Microsoftie here

The progress bar was a design decision made by the program management team.
It does not show progress, but it does reflect that we're still performing
work. It was tweaked significantly during the different Betas and Release
Candidates until people were generally ok with it.

Searching in indexed locations should be fast. It should be even faster
with Window Search 4 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157) installed. The
more locations on the disk you have indexed, the faster the searching of
these locations should be. Keep in mind that we don't index the entire drive
on purpose, as the indexer wasn't designed to handle the load that is
associated with indexing directories like Windows or Program Files.

Searching all of the Computer is a very costly operation, because a majority
of the time is spent crawling the disk trying to find the items that you're
looking for. The non-indexed search of Vista is slower than XP and other
engines by default, because we end up searching more properties. Also, we
perform our searches differently than most engines (word based, rather than
character or regular expression based). This isn't an excuse, we should
still do a better job of being more efficient.

Granted that it may be slower in some situations, there are things you can
do to improve performance of your searches.

1. Scope your search location. Only include the locations you think that
you may find the file you're looking for. This will obviously speed things
up.
2. Scope your search to only search for properties you care about. Use
either the Advanced Search Pane or directly use Advanced Query Syntax (such
as name:foo, or author:bar). See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711.aspx for more details. The
syntax isn't perfect and there is a lot of work trying to keep the behavior
of non-indexed searches to match the behavior of indexed searches (which
isn't perfect), even though it is two completely distinct search providers.
3. Add more locations of the files you care about to the index. When
searching non-indexed locations like Computer, we will leverage the indexer
to return results for indexed locations on the system.
4. Keep the "Search system folders" checkbox unchecked in the Search
Options, unless you're sure that's where you want to look. When this option
is set, searching from c:\ will not search within system directories like
c:\windows and c:\program files.
5. Don't use the "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be
slow)" checkbox in the Advanced search box unless you have to. This option
will not use the index at all and will perform a non-indexed search of all
locations and also look in system folders.

Hope this helps,
Justin

PS - I'm going to try to do a better job of popping into the newsgroup now
and then to see if there is anything that needs answering.

Justin Martin [MSFT] wrote:
Microsoftie here

The progress bar was a design decision made by the program management team.
It does not show progress, but it does reflect that we're still performing
work. It was tweaked significantly during the different Betas and Release
Candidates until people were generally ok with it.

Searching in indexed locations should be fast. It should be even faster
with Window Search 4 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157) installed. The
more locations on the disk you have indexed, the faster the searching of
these locations should be. Keep in mind that we don't index the entire drive
on purpose, as the indexer wasn't designed to handle the load that is
associated with indexing directories like Windows or Program Files.

Searching all of the Computer is a very costly operation, because a majority
of the time is spent crawling the disk trying to find the items that you're
looking for. The non-indexed search of Vista is slower than XP and other
engines by default, because we end up searching more properties. Also, we
perform our searches differently than most engines (word based, rather than
character or regular expression based). This isn't an excuse, we should
still do a better job of being more efficient.

Granted that it may be slower in some situations, there are things you can
do to improve performance of your searches.

1. Scope your search location. Only include the locations you think that
you may find the file you're looking for. This will obviously speed things
up.
2. Scope your search to only search for properties you care about. Use
either the Advanced Search Pane or directly use Advanced Query Syntax (such
as name:foo, or author:bar). See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711.aspx for more details. The
syntax isn't perfect and there is a lot of work trying to keep the behavior
of non-indexed searches to match the behavior of indexed searches (which
isn't perfect), even though it is two completely distinct search providers.
3. Add more locations of the files you care about to the index. When
searching non-indexed locations like Computer, we will leverage the indexer
to return results for indexed locations on the system.
4. Keep the "Search system folders" checkbox unchecked in the Search
Options, unless you're sure that's where you want to look. When this option
is set, searching from c:\ will not search within system directories like
c:\windows and c:\program files.
5. Don't use the "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be
slow)" checkbox in the Advanced search box unless you have to. This option
will not use the index at all and will perform a non-indexed search of all
locations and also look in system folders.

Hope this helps,
Justin

PS - I'm going to try to do a better job of popping into the newsgroup now
and then to see if there is anything that needs answering.


I believe you are trying to say that the Vista search function is a
hopeless waste of space. If we follow your suggestions we will know
where everything is anyway, In XP *.mp3 found all the mp3s, in Vista it
does not.

You bet there are things that need answering.

I believe you are trying to say that the Vista search function is a
hopeless waste of space. If we follow your suggestions we will know
where everything is anyway, In XP *.mp3 found all the mp3s, in Vista it
does not.

You bet there are things that need answering.

