What is up with the Search?

[CalypsoArt]

So when I try to search for a file the vista search finds absolutely nothing like I'm looking for. I'm looking for an AutoCAD drawing named "wheel.dwg. I type in "wheel" I get results of files names like:

Goldenrod pgs.pdf
xnview.ini
Tinker.doc

As you can see, these have no relation to "wheel". No matter what parameters I change Vista cannot find what I'm looking for. Of Course I believe this must be some configuration problem, but I cannot figure out what is wrong.

As the only person in my office not on an Apple (Autocad) I am a little tired of everyone laughing.

[mayfairsilver]

Vista search is excellent once you get to know how to use it.

At the moment your search is returning any file with 'wheel' anywhere in the document.

To narrow your search, here's what I would do:
1. Press the Windows key
2. Type 'wheel' in the search box
3. Straight away (i.e. no need to wait for anything), press the 'See all results' button
4. In the new window popup press the 'Advanced Search' in the top right
5. Type in 'wheel' in the 'Name' box. Press Search
6. Clicking on the 'Document' button at the top (Next to 'Show only:') might help (I dont have Autocad so I can't tell).

Let me know if this helped you.

[CalypsoArt]

Mayfairsilver,
Thanks for the reply. Still, if there is a learning curve for the search function maybe we should be going back to XP.
Yes I am pissed. I'm sure It has to be something that is switched off. I re-indexed the files, and played with all the adjutabble parameters and the search still sucks.

I was looking for file "acad.pat" Vista search found lots of files with some sort of match. I narrowed the search and it found less. I used the "*.pat" wild card and it found 2 .pat files niether of which I was looking for. Should'nt this wild card find all .pat files?

At any rate, I ended up going to the Acad net forums to find out the actual path to the file and then browse to it using File Explorer. 30 mins wasted to find one file.

Someone here must be able to tell me what is the switch that enables Vista to find ALL the files in a computer.

[pcartier]

mayfairsilver says "Vista search is excellent once you get to know how to use it." How I wish it was true ...
but the sad truth is that I have to agree with CalypsoArt ... VISTA search is a complete joke!!!
UIn Windows XP and even 2000 the search and full text search was intuitive, fast and easy ... and .. most importantly IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!
I have seen several posts on this site on this subject and while I am heartened to know that I am not alone with my problem, none of the answers provided have given me anywhere near full satisfaction! I almost NEVER get what I want (commas, filename: prefixes, fancy itexing and tagging ... none of it delivers what I actually want.

The really sad part, as CalypsoArt stated, is that can it really be true that after around 15 years of Windows it is now more difficult to find stuff on a Windows computer than it was 7 years ago!!

[CalypsoArt]

Bump-
Anyone have suggestions how to make this work? This is insane! Find "Set list" and "Vectorworks.pdf" is a result!

[Xenomorph]

1. open "Search Results" (search-ms: ) copy the text in the brackets without the brackets int your Windows Explorer PathBar (where the path of the folder is)
2. click on "Advanced Search" (on the right side)
3. Where it says Location, change it to "Everywhere" instead of indexed locations.
4. Make sure that the following checkbox is checked "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be slow)"
5. Search your file. (note that this search will also search the text in a file, thus the filenames might not contain the word/words.

If that doesn't work, then I am out of ideas