Vista - Start Menu Search Box Behavior

When I open the start menu and start typing the search box seems to act like
a search/run command line. Type in a few letters and press enter and the
right app generally opens up. Works great so far. Now I have run into an
unexpected behavior.

If I type notepad2, it opens the right app. Notepad2 is simply a notepad
replacement I have copied into system32 (It has no shortcut on the start
menu). Okay. Now if I type n, it opens paint.net, not sure how it selects
paint.net, I have renamed a copy of notepad2.exe to n.exe in the system32
directory. If I type n.exe it runs Notepad2 fine.

Can someone please explain exactly how the search box selects which command
it will run and how it determines when not to run a command and open a
search results box instead?

Thank You,

Brian JT

Hi Brian,

Perhaps not an answer but an explanation and some speculation.....The search
box is a combination of the old search and run prompts. If you enter a
program name (as you obviously realize), that program is run. If you enter a
string of characters, or even just one character, that does not match a
program name, search opens results from the current index. I would surmise
that the file displayed is a direct result of the sort order in the indexer,
and of the included user and system folders. Another user, who does not
included system files in their search, may not have the same result.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

"Brian JT" <no@no.com> wrote in message
news:B76B5E97-FB0D-4A7B-B630-4A8AAC8DCEDC@microsoft.com...
> When I open the start menu and start typing the search box seems to act
> like a search/run command line. Type in a few letters and press enter and
> the right app generally opens up. Works great so far. Now I have run
> into an unexpected behavior.
>
> If I type notepad2, it opens the right app. Notepad2 is simply a notepad
> replacement I have copied into system32 (It has no shortcut on the start
> menu). Okay. Now if I type n, it opens paint.net, not sure how it
> selects paint.net, I have renamed a copy of notepad2.exe to n.exe in the
> system32 directory. If I type n.exe it runs Notepad2 fine.
>
> Can someone please explain exactly how the search box selects which
> command it will run and how it determines when not to run a command and
> open a search results box instead?
>
> Thank You,
>
> Brian JT

Pressing Enter runs the command. If you just want to locate a program or
file don't press Enter in the Start Search box.

"Brian JT" <no@no.com> wrote in message
news:B76B5E97-FB0D-4A7B-B630-4A8AAC8DCEDC@microsoft.com...
> When I open the start menu and start typing the search box seems to act
> like a search/run command line. Type in a few letters and press enter and
> the right app generally opens up. Works great so far. Now I have run
> into an unexpected behavior.
>
> If I type notepad2, it opens the right app. Notepad2 is simply a notepad
> replacement I have copied into system32 (It has no shortcut on the start
> menu). Okay. Now if I type n, it opens paint.net, not sure how it
> selects paint.net, I have renamed a copy of notepad2.exe to n.exe in the
> system32 directory. If I type n.exe it runs Notepad2 fine.
>
> Can someone please explain exactly how the search box selects which
> command it will run and how it determines when not to run a command and
> open a search results box instead?
>
> Thank You,
>
> Brian JT