That's not what I'm trying to say at all. I now understand why many people
don't spend their time trying to be helpful in the newsgroups.

You'll get people to be much more willing to try and assist and make
improvements in the product if you do more than just flame. If you honestly
are having a problem and would like help, please be descriptive of the
problems you're running into. For example:

1. Where/how are you initiating the search?
2. Where are the files that aren't being found? Are they random or is it a
specific set of items that aren't coming back?
3. Have you changed any of the default search or indexer settings?
etc.

Justin

Justin Martin [MSFT] wrote:
I believe you are trying to say that the Vista search function is a
hopeless waste of space. If we follow your suggestions we will know
where everything is anyway, In XP *.mp3 found all the mp3s, in Vista it
does not.

You bet there are things that need answering.

That's not what I'm trying to say at all. I now understand why many people
don't spend their time trying to be helpful in the newsgroups.

You'll get people to be much more willing to try and assist and make
improvements in the product if you do more than just flame. If you honestly
are having a problem and would like help, please be descriptive of the
problems you're running into. For example:

1. Where/how are you initiating the search?
2. Where are the files that aren't being found? Are they random or is it a
specific set of items that aren't coming back?
3. Have you changed any of the default search or indexer settings?
etc.

Justin


Actually your presence here is most welcome, and I was being somewhat
sarcastic.

I know there are many settings and that indexing can be useful to some,
however the situation seems to have been made quite confusing to many users.

For example, I rarely "Search" for anything, when I do it probably takes
the form of *.dll because I want to locate some file or other to work
with. I don't really care if it takes 5 minutes to find, but I do want
to be sure if it is there or not. What I do care about is that I have to
wait 5 minutes EVERY time as Vista "Indexes" things at boot. Despite
this time during which the disk drive is grinding away when I type *.dll
it comes back with nothing. Even if the file is in plain sight on the
desktop Vista does not find it. W2000 and XP used to just "Find" things,
indexed or not.

On the other hand if I want to find something on the Internet I use
Google or similar.

So my experience when first using Vista was with the default settings,
and despite 5 minutes every boot and 5 minutes every search I could not
be sure the file wasn't there, only that Vista wasn't locating it. Once
I went to the drive properties and turned indexing off the boot process
went back to a realistic time and Vista still couldn't find anything but
waiting time was acceptable.

So I guess the question is why change the "Expected" behavior and force
the user to make changes he/she is not familiar with when it seems that
what "Windows always does" was quite acceptable. I may well have missed
the point somewhere, I just want to know where

Even while accepting that other people have different experiences based on
what they customarily have need or desire to do, I have mine. It appears to
me that an effort is on-going to improve both the scope (where do you
search? How broadly do you set the parameters of the search?) and speed
(what methodology/algorithms do you use; do you keep an index of searches to
improve speed of later searches? Do you pre-index-if so, what parameters so
you set for that?). Please forgive my repetitiveness but I though it worth
reviewing.

Any time there is a change to the behavior of a tool, users are forced to
experience some-to-much re-familiarization time. Hopefully, most will find
the newly expanded abilities worth the admitted pain. Also, one hopes that
usability improves as development continues.
--

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007




"Charlie Tame" wrote in message
...
Justin Martin [MSFT] wrote:
I believe you are trying to say that the Vista search function is a
hopeless waste of space. If we follow your suggestions we will know
where everything is anyway, In XP *.mp3 found all the mp3s, in Vista it
does not.

You bet there are things that need answering.

That's not what I'm trying to say at all. I now understand why many
people don't spend their time trying to be helpful in the newsgroups.

You'll get people to be much more willing to try and assist and make
improvements in the product if you do more than just flame. If you
honestly are having a problem and would like help, please be descriptive
of the problems you're running into. For example:

1. Where/how are you initiating the search?
2. Where are the files that aren't being found? Are they random or is it
a specific set of items that aren't coming back?
3. Have you changed any of the default search or indexer settings?
etc.

Justin


Actually your presence here is most welcome, and I was being somewhat
sarcastic.

I know there are many settings and that indexing can be useful to some,
however the situation seems to have been made quite confusing to many
users.

For example, I rarely "Search" for anything, when I do it probably takes
the form of *.dll because I want to locate some file or other to work
with. I don't really care if it takes 5 minutes to find, but I do want to
be sure if it is there or not. What I do care about is that I have to wait
5 minutes EVERY time as Vista "Indexes" things at boot. Despite this time
during which the disk drive is grinding away when I type *.dll it comes
back with nothing. Even if the file is in plain sight on the desktop Vista
does not find it. W2000 and XP used to just "Find" things, indexed or not.

