Explorer search problem

Kari,
after modify here is the screenshot. Under users, the current account user has all folders ticked.
Could you elaborate on your feeling that I have inicated little to index. Thanks for your help.
Michael

I think all the boxes are ticked. Under "Michael" 9,500 files hidden in AppData, 1,000 files that should be searchable.

Advice from another forum (MS) was to quote "In short, Windows Search simply does nor work"... install a good third party tool !!!!!!

How many third party tools do I need to install

Hi mjf,

A few things to check:

1) For files to be indexed, the folder containing the files must have SYSTEM permissions. These may have been removed. Right-click the My Documents folder. Select the Properties option. Click the Security tab. If SYSTEM is in the Group or user names box, system permissions is not the problem. If SYSTEM does not appear in the Group or user names box, click the Edit… button to open the Permissions dialog. In the Permissions dialog, click the Add… button. In the Select Users, Computers, Service Accounts, or Groups dialog, enter system in the Enter the object names to select box and click the Check Names button. Select SYSTEM from the list of Matching names and click OK.

2) Run an ATTRIB command on the My Documents folder from the command line. Does it have the "I" attrib? That is the indexing exclusion attrib and if so, the folder will be excluded from indexing.

3) Do you have McAffee installed? That sometimes causes this problem. Try uninstalling it completely, then rebuild the index and see if it helps.

1) SYSTEM permissions are present.
2) ATTRIB "my documents" does not show the "I" attribute. (My Documents is a junction point and I don't really undrstand them)
3) I am running McAfee. Stopping it is ok but completely removing it uses up a license. Probably will dump McAfee when the license runs out.

Some additional info:
(1) I restored an image from a month ago but this time carefully went through the event log and it did report "Catalog is corrupt". Anyway, I can't rebuild the index.
(2) Explorer searches fine from the root, c:\ but not from a lower folder (directory).
(3) From command prompt I can go into any directory and search it and it's sub directories without a problem. Dir *whatever* /s.

I'd be content to do non indexed searches from Explorer if I could start it from a specific folder and not the root.

In addition to SYSTEM /Users has permission "Everyone" - could this be causing a problem with Windows search/indexing?

hello again mjf,

Looks like Windows Search really IS broken. Hopefully sp1 will have some fixes.

As an alternative, there is a great freeware search tool GREPWIN that is accessible via the right mouse button on a folder.

grepWin | Stefan's Tools