THIS is what you’re complaining about, that you can’t drag a link from IE onto the TASKBAR to open it? Funny stuff.
Jeff, thanks for the explanations. The help files for search are useless. I love the new search (now I can use it…) but I’d still like a simple way to edit saved searches and see their criteria: I can’t remember what my saved searches are actually looking for!
Eric Lee has a nice blog post covering some other advanced searches in Vista:
http://blogs.counterpunchsoftware.com/2007/01/hail-to-integrated-search.html
Vista’s indexing is time based, why couldn’t they do what Apple did with OSX and make indexing realtime? In OSX a file is indexed as it’s written to the filesystem. It seems to me that all Microsoft have done is add a GUI to the old Win2000 indexing engine. Lame!
it is updated in realtime you moron. try creating a textfile and then search for it right after its been created.
Boris,
Just nitpicking, but you can “type ‘Del’ + Enter to start Delphi in the command prompt”. Ok, windows command line might not do it (unless you have a del.bat file), but there are a lot of command prompts that can and do search.
I found it funny because minutes before reading your comment, I was typing “del” + tab + enter on a bash command line to start kylix. So I had to comment 
jeff, nice info you’ve given here…funny thing is i was searching high and low in vista help to find and answer to my question. my question:
can i use boolean expressions in the advanced search window?
couldn’t find any info. the interface doesn’t suggest you can use boolean expressions either.
so my real question is how to i search a drive and find all files that are NOT .mp3?
i tried looking for this answer for my mac as well and as robust as osx is, couldn’t find the answer there either.
i googled for some help too…and that’s how i found this site.
any insight would be cool…thanks.
Scott:
NOT type:(.mp3)
Thank you for the post … I was not knowing this…
New Mansions in Search - Advanced Query Syntax
http://blogs.msdn.com/jonasbar/archive/2007/01/31/new-mansions-in-search-advanced-query-syntax.aspx
I’m an old man [73] that had no problem searching for *.wav extensions in XP.
Not in Vista … how do I search Vista for this extension or any other extension?
norm: ext:(*.wav)
I’m actually trying to figure out how to do the full text search. I forgot the name of a file but do remember a line of text in it. Please hit me back on my website if you can help.
I have been using Windows Vista for nine months now.
I have 4 pages of typed up 'gripes’
and I curse Vista every day - it is a real lemon.
But my biggest gripe is the Windows Desktop Search,
I absolutely hate it!
Initially the indexing didn’t index my C++ source code.
It is unnecessarily difficult to find how to set up search
indexing in Vista
(XP was bad enough, but MS has really buried a lot of Vista settings
in obscure and completely different places)
The Search Tools/Modify Index locations… only
appears when you search from start, not when you
search a folder from Windows Explorer (which is how I always
start my searches).
I knew the search index settings I was looking for,
a novice user would have no clue.
It would have been nice to have this setting always prominently
accessible from the advanced search panel.
I’ve set up indexing to do text search for my file types,
but search frequently (most of the time) doesn’t find my search
string in files that do indeed have the text,
and/or find the string in some files but not others
(even in older files which should have been indexed at some time).
I have lots of different kinds text files
and having to set up indexing for them, and then
selecting the directories to search and then
rebuilding the index is a real pain.
I tried disabling indexing,
the search finds things more reliably, but
the searches take forever and often seem to
hang at about 98% complete.
(I always completely disable indexing under XP
and still have reasonable search response times).
I’ve given up trying to tweek the search indexing settings
and avoid using the search.
I only trust it for searching MS applications’ documents
and use my IDE to search in code and
the venerable grep command for everything else.
Not trusting the search results is a huge minus.
Yep. Results cant be trusted.
I use dir /s for files and find for contents.
I get blatently different results searching with dir /s.
I do not use the indexer. Why sufffer a slow computer for the benifit of quick searches? Remember where you put stuff!!
I guess MS tried to make a “safe” operating system for average users who just need a media center. In the same process they created a nightmare for advanced users. I’ve used Vista for about 6 months now, and every day I get annoyed by its stupid muck heap of inefficiency and restrictions. Vista is a @#%! play console wannabe.
Michael, if I wanted to remember stuff, I wouldn’t use a computer. Ditto for writing a resume. Or chatting with other people.