On the other hand if I want to find something on the Internet I use Google
or similar.

So my experience when first using Vista was with the default settings, and
despite 5 minutes every boot and 5 minutes every search I could not be
sure the file wasn't there, only that Vista wasn't locating it. Once I
went to the drive properties and turned indexing off the boot process went
back to a realistic time and Vista still couldn't find anything but
waiting time was acceptable.

So I guess the question is why change the "Expected" behavior and force
the user to make changes he/she is not familiar with when it seems that
what "Windows always does" was quite acceptable. I may well have missed
the point somewhere, I just want to know where

Hi, Justin.

Welcome to the newsgroup! ;)

The progress bar was a design decision made by the program management
team.
It does not show progress,

Well, it APPEARS to show progress. Where is there any indication to the
user that it is showing anything other than progress?

but it does reflect that we're still performing
work.

But there is NO feedback as to whether it might be finished - or give up -
in another 10 seconds or that it might take another 10 hours - or 10 days.
:(

There is no clue as to whether it is now searching in Drive C: or in Drive
X: or even somewhere on the Internet maybe?

It was tweaked significantly during the different Betas and Release
Candidates until people were generally ok with it.

I participated in the last year or more of the Vista beta; at least a
half-dozen builds, both 32-bit and 64-bit. I recall significant
improvements in some parts of Search, but NOT in this "progress bar" area.
That feeling that it would never get to the Finish Line did not go away
during the beta - or since.

The non-productive and non-informative pulsing of that green bar gets to be
INFURIATING!!! Doesn't anybody on the Microsoft Team understand that?

Thanks for the tips about how to speed up the Search. My frustration,
though, is not that the search takes so long, but that it NEVER gives up, or
even pauses to take a breath, give me a progress report, and ask me if I'd
like to trim my parameters or if I want it to just "press on!"

PS - I'm going to try to do a better job of popping into the newsgroup now
and then to see if there is anything that needs answering.

Please do, Justin. You will, of course, get flamed by some immature
readers. But you also should hear some legitimate complaints, questions,
requests and suggestions that you will never get from anywhere else.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

"Justin Martin [MSFT]" wrote in
message ...
Microsoftie here

The progress bar was a design decision made by the program management
team.
It does not show progress, but it does reflect that we're still performing
work. It was tweaked significantly during the different Betas and Release
Candidates until people were generally ok with it.

Searching in indexed locations should be fast. It should be even faster
with Window Search 4 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157) installed.
The
more locations on the disk you have indexed, the faster the searching of
these locations should be. Keep in mind that we don't index the entire
drive
on purpose, as the indexer wasn't designed to handle the load that is
associated with indexing directories like Windows or Program Files.

Searching all of the Computer is a very costly operation, because a
majority
of the time is spent crawling the disk trying to find the items that
you're
looking for. The non-indexed search of Vista is slower than XP and other
engines by default, because we end up searching more properties. Also, we
perform our searches differently than most engines (word based, rather
than
character or regular expression based). This isn't an excuse, we should
still do a better job of being more efficient.

Granted that it may be slower in some situations, there are things you can
do to improve performance of your searches.

1. Scope your search location. Only include the locations you think that
you may find the file you're looking for. This will obviously speed
things
up.
2. Scope your search to only search for properties you care about. Use
either the Advanced Search Pane or directly use Advanced Query Syntax
(such
as name:foo, or author:bar). See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711.aspx for more details.
The
syntax isn't perfect and there is a lot of work trying to keep the
behavior
of non-indexed searches to match the behavior of indexed searches (which
isn't perfect), even though it is two completely distinct search
providers.
3. Add more locations of the files you care about to the index. When
searching non-indexed locations like Computer, we will leverage the
indexer
to return results for indexed locations on the system.
4. Keep the "Search system folders" checkbox unchecked in the Search
Options, unless you're sure that's where you want to look. When this
option
is set, searching from c:\ will not search within system directories like
c:\windows and c:\program files.
5. Don't use the "Include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be
slow)" checkbox in the Advanced search box unless you have to. This
option
will not use the index at all and will perform a non-indexed search of all
locations and also look in system folders.

Hope this helps,
Justin

PS - I'm going to try to do a better job of popping into the newsgroup now
and then to see if there is anything that needs answering.

On Mon, 19 May 2008 08:06:43 -0500, "R. C. White"
wrote:

Hi, Justin.

Welcome to the newsgroup! ;)

The progress bar was a design decision made by the program management
team.
It does not show progress,

Well, it APPEARS to show progress. Where is there any indication to the
user that it is showing anything other than progress?



but it does reflect that we're still performing
work.

