Win7 in-folder search is kind of crippled.

I have music with certain artist, and if I go to start menu and type artist name, it shows the song name in search results, but if I were to go the folder where the song is actually saved in, and type the artist name, resulting search is empty; I believe it apparently only searches the titles of files. Then once before I had to search for a system file which was hidden by default. So I searched for it under c:\ drive folder, and nothing came up. I searched for it in c:\windows and still nothing came up. At least in vista, I had the option to search in hidden and system files, but here is nothing like it in Windows 7. Furthermore, in Win7 in-folder search box, only filters that come up are Date-modified and Size. I had to go thru each folder, show hidden files and manually look for the file. I checked folder and search options, but no setting there. Am I missing some option here, or is the in-folder search in Windows 7 really crippled compared to Vista?

there are a few more filters that I am aware of, you just need to type them then the options come up. size: type: date: kind: artist: album: length: all exist (plus more, just think of something and try typing it in)
but I agree, Ive had far better results searching with the start menu than in folder search. especially searching the windows folder - searching for 'web' does not return the folder named web at the top but a whole heap of folders in the SxS directory.
not sure about hidden file search.

After making the apparently huge mistake of rebuilding the index, now Win 7 explorer search doesn't find anything. I mean literally it won't "find" files that are sitting right there inside the folder. It won't find words inside the files.
It simply does not find anything now.

It did before, but rebuilding the index has wrecked it. I created a new user account and Search will not find anything under that account either.

I would love to hear it if anyone has a real solution. I mean, way beyond the "make sure the check inside folders" is selected-level. Trust me I have tried all of the control panel options and the start menu-properties-stuff too.

Thanks,
Db

The index builds rather quickly on this (new) machine, a dual core Intel @ 3 Ghz.

It had stopped rebuilding several days ago; in fact an entire index builds in about 15 minutes IRRC. Thanks for the question though, you never know what one of multiple things we may miss.

SOmething others need to remember is that there is also a search setting in Control Panel > Folder options > Search Tab >what to search/how to search.

Db

I have discovered that the index rebuilding I was seeing was merely copying what was there already and that might be why it wasn't making any difference and how it was only taking 15 minutes.

In the meanwhile I have kept at it and thanks largely or perhaps completely) to the MS Support person Samrutha, I found a fix, for my machine anyway. Here it is:


Credit and huge thanks for the Regedit part to Samhrutha G S at Microsoft Support.



Important: The instructions below contain steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

1. Click Windows + R (Opens run window)
2. Type regedit and press Enter.
3. In registry editor, windows locate: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search
4. In the right pane, right click on SetupCompletedSuccessfully and click on Modify.

NOTE: If SetupCompletedSuccessfully is not there, then in the right pane, right click on a empty area and click on ‘New’, select ‘DWORD (32 bit)’ Value and type SetupCompletedSuccessfully and press Enter.

1. Type 0 and click on OK.

NOTE: This is thenumber zero.

1. Close Regedit
2. Restart the computer.

NOTE:
Resetting the registry to 0 will also remove the drives you may have set previously from the list of “Included Locations” in Indexing Options. So you will need to add those back in through the “Modify” button. > Show All Locations > Check the drives you want indexed.

Next in Indexing Options you can rebuild the index by clicking through > Modify > rebuild new index.

I did one more step just to make sure before rebuilding the index. I went into Control Panel> Indexing Options > Advanced and selected a new location and new folder for the index. I then deleted the old index through explorer. Then I hit the rebuild index button.

I had a suspicion that simply rebuilding the index was not creating a whole new data set; for one thing, the index was being rebuilt too fast, like in under a half hour on a machine with 700 Gigs of files. Second, it wasn’t changing anything for the better.

So out went the old index. I didn’t want Win 7 to keep “borrowing” the possibly corrupt data from the first file by using the data already compiled.
But I have not tried this procedure without making a new index folder to see whether deleting the old one is necessary after resetting the SetupCompletedSuccessfully value.
You might want to try this with the regedit alone without a new index folder and see if that's sufficient in your case.

About 3 hours later, the index was rebuilt and indexed search for files and folder contents is working.

PS:
It’s good to be aware that there is another place where Windows has search settings. In Control Panel > Folder Options > Search Tab. Make sure the box is clear for “Don’t Use The Index While Searching The File System”. Also choose other options you want there. I selected “Include Subfolders” and “Find Partial Matches”.


Good hunting and don't give up!