Please tell all this to FRANK Jupiter Jones and other blind MS followers who
deny any such problem even though I have pointed them out again and again
numerous times...



"Andrew McLaren" <andrew@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:F2CDD26A-4309-4181-AB9F-6F80768180DA@microsoft.com...
> "JethroUK©" <reply@the.board> wrote...
>> Despite Vista search being hailed (by Microsoft) as 'a main feature',
>> Vista search has bugs - such that some things it simply can not find
>> A search system that can not find 'some' things is as useless as one that
>> can not find 'any' things
>> Are Microsoft working around the clock to fix it? Will it be fixed by
>> Monday? Am I the only person that thinks this renders the whole O/S close
>> to scrap?
>
> I'm inclined to agree. I have found Search in Vista to be very unreliable,
> almost useless.
>
> I used Windows Desktop Search in XP and generally, it gave pretty good
> results; at least by WDS 3.0.1. But Search in Vista seems to have gone
> considerably *backwards* in reliability, usability and performance.
>
> To give a concrete example: On machine one, with Google Desktop installed,
> I went to my Documents folder, and with Notepad created a new, plain text
> document called "searchme.txt" containing a single word "plesiochronous"
> (I was pretty sure I wouldn't have too many "plesiochronous" docs on the
> system :). I went straight back to the desktop, clicked on the Google
> search bar and entered "plesiochronous". Google Search had found the
> searchme.txt file, even before I had finished typing the word. It had been
> indexed in near real-time, and located as I typed in the search box.
>
> On Machine 2, pretty much the same physical and software configuration, I
> went to my Documents folder, and with Notepad created a new, plain text
> document called "searchme.txt", containing a single word "plesiochronous".
> I went straight back to the desktop, and went to Start, Search. I entered
> text "plesiochronous" in the search field. I was able to finish typing the
> whole word. Then, the grey-coloured "searching" bar slowly chugged its way
> across the "Search Results in Indexed Locations". After 30 seconds or so,
> it reported "No items match your search". Hmm, okay. So I changed the
> search location from "Indexed Locations", to an explicit "Documents", and
> I also checked the "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files" check
> box. Again, the slow grey bar across the screen and after a shorter
> period, the answer "No items match your search". Finally, I checked the
> "search in file contents" just in case, and started the search again. That
> was 5 minutes ago, and it's still running. Even if it eventually finds the
> file ... it took Google Desktop about 2 seconds to find it, just seconds
> after I created the file.
>
> But this slightly artificial test was only to confirm what I've seen in
> routine daily operations, over and over: I search for a expression which I
> *know* is in there somewhere, in the ~300 subdirectories and ~14,000 files
> in my Documents folder. I can even have the file open in Word or Acrobat,
> in front of me, while I'm searching for it - still "not found"! After I
> installed Google Desktop, I could find the same files in a second.
>
> Possibly this is operator error, maybe I'm doing something wrong. But if
> so, Vista Search must be unreasonably fragile and dificult to use. I'm a
> reasonably proficient PC user - I can run all the main business and
> developer applications, configure my own network settings etc (I've read
> the iFilter API docs in MSDN; I can even debug my own kernel dumps ...
> but, that's just skiting). If the problem is that I'm doing something
> wrong, then Search shouldn't be that hard or complex to use. Google
> Desktop "just works" every time, with no special effort or consideration
> on my part.
>
> If it's not "operator error" causing the nil hits, and in fact Search
> isn't locating the file then ... well, Search is just broken.
>
> Furthermore, when using Google Desktop, I can easily and happily index
> documents on network shares. Since the majority of my documents are
> sitting on a file server not my local hard disk, that is more or less
> essential functionality. So far, I have not been able to coax Vista WDS
> Search to index anything except local drives. So at very best, Vista's
> Search is a 50% solution. I must use an additional, 3rd party tool to
> search shares anyway.
>
> I could go on ... Search might "be everywhere" in Vista; but I don't like
> the way a search is parameterised, depending on where you start your
> search. For example, I have my Pictures folder open and I'm looking at
> photos of my last holiday. That makes me think "I wonder if there are any
> plesiochronous cables runnning from Sydney out to Cootamundra? I might
> have a doc about that" so I go to the Search box staring me in the face,
> and search on "plesiochronous". But because I'm in the Photos folder,
> Search only looks for *photos* with a "plesiochonous" tag. I have to
> explicitly tell Search to widen the search to Indexed Items or whatever. I
> find that very unintuitive and cumbersome. I much prefer a scheme like
> Apple Spotlight or Google Desktop, where *every* Search filed, searches
> the global search index.
>
> For finding strings in text files, such as source code, I *always* use
> Findstr at a command prompt - it is faster, more reliable and more
> flexible (I can pipe the output to a script) than Vista Search. So
> basically, I'm still using grep, the same as I did on Unix 20 years ago
> :-)
>
> Brandon Paddock seems like a hell of a nice guy, and I'm sure he's 20,000%
> (at least) a better programmer than me; likewise the other WDS team
> members. So I don't mean to bag them, personally. But something went
> terribly wrong in Microsoft's development process - between the early
> "FindMyStuff" utility which was awesome; WDS 3.x in XP which was pretty
> good, to Search in Vista; which is, well, less than useless, it is
> positively misleading, and returns bad, incorrect data. Meanwhile - and I
> absolutely don't wish to sound like a Google advocate, but - Google
> Desktop *Just Works*, and finds the data I need, every time. So whatever
> the other pluses and minuses of the Google solution, it is satisfactory.
> And Vista Search is not.
>
> I really (really, really, really (with sugar and ribbons on it) really
> hope that Search in Vista does reach a stage where it is actually a useful
> feature of the OS. There is no requirement for an operating system to
> provide built-in facilities to make home movies, play games, or watch TV.
> But in this present Age, a core requirement for any OS is a good search
> tool. Sadly, Vista falls down badly on this score (excepting findstr).
>
> PS 2 hours later - still no sign of plesiochronous, from Vista Search.
> Even Findstr finds it in a few seconds.
>
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>