Also, the indexer is only slow during the initial indexing (when you migrate from XP to Vista, and a lot of files have to be indexed).
After that, the performance impact is negligible, especially given that we have multi-core CPUs in the consumer market for years now…
Tom,
Many people have many different ways of organizing their information. Also, not the difference between searching for a file where you know the full name, or part of the name, and searching for a file or files that contain something in it, like searching for an email or a document or a code file, or a pdf.
For instance, I have a subversion repository of my company’s source code with tens of thousands of files in it. I know there is an example that uses a certain class somewhere in those thousands of files. Just knowing that the file in somewhere under that base folder is not really much help, other than as a starting point, as I do not know the files name - they were not created by me, and I might not ever have actually looked at them before - similar to know that there is a web site or page out there somewhere with information on how to take advantage of the advanced search features of Vista, but not knowing the URL of that page. I need an indexer that will crawl the thousands of files in thousands of folders, indexing their contents for me, so that when I search for a method by name, it will show me all the files where that method is used. Or company name. Or whatever.
There are many people who have needs above and beyond finding a file by name in a folder with a few hundred entries. I often an trying out new programs for a few weeks, or writing my own, or creating libraries, etc. My file system is complicated because I ‘use’ - some might say ‘abuse’ - it. Also, I do not always want everything under my ‘home’ or ‘users’ location. It might be shared, or I, personally, might not feel that it is appropriate to put work related documents under my personal folder, even on my personal machine. I also might need to share files across multiple machines, using various mechanisms. I find it to be a good practice to not put certain files on my system drive, to make it easier to recover. I make a big use of portable applications, which by definition are on removable media. Given that I want to move the portable drive and maintain the programs on them independent of the machine, I also might want to do the same for content.
Just my $.02, but I waited for the RTM in 12/06 to even install Vista. But it only took a month of griping before I realized I could not go back to XP. I understand those who taught themselves a certain way to do things, and do not want to spend the time to learn new ways. But, for me, it has been a productivity booster. It is hard for me to complain about the OS when there are very good 3rd party solutions for a given problem. To me, the question is, can I get it done, not can I get it done, and the OS is the only option. It is all software. If people WANT to be disappointed, they will be, and the compliment is true, too. Like people who complain about a radio station instead of simply changing the channel.
Is one better than the other? Is there any way to answer that that is not biased and personal? Perhaps, but I find the world to be full of people who think that they have the right answer to non-deterministic questions, and that is the root of all evil.
Noel
Hello all,
I have a comment to make, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else ever mention. I have just installed vista (well, yesterday) and there are many wierd things - why are so many options etc hidden away, why can’t it all be put in the control panel??
But what really gets me, is why is there all this fuss over ‘searching’. Why do the majority of users need to search their computer? Surely they know where they save files, i.e. in documents. I only used the search features in xp maybe once or twice in 5 years, when I lost a programme which I thought I had. Surely most users have videos in the video folder, music in music folders, downloads in the download folder, and everything else in program files or documents. So why search? the search facility in internet explorer in the tool bar is great, because people surf/search the net, but they don’t surf/search computers.
Am I on my own? Roger Nelson says he uses the search to find c++ code. Isn’t this somewhere obvious, like in a folder called c++ code or programmes etc. Or am I missing something?
and with regards to the syntax, i just tested vista’s search (for the first and probably last time), and typed *.wav, and it listed all my wav files. I then typed *.mp3 and it listed all my mp3s. So why, Norm, do you say it doesn’t work in vista?
yeah i admit i hadn’t really thought about searching for a particular within (possibly) many files. I just feel vista has gone way over the top, with search boxes here, there and everywhere. Together with (what i believe) to be excessively large toolbars etc. A case in point is the latest office software - the toolbar, ribbon bar do they call it?, seems like it takes up half the screen, especailly when viewed on a laptop. And all these search boxes just seem to bloat the menu more.
Noel, I agree entirely that people always find problems if they look for them, the concept of a half full, or half empty glass. Microsoft and everything it does is very easy to knock. I quite like vista, but i wish there was some consistency - the best user interface is one that doesn’t change, and as almost everyone now knows their way around XP, why change it? Apparently another major microsoft OS is touted for 2010, will this change it all again?