Why is my vista's search so friggen useless?

yhelothar

Lifer
Dec 11, 2002
18,409
39
91
For the first few weeks I installed vista, one of my favorite things about it was the amazingly quick search feature. Any program I wanted to run, I could just type it in and press enter, and it'll find it in lightning speed. Any file I wanted to run, I could just type it in, and it'll find it in lightning speed.

Now, I haven't been getting the same luck.

Here's an example.

I have a file called 1_Overview_High.wmv
I go to that folder that contains it, and I type in "overview" into the search.
It says, no results found.
I then try typing in the exact file name, "1_Overview_High.wmv"
AND IT STILL DOESN'T FIND ANYTHING when the file is right in the folder.

I have already went to indexing options, and set it to index all files on my hard drive.

The folder that contains that file is set to be indexed.

So why does it not come up in the indexed search?!!??!
 

soonerproud

Golden Member
Jun 30, 2007
1,874
0
0
First let me say that searching every part of your hard drive is a bad Idea. The only area you should be concerned about searching is the user space. The second thing you should do is streamline indexing to only cover the actual folders you need to search and exclude everything else. This will keep the time your computer indexes down to a absolute minimum.

Try rebuilding the index manually and that will probably correct the problem.
 

MmmSkyscraper

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2004
9,472
1
76
Originally posted by: soonerproud
Try rebuilding the index manually and that will probably correct the problem.

Even with no index, the file should still be found.
 

soonerproud

Golden Member
Jun 30, 2007
1,874
0
0
Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Originally posted by: soonerproud
Try rebuilding the index manually and that will probably correct the problem.

Even with no index, the file should still be found.

I have run into this issue before and rebuilding the index solved the issue for me.

 

fr

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,408
2
81
I have that same problem right now. I can be looking right at the file and it still won't find it.
 

MmmSkyscraper

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2004
9,472
1
76
Originally posted by: soonerproud
I have run into this issue before and rebuilding the index solved the issue for me.

Weak, the index should only speed up the search. How did MS mangle the search so badly since XP? The way the results are displayed is appalling too.
 

Bozo

Senior member
Oct 22, 1999
702
0
76
The search "feature" was broke during the Beta test and never fixed.
SP-1 doesn't help either.

Bozo :D