Damn, I really hate the new Vista SEARCH

[orion23]

What was wrong with the search option in every other MS OS before Vista?

Who the hell designed the new search option? That person deserves to be shot!

I have defended Vista in every aspect, and I really do love it, except when it comes to the SEARCH function.

IT JUST SUCKS! IT IS USELESS, IT IS A WASTE OF TIME

With Index on, or off, it is still a mess.

Let's say I search my entire library to delete files. If Index is on, I will get a bunch of already deleted files in the results.

Opening the search pane is a PAIN. And deleting the search entry somtimes closes the search pane itself.

Searching without the index option on takes forever and there is no way to know when it will stop since the green bar means nothing in terms of search time!

I REALLY MISS THE OLD SEARCH OPTION!

 

[corkyg]

I can agree with your feelings. Vista search is way too layered and obtuse.

 

[toadeater]

Vista search was added to Vista because MS is using it to counter Google the same way it once tried to pull the same stunt with IE vs. Netscape. MS was afraid of Google Desktop, and it also uses Search to herd users to MS Live. Shortly before Vista was released, MS was forced to include alternative search engine options.

 

[Noema]

I like the instant seach-anywhere-everything-is-indexed concept behind the new Vista search, specially how it is integrated to the Start Button; I often use it when I want to run a program from the control panel or administrative tools instantly.

But so far, it seems buggy, specially its indexing. Like orion23, I have problem making it keep the index up to date; either new files won't be indexed (no matter if the location of the file has been set to be indexed) or deleted files won't be removed from the index.

It's frustrating.

 

[bstime32]

Do you guys think these problems will get hashed out?

 

[NewMaxx]

Orion, you made this exact same post on HardOCP's OS forums, you should be more careful about trolling.

I replied over there with ways to improve the Vista search experience, as follows:

The Start++ program might make Windows Search & Indexing more useful, especially when combined with Launchy (which has its own, user-defined index). One real advantage of Vista's search function is that you have a sort of "virtual folders" with your results, which can come in handy for certain tasks (for example, extracting multiple archives at once that are in separate folders).

Otherwise, you should disable all folders listed in Indexing and then disable the Windows Search service, which still leaves a basic search. Also, be aware that you need to right-click a folder, hit Properties, hit Advanced, then check "Index this folder for faster searching," to enable either old school indexing or to better manipulate it using the control panel's Indexing applet.

 

[nerp]

I haven't had these issues with Vista's search. It's remained up to date. Search is a lifesaver for my work since I'm constantly scouring many, many word documents for specific pieces of information, so my searches are contextual and not just for finding specific files. I don't know why your search is failing to add new files or whatnot, but until I saw this thread, I hadn't seen any discussions about serious flaws in the search yet.

I'll be watching this thread and start paying more attention to how search is handling my stuff. As I said, I havent' seen any problems, but I haven't been looking for problems, either. But some of the problems you guys are pointing out are obvious ones and I haven't been slapped in the face.

 

[orion23]

Why am I trolling?

I use both boards. I wanted some feedback on a very serious issue, and wanted as many opinions as I could get.

I am not a Vista basher. I have used it from the beginning and love it, except for the Search issue.

What's stupid here, is that people continue to call the finding a shortcut in the start menu, a Search. What?????

Anyway, this is my only issue with Vista and hope that SP1 brings some changes to things like these.

Unless, MS only wanted a "find a shortcut to your stupid game" to be all that search was capable of!

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Noema
I like the instant seach-anywhere-everything-is-indexed concept behind the new Vista search, specially how it is integrated to the Start Button; I often use it when I want to run a program from the control panel or administrative tools instantly.

But so far, it seems buggy, specially its indexing. Like orion23, I have problem making it keep the index up to date; either new files won't be indexed (no matter if the location of the file has been set to be indexed) or deleted files won't be removed from the index.

It's frustrating.

You can easily rebuild the Index by going into the control panel and selecting Indexing Options. You also have the ability to tell Vista what files to index and exclude to help streamline the search function.

 

[NewMaxx]

I think your post comes off as trolling (to me, anyway) simply because of your tone, word choice, and the fact it doesn't ask for feedback. Only two of your sentences are questions, and both are clearly rhetorical; the rest are stated opinion. Regardless, I wouldn't have replied initially unless I wanted to give some personal feedback about the experience.

It's only fair to link to the search feature page in order to see the supposed advantages:
Instant Search

It is clearly intended for casual users and hence convenience, and it has significant help information available every step of the way. Its value to more advanced users may be questionable, although I believe with Start++ and Launchy it can be used in a specialized fashion.

One thing I do agree with is that it has poor performance, at least with a large index, and poor updating schemes related to putting off re-indexing to inconvenient times (startup). I personally turn off Indexing and the Windows Search service, as I said, and just use the basic features which are more or less identical to the old Windows search, then I use Launchy to facilitate quick-launching as you can manually determine and update its index more quickly.

 

[nova2]

i might love the search indexer if it worked better for me, but it doesn't (perhaps because some of my dirs like the 'info' dir have many many files), and with my ~14 day experience with vista, i never got it to work acceptably.

it'd be cool if the indexer worked right and when a new file was created or deleted, the index would update itself automatically.

so where it fails you, one might consider using this instead:
http://www.google.com/search?h...te32+janne&btnG=Search
i use that when i'm working on large codebases.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: bstime32
Do you guys think these problems will get hashed out?

Nope. Never.

 

[jqbagley]

It seems MS just made things harder to find in Vista, creating a need for the new Search. I could find anything I wanted in XP, but with Vista i have to resort to the search, which only finds what I want half the time.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: jqbagley
It seems MS just made things harder to find in Vista, creating a need for the new Search. I could find anything I wanted in XP, but with Vista i have to resort to the search, which only finds what I want half the time.

It's a new operating system. Give it time and it'll feel just as familiar as XP.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

Originally posted by: NewMaxx
Orion, you made this exact same post on HardOCP's OS forums, you should be more careful about trolling.

I replied over there with ways to improve the Vista search experience, as follows:

The Start++ program might make Windows Search & Indexing more useful, especially when combined with Launchy (which has its own, user-defined index). One real advantage of Vista's search function is that you have a sort of "virtual folders" with your results, which can come in handy for certain tasks (for example, extracting multiple archives at once that are in separate folders).

Otherwise, you should disable all folders listed in Indexing and then disable the Windows Search service, which still leaves a basic search. Also, be aware that you need to right-click a folder, hit Properties, hit Advanced, then check "Index this folder for faster searching," to enable either old school indexing or to better manipulate it using the control panel's Indexing applet.

Thats what I did.

 

[AlucardX]

personally i disable the indexing and Windows indexing service.

my harddrives are fast enough for the traditional scan whole filesystem search approach.

also, launchy ftw

 

[nerp]

Disabling search means no more contextual search, which would suck for someone like me who doesn't care about the location of files but the contents.

 

[n7]

I have my entire music HDD indexed.

I don't really care if it's not perfect for everyone, for me, it's absolutely godly to be able to find a track in seconds rather than 10 minutes.

So yeah, i love Vista's search

 

[orion23]

Originally posted by: n7
I have my entire music HDD indexed.

I don't really care if it's not perfect for everyone, for me, it's absolutely godly to be able to find a track in seconds rather than 10 minutes.

So yeah, i love Vista's search

Is it great when it comes to the speed, however, ou delete some files, chances are that the next time you do a search, you'll get a bunch of results with data that's no longer in your library!

 

[Chadder007]

I like it for some things, and for most other things I really want the old search back.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Yeah man, I hate being able to find stuff quickly too!