But there is NO feedback as to whether it might be finished - or give up -
in another 10 seconds or that it might take another 10 hours - or 10 days.
:(

There is no clue as to whether it is now searching in Drive C: or in Drive
X: or even somewhere on the Internet maybe?

It was tweaked significantly during the different Betas and Release
Candidates until people were generally ok with it.

You mean the moronic beta testers that Microsoft uses that typically
can't find their rear ends with both hands behind their back?

The change from the long ago established practice of ANY Progress Bar
in any Windows application including Windows itself that would
steadily move from left to right IN ONE SINGLE PASS regardless how
long it took to indicate how much longer a task will take has been
rendered useless and laughable in Vista as a indicator of anything
other than the stupidity of Microsoft for changing what if anything it
is now suppose to indicate.

Now it is common for Vista's "progress" bar (the butt ugly green bar
at top of Explorer Window) to make multiple round trips from full left
to right thereby giving absolutely no real indication how much longer
some task will take. This is very noticeable in moving large volumes
of files and also in extended searching.

I participated in the last year or more of the Vista beta; at least a
half-dozen builds, both 32-bit and 64-bit. I recall significant
improvements in some parts of Search, but NOT in this "progress bar" area.
That feeling that it would never get to the Finish Line did not go away
during the beta - or since.

Confirmation the Boys of Redmond are clueless idiots that don't know
how to program intelligently. It seems the changes were made in some
feeble attempt to hide their incompetence on how poorly Vista
internals now work under the labor of stupid things like DRM, and the
biggest red herring of them all "security" which means core features
now often must pass through a maze of bloated code just to get from
point A to point B thereby greatly slowing down routine tasks like
file handling.

The non-productive and non-informative pulsing of that green bar gets to be
INFURIATING!!! Doesn't anybody on the Microsoft Team understand that?

They don't give a damn. Which is the answer you can apply to nearly
every known Vista issue. Microsoft has an annoying habit of making
changes for change's sake without regard to how it actually impacts
performance or usability.

"Tom Ferguson" wrote in message
...

Any time there is a change to the behavior of a tool, users are forced to
experience some-to-much re-familiarization time. Hopefully, most will find
the newly expanded abilities worth the admitted pain. Also, one hopes that
usability improves as development continues.

Vista search simple DOES NOT WORK when searching for strings on my Vista
Ultimate machine. I've seen it work on another Vista machine, but search
does not work on my machine. I have given Microsoft an example of searching
for six identical files with six different extensions. Vista can find three
but is blind to the other three. Even "Advanced Search" and its checkbox
"Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)" cannot find
three of these six identical files.

In the last year, I have literally spend DAYS indexing and re-indexing and
re-indexing, trying to get Vista search to work. It does not work on my
machine in my hands. I have demostrated to Microsoft I can get search to
work correctly for Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. Why is prior Windows
knowledge NOT enough to get search to work in Vista?

I have begged and pleaded with Microsoft to find out why search doesn't work
on my Ultimate machine, OR give me the right to go back to XP. Microsoft
REFUSES to fix the problem, and REFUSES to let me go back to XP without
paying them more money because they made a flawed product. I just want the
search functionality that was in Windows Explorer in Windows 2000 (or XP
with the registry hack). Why is that too much to ask? Why is wanting a
product that works correctly too high of an expectation?

When "there is a change to the behavior of a tool" that breaks the
functionality, and when this is in a new product, I would have thought
Microsoft would care enough to listen and investigate. The bottom line is
MICROSOFT DOES RESPECT CUSTOMERS. Microsoft simply does not care about the
problems they create in their own software.

I normally want to do very targeted searches. I usually know what directory
to start in and usually need to search for a string in a few hundred or a
few thousand files. The free Agent Ransack
(http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/) lets me do searches that ALWAYS
work in Vista (it can find all six files in the search failure example I
gave Microsoft). But why should I need a 3rd party tool for such basic
search functionality when I paid for the "ultimate" version of Vista?

Here are the Microsoft guys that REFUSE to discuss the search failure of
Vista any more. They have blocked E-mails from me, since it's easier to
ignore me than fix the search problem in Vista:

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"Celegans" wrote in message
...
"Tom Ferguson" wrote in message
...

Any time there is a change to the behavior of a tool, users are forced to
experience some-to-much re-familiarization time. Hopefully, most will
find the newly expanded abilities worth the admitted pain. Also, one
hopes that usability improves as development continues.

Vista search simple DOES NOT WORK when searching for strings on my Vista
Ultimate machine. I've seen it work on another Vista machine, but search
does not work on my machine.

