advanced search in Vista help please

happyhero

Hi I have recently got a new PC with Vista on it and cant seem to make the advanced search work very well. I used it often in XP. I am just playing about to make sure it works now as I have given up for the time being doing what I actually wanted to do, so I tried the following.

I cannot seem to activate the advanced search manually but rather have to type something silly in the ordinary box ie I open a folder and type bbbbb or something in the search box and then advanced is offered and I select it. Is there a way to activate advance search manually ie a key combination to press or F key?

Then to test the search I type in the wildcard ie *.* in the name box and select say C drive where tons of files should come up, in fact all of them I would think but only about 20 come up, what is wrong here?

I also tried using the wildcard and under the size (kb) box I click "is greater than" and enter a figure of 1000 to find files over 1GB which is closer to what I was originally after doing but this just brings up "No items match your search" like most of my searchs. I even tried small figures ie 100 and 10 but still I get the same message like its finding nothing that qualifies. I even tried selecting everywhere to search. How can a wildcard search looking everywhere find no files even if I select files greater than 10 kb?

I have checked there are loads but the search does not find them, am I doing something wrong or is there something not set right?

By the way my original search I actually wanted to do is this, I have two PC's (one new with vista and one old with XP) both linked with cable to my router and I was moving files over and I wanted to search for any files over 2GB on my old PC
so I used the wildcard and selected the old PC folders but nothing comes up even though I know they are there. I have it all connected ok and am able to navigate the old pc folders via the new PC and network without problem.

Any help appreciated

espresso

Does Vista not have Start, Help & Support like all previous M$ operating systems? Or a Vista tutorial about it's differences?

happyhero

Yes it does but I cant find any answers to my problem there, I dont find any difficulty doing most things I want to do in Vista, but this is one particular task I am having trouble with. I don't find searching in different ways at all difficult but in this case I am obviously either missing something or have something set wrong. I have not altered anything regarding searching from when first I got this PC back in early December, so I would have thought it would work but possibly there is a funny setting that needs attending to, other then that cant think why it wont give me any results.

This does not seem to help if I check it or not but what does the little tick box mean by non-indexed files, I know what hidden and system files are?

espresso

I don't use Vista but there will be lots of info on the web e.g. here

BillScarab

Vista indexes your PC. When it does a search i think by default it searches the indexed files as that is much quicker. Try ticking the non-indexed files box, that should find them then. If the files have just been moved over it won't have had time to index them yet.

I'm sure there is a way to go straight to the advanced search but I'm not a at a Vista machine at the moment and can't remember what it is. I'll have a look later if I remember.

Unstoppable_2

Vista should have no problem with this. One thing lauded about Vista was its excellent search ability, far surpassing that of XP and Google Desktop.

Go to the Indexing Options in Control Panel and check it's set up properly. You should only need to use the advanced options if its a file not included in the Indexed locations.

happyhero

Right think I have figured out what is happening although not sure why it does.

This is what I do:-

I want to search for a big file for example but don't know how to get advanced search up and Vista being so helpful, all I have to do is keeping typing a letter in the ordinary search box. So I type 1 b, then another and then another and so on. Usually after about 3 or 4 b's, advanced search is offered so I select it. This dims out the original search box and offers a load of new boxes/filters etc

I leave the Name box empty as in my case I am just looking for big files, and select "is greater then" and enter a figure in the adjacent box.

The result I got was always "No items match your search" really annoying.

Also any other advanced search gave me the same result, but then I noticed something, although your original search box is dimmed out and you have all new boxes to filter your new search, if you look at the dimmed out box it still changes to show what you are trying to search in the advanced window, ie in my case with my b's etc it shows "bbbb:size>1,000,000kb" in other words even though I am doing a new advanced search and the old box is dimmed it just adds the new search onto the old one. You can see it happening in the dimmed old box top right.

At first I did not notice it as it is not so clear, being dimmed but once I spotted it I tried deleting the wrong bit ie bbbb and left the size>1,000,000kb bit which sort of shows you what to type in, in the ordinary box to get an advanced search, if you know what I mean. I mean I did not know if I typed in this "size:>1,000,000KB" in the ordinary search box it would do the same search I was doing in the advanced search, but I have now tried it and it works, obviously I suppose.

I would think this will catch most people on doing an advanced search as many people must switch to advanced when they cant find what they want and wont be experts on the advanced as they only use it when they have to.

So why does it do that, who would think to check the dimmed out old seach box? I doubt most will know how to get the advanced search up and will probably get to it like me by being offered it suddenly by Vista trying to be helpful.

Also if you type anything in the Name box it also adds it to the existing old search, seems crazy to me.

Anyway it works fine now, now that I know what it does, but now although I get to the advanced search easy I would still like to know how you should get to it, ie a key press of some sort.

I would be interested in what you guys think of what I have found ie if it does not happen to you because you do something different etc.