Curiouser and curiouser. It sounds like you've checked all the usual
suspects. But just to make sure:
1. Right-click the start button and choose Properties.
2. Click Customize next to Start Menu.
3. Make sure all the Search… checkboxes are selected. I usually choose
"Search this user's files" as that keeps the search index for Start menu
searches relatively small.
4. Click OK.
5. Click the Start button type inde and click Indexing Options.
6. Make sure Users is listed in the indexed locations.
7. Go ahead and click Modify and Show All Locations, elevate, and make sure
all the locations you think should be indexed are indexed.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Advanced.
10. Click File Types.
11. Make sure doc (and docx if you're using Word 2007) are checked and
indexing Properties and File Contents. Likewise for any other file types you
use regularly and would want in your index.
12. Click OK.
Offhand I can't think of anything else you could do. If you didn't change
anything you probably see Indexing Complete in the Indexing Options. Go
ahead and close that. Just to check, I would create a Word document with
some unusual word or phrase in it like:
Frankly verbose
Save the file with some other file name (doris.doc or doris.docx). Wait a
couple seconds, click Start, search for the word or phrase (franly, verbose,
or both). The doris file should show up.
Then if it shows up there go ahead and search for doris. The file should
show up there too.
Then search for *.doc (or *.docx if you're using Word 2007). Or d*.doc or
d*.docx if you have a ton of word docs. That should work too.
I just did all that with Word 2007 and every search produced instant
accurate keystroke-by-keystroke results. I didn't even wait a couple seconds
after saving the doc. Anyone else have any idea what's going on here?
"Radiophile" <Radiophile@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news

B13C51D-C5BB-4874-92C4-661695B1B4A7@microsoft.com...
> I'm replying to my own post. More info.
>
> I've tried deleting the location (Documents folder) from Search Options,
> waiting for all the items to be "un-indexed," rebooting, adding them
> again,
> waiting for "Indexing complete" (takes a while to index 36,000 items).
> Problem still not fixed.
>
> It seems to not have anything to do with indexing anyway. If I search
> including "non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)", yes
> indeed
> it is slow, but it doesn't find anything anyway. This includes if I'm
> staring right at the file in another Windows Explorer window, and type its
> name into the Search exactly.
>
> With very few exceptions, Search only finds text-match results in e-mails.
> I
> have no ability in Vista on this PC to search by file name, at all. Help!
>
> "Radiophile" wrote:
>
>> I can't find files by filename. I know the names, I type word(s) that
>> are in
>> the name, and Search doesn't find them. The files are in indexed
>> locations
>> (the Documents folder). I can also try searching by extension, for
>> example
>> *.jpg, *.mp3, *.doc. I have thousands of these file types in Documents.
>> Search doesn't find them. I've re-indexed. I've looked at the KB:
>> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b/932989/en-us and I don't
>> think
>> any of those things apply.
>>
>> I'm looking at a file in Windows Explorer right now for example: The
>> Beatles
>> - I Want To Hold Your Hand.mp3 It's in Documents\Music. I can enter
>> "beatles," "Beatles," or "hand" for example, into the Start Menu search
>> or a
>> Windows Explorer search, and nothing is found. I just opened a new
>> Windows
>> Explorer, navigated to \Documents\Music\Oldies\The Beatles and typed
>> "beatles" into the search box. The result is "No items match your
>> search"
>> when in fact the word "beatles" is in every file name in this folder.
>>
>> Search is great at finding words in my e-mails. In fact when I try
>> random
>> searches all I usually get back are e-mail results under the
>> Communications
>> category. Almost never does it list any files under the Files category.
>> For
>> example I just tried a search from the Start menu for the word "word".
>> It
>> found the program Word; it found a bunch of e-mails containing "word"; it
>> found a single text file, and that's it.
>>
>> I have Vista installed on another PC here -- on that one, Seach works
>> fine,
>> finding files by filename as it should.