Thank you Ilia for suggestions, and for putting up with my wordy style.
I hope we can narrow it down a bit together.
I always try to cover all the bases in my initial post to help any
would be responders, but I end up w/ overkill and still omitting things.
For instance, I meant to mention I have UAC enabled, but have adjusted
Security settings on some folders.
I hadn't confirmed the file types were indexed recently, so I was hoping
that was it, but the types were all selected.
I moved the various folders and system files in different ways. The
swap and index locations have their own thing. And the greens, the
folders in my user folder, those I moved with their Location tab from
properties. I had worked with Vista betas/RCs, so was ready to move
these as soon as possible after installation. And I wasn't hoping to
index system folders/appdata/or temp (lol) but rather restrict the
indexer a bit more even.
But, you ask if the missing files have anything in common, and I think
you are onto something. I didn't think so at first, because we're
talking text files with dozens of different extensions in a brand new
projects folder. And images of the assorted image formats could not be
found by property or name in the Pictures folder. What bugged me, and
also threw me the most, I think, was the Music files. Some songs and
artists were not selectable to be indexed, or were selected but not seen
anyway. But, even though I could not find the files with Explorer
search, the Windows Media Player library saw all, presumably has an
indexing system of its own.
phew
In any case, these files DO have something in common. They are all old;
from when I ran XP. New projects' text files in the projects folder I
could find, but old ones pasted there could not find. New images in my
new Pictures subfolder were turning up, but not ones in my archives of
work from XP. And Music I got in the last few months, often commingled
with older tracks, showed in my results, but not the ones that migrated.
I did a clean install of Vista, though, not an upgrade. Just kept some
of my old data around on HDD.
I tried some experiments with moving files and trying to find. Results
puzzling, but Older folders seem to be culprit. Old files in new
folders were found, old folders always hide old files.
So, armed with this, thanks to the pointer, I searched some more. I
need to reboot (got me adjusting my page file--plenty room, btw
),
then look some more for specifics, but I think I saw something about
this before when not looking for it--a command line or something to own
XP files.
stay tuned,
Xander Lih
TIME Magazine Person of the Year 2006
http://feebdack.com
Ilia Sacson [MS] wrote:
> Hello Rabidrobot,
>
> Your post is so informative that I'm a bit lost in it. I even had to
> look up what "recalcitrant" means 
Let's move one step at a time.
>
> 1) You've mentioned that you have moved the documents and program files.
> Are the missing files under a reparse point of any kind? How exactly did
> you move stuff around?
>
> 2) The recalcitrant part: I understand that you go to Indexing
> Options->Modify...->Show all locations (if you haven't disabled UAC).
> Then you see a location such as C:\ProgramData grayed out and when you
> RClick->Properties->Advanced, it doesn't let you check "Index this
> location for faster searches". Yo really-really don't want to let the
> indexer party on that particular location (or any other with temp files
> or data files that programs write to all the time), but that's besides
> the point. I can't reproduce that, could you give an example of one such
> location that I might also have on my box?
>
> 3) Is there anything in common about the missing files, like extension?
> Forgive me for asking, but have you verified that the file is has the
> right settings in Advanced Options->File Types? Could you give an
> example of a missing file path and name? Could you try moving one of the
> missing files into a directly that gets indexed normally and see if it
> would get indexed?
>
> 4) You aren't out of space on the drive where you put the swap and the
> index, right?
>
> Thanks,
> Ilia
>
> "rabidrobot" <rabidrobot@SPAMSUXfeebdack.com> wrote in message
> news:O%233M3bSqHHA.3372@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> I have been having some difficulty with my Search Index maintaining
>> integrity.
>>
>> I am using Vista Ultimate, and I have an arrangement of four partitions,
>> two each on two (different sized)physical drives. One partiton on big
>> drive is vista install, other is documents and program files. Second
>> drive has a partition which I have dedicated to the search index, and
>> also print spool and swap/page file.[If I knew how get all the temp and
>> stray Program/AppData files out of install C: partition, I'd move them
>> all...(not vista's fault I don't think)] And second partition on small
>> drive is some nearby temporary backup space.
>>
>> So, I have moved the Index location to essentially its own partition,
>> and changed the path for the Index location in the Advanced Options
>> Index Settings tab from Advanced button of Indexing Options control
>> panel.
>>
>> This arrangement works great for a short time, and I mean that, when
>> Vista's search is working, along with other Explorer enhancements, I am
>> very satisfied. But it is not long before the Index stops finding files
>> it should, stops returning results it used to return.
>>
>> This is the cycle and stages I have gone through a few times, in case I
>> am missing a step.
>>
>> After corruption, by which I mean not returning valid results, is
>> detected, I first confirm that the files are in Indexed directories,
>> both through the lineage of path folder Properties -> Advanced and also
>> checked as an Included Location from the Modify (Index Locations) pane
>> of Index Options.
>>
>> If I can see the file and see that it should be indexed and I remember
>> that it was once included in similar searches but no longer is; I lose
>> faith on ever getting valid search returns, which greatly reduces
>> utility.
>>
>> After I have confirmed corruption of index integrity I go to the
>> Troubleshooting box of the Index Settings tab of the Advanced Options
>> panel from the Index Options -> Advanced button. First I try a Rebuild.
>> This is allowed to do its work, but has never repaired or restored
>> files to the results.
>>
>> Then the only other thing I know to do is Restore Defaults. This
>> resets my indexed locations to less than ideal defaults and forces me
>> to re-select all the locations I would like to index.
>>
>> But many of these locations, actually, have a read only on the folder,
>> so actually changing whether or not it is indexed is impossible.
>> Unless you can take control of the folder somehow, but no methods I
>> have seen yet allow me to control my own music and pictures subfolders.
>>
>>
>> So, to sum up. Vista won't let me set indexing options via
>> RClick->Properties, I think because of an obnoxious recalcitrant
>> read-only. Since I can't set it there, my options in one of the other
>> index locations options panels are greyed out. But it doesn't matter
>> much, at the moment, that I can't set my locations, because the index
>> can't maintain integrity.
>>
>> I sincerely hope someone can offer suggestions, as I have found it
>> quite frustrating for my expensive OS, which did also require hardware
>> upgrades, to constantly forget settings, refuse the sole user access,
>> offer unhelpful to misleading troubleshooting, and often just silently
>> stop working.
>>
>> I'm not infected. I don't have any adware, spyware, etc. These have
>> been problems from the day of installation, but I had held hope that I
>> could figure out a solution. Help, please.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>