search" showed no other references. I
temporarily changed the name before shutting down the PC. Today, I find that
the "search" does not work. Restoring the original directroy name did not
help.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I just found out that Win XP Search is broken anyway.
It cannot find files with all kind of names, because Microsoft deems
them usefull for you. (Thumbs.db in my case)
Incredible.

Read this article and stop using Win XP search, since you never know
what it skips....
http://www.dacs.org/archive/0212/feature4.htm

It links to:
http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/?fwd=ar
which works great out of the box. ;-)

Regards,
Erwin Moller




--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare
 
B

Bob Harris

What is suggesting is that you insert the XP CD and reload part of the
operating system.

That is fine is you happen to have the XP CD that was used for the original
installation. The advice is of little value, if your PC came with XP
pre-installed.

If you suspect a problem with the XP updates, you may be able to uninstall
them via the add/remove programs option.

But, in fairness to Microsoft, their updates only rarely cause problems.

You might also want to try some web searches like "fix search" or "repair
search".

The best thing would be to have an image of the C: partition before the
problem happended. Then, you could revert back to that time, and slowly
creep foward with updates and/or other changes. However, most users do not
see the value in such backups, until it is too late.
 
H

HeyBub

bpa_retired said:
Today I tried to use the Windows 'Search' utility and encountered a
problem.

Upon clicking on 'Search' (from START menu) an ERROR window was
displayed with the message " A file that is required to run Search
Companion cannot be found. You may need to run setup."

I am not sure what 'You may need to run setup' means.

Yesterday morning the (2) May Windows Updates were installed --with no
noticeable after effects. Yesterday afternoon the 'Search' utility
was indeed used with no problems. After turning the PC on this
morning the utility does not work.

OS is WinXP Pro SP3 with current updates.

Help/suggestions would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Blow off "Search" entirely and install Agent Ransack. It's free, more
flexible, and much faster.
 
B

bpa_retired

PA Bear [MS MVP]:
No, I do not have (or want) WDS installed --don't want the overhead of the
indexing function; years ago I turned off the Windows the Win Indexing.


Bob Harris:
It does not appear the the MS updates installed yesterday had any effect --a
laptop similarly updated yesterday still has a functioning Search assistant.
Curiously, it too has the same empty "SxsCaPendDel" directory, showing the
same create date as on my desktop in early Feb which also showed other MS
update activities (on both PCs).

As you suggested a search for "fix search" showed a couple of promising
leads. However, an attempt at one suggestion to re-install via right click
and 'install' of srchasst.inf resuslts in yet another befuddlement.

It prompts for the WinXP installation CD, however the CD I have is WinXP
SP1. I also have the SP3 CD but not slip-streamed.

Can I safely use the original WinXP SP1 install CD --it is an install CD,
not a 'restore' CD.

I do have a backup image of the C partition, but it is a few months old, if
I can 'restore/re-install' only the search assistant, I would prefer that to
going back to an image that is several months old.

An alternative would be if I could determine the actual location/directory
that the search assistant file are in, I could retrieve those specific file
from the backup image I have.

Again any help you could provide with locating/identifying the specific
missing files would be greatly appreciated.
 
E

Erwin Moller

HeyBub schreef:
Blow off "Search" entirely and install Agent Ransack. It's free, more
flexible, and much faster.
Click to expand...

Hi,

It is not only more flexible, it also finds files XP hides, even if you
tell XP to show ALL files, even system and hidden files.

XP search is simply bad out-of-the-box.
It is incredible how MS gets away with such crappy utilities.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare
 
B

bpa_retired

By restoring the 2 sub-directories and all contents in the c\windows\srchasst
directory from a recent system backup/image the Search Assistant problem has
been resolved.

Not sure how it got corrupted in the first place/ My original suspicion was
that it was caused by changing the name of an unrecognized empty directory
(SxsCaPendDel) in c\windows --not sure that there ever was a connection
though.

I did find that the empty directory (SxsCaPendDel) appears to be left after
an incomplete MS update cleanup when SP1 for .NET Framework 3.5 was installed.


PA Bear said:
[cf. http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=40817]

bpa_retired said:
Today I tried to use the Windows 'Search' utility and encountered a
problem.

Upon clicking on 'Search' (from START menu) an ERROR window was displayed
with the message " A file that is required to run Search Companion cannot
be
found. You may need to run setup."

I am not sure what 'You may need to run setup' means.

Yesterday morning the (2) May Windows Updates were installed --with no
noticeable after effects. Yesterday afternoon the 'Search' utility was
indeed used with no problems. After turning the PC on this morning the
utility does not work.

OS is WinXP Pro SP3 with current updates.

Help/suggestions would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
R

Richard

"Erwin Moller"
HeyBub schreef:

Hi,

It is not only more flexible, it also finds files XP hides, even if you
tell XP to show ALL files, even system and hidden files.

XP search is simply bad out-of-the-box.
It is incredible how MS gets away with such crappy utilities.

Regards,
Erwin Moller
Click to expand...

The default "out-of-the-box" settings hide hidden files.
With "Folder Options | View | Show hidden files and folders"
you can see the files and folders marked hidden, but the default Search
settings in Search Companion, under Advanced Options, only have checkmarks
before "Search system folders" and "Search subfolders". Put a checkmark
before "Search hidden files and folders" and they will turn up in search
results, whether Folder Options>View is set to show hidden, or not. In
Advanced Options, you can also make your search "Case Sensitive" or "Search
tape backup". You can also "Change Preferences" to get rid of "Rover" the
unhelpful (clickable) puppy if you like.

(Triple-Click here to: Have a nice day! --Richard :)
 
T

Twayne

Richard said:
"Erwin Moller"
Click to expand...

If that's someting ransack says, they lie by omission. XP will indeed
show ALL files. Nothing can show more files than XP is capable of,
because XP already allows that to happen.

For a non-updated machine that could be true; there were a couple of
bugs originally that were fixed. With an up to date os though it is not
true.

I despise many of MS's actions and marketing ploys too but at least I
can elucidate what they actually are if I want to, not just make silly
unsupported and untrue comments. It's obvious that you are nothing but
sour grapes; having a bad day?

HTH,

Twayne`
 

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