That is a telling point. Why is it not working on your machine but is on
another? Is it a search with the same parameters on both machines?

I have given Microsoft an example of searching
for six identical files with six different extensions. Vista can find
three but is blind to the other three. Even "Advanced Search" and its
checkbox "Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)"
cannot find three of these six identical files.

I wonder if this is not a question of where the search is being done rather
than what is being searched for.



In the last year, I have literally spend DAYS indexing and re-indexing and
re-indexing, trying to get Vista search to work. It does not work on my
machine in my hands. I have demostrated to Microsoft I can get search to
work correctly for Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. Why is prior Windows
knowledge NOT enough to get search to work in Vista?

If it is a different tool, then different technoques might be required and
the same techniques might get different resumts.

I have begged and pleaded with Microsoft to find out why search doesn't
work on my Ultimate machine, OR give me the right to go back to XP.

Did you inquire about "downgrade" rights?

Microsoft
REFUSES to fix the problem, and REFUSES to let me go back to XP without
paying them more money because they made a flawed product. I just want
the search functionality that was in Windows Explorer in Windows 2000 (or
XP with the registry hack). Why is that too much to ask? Why is wanting
a product that works correctly too high of an expectation?

{Snip}

I normally want to do very targeted searches. I usually know what
directory to start in and usually need to search for a string in a few
hundred or a few thousand files. The free Agent Ransack
(http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/) lets me do searches that ALWAYS
work in Vista (it can find all six files in the search failure example I
gave Microsoft). But why should I need a 3rd party tool for such basic
search functionality when I paid for the "ultimate" version of Vista?

OK. You have a solution. Use it and worry not. g That's what we all do if
we find a tool or feature or two we don't like. Use a work-around or another
tool. It's difficult for one system to be all things to all people, in my
view.

Here are the Microsoft guys that REFUSE to discuss the search failure of
Vista any more.

Well, I can't speak for them but my thought is they might believe they have
said as much as they think is helpful about the case you submitted.

{Snip}

In any case, this topic has brought a light to bear on a high degree of
frustration in some users. Hopefully, that will not be without effect.
--

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

"Tom Ferguson" wrote in message
...

OK. You have a solution. Use it and worry not. g That's what we all do
if we find a tool or feature or two we don't like. Use a work-around or
another tool. It's difficult for one system to be all things to all
people, in my view.

Luckily, our IT guys won't touch Vista, so search is not a problem at work.
I am penalized for trying to be on the leading edge of adopting Vista for
personal use. [I wanted to be a proponent of using Vista's search of file
tags on a special project at work -- a great solution to a particular
problem -- but there's no way I'm pushing for that pilot project using
Vista given how I've been treated by Microsoft on their failed Vista search.
Our IT manager won't let me call on behalf of the company about the search
problem because he doesn't want to talk to Microsoft AT ALL about Vista --
it's my fault I bought a personal copy, and Microsoft has treated me like
dirt as an individual on the flawed search on my Vista Ultimate.]

I worry about the futu I am also involved in aspects of technical
support at work and may need to search for certain kinds of files, which
means with Vista I will now need to take my own tools to every PC for
troubleshooting -- or talk users on the phone or E-mail into installing a
new tool before we can even look at certain problems. Some troubleshooting
using Vista will be a problem when files cannot be found because of Vista's
flawed search. I have explained this to Microsoft about how some scientific
files don't "obey" their rules, but Microsoft doesn't care.

Microsoft should have added a new feature, not removed an old reliable one.

In any case, this topic has brought a light to bear on a high degree of
frustration in some users. Hopefully, that will not be without effect.

But what good does bringing light do when Microsoft's arrogance and
condescension prevents them from caring enough to help customers get work
done? The flaws in Vista and the needless user interface changes in Office
2007 easily cost me a week of work last year (likely more). Why would
anyone want Vista/Office 2007 when Microsoft is hindering productivity and
provides NO SUPPORT when they screw things up?

Microsoft's attitude strongly says "we don't want customers" -- a bit like
IBM when I tried to buy OS/2 from them many years ago.

I have not considered Macs for a long time, but the arbitrary and
unnecessary differences Microsoft is imposing on customers with Vista and
Office 2007 make me really wonder if switching might be better. I truly
enjoy the PC Guy - Mac guy commercials, especially the recent one about PC
customers leaving and not coming back. Why should we tolerate the terrible
arrogance of Microsoft and all the wasted time they have caused with Vista?
The flawed Vista search has been the "deal breaker" for me. FRUSTRATION
levels are quite high when I cannot find old files, or even new ones, with
Vista's search, and Microsoft doesn't listen, doesn't care and doesn't fix
the problem.