Windows Search <> Good
A few days ago during my check of Windows Updates for XP, I decided to give Windows Search 4.0 a try.
I admit I was lazy and all I really noticed was that more icons had squeezed their way into my start bar. That is, until I tried to search for a file.
0 results? But I'm sure that's what it's called, it's just somewhere on my massive data drive. Let's fire up help and see.. "Check that indexing is complete" - yup, it says it's done, but wait - 10,000 documents indexed? C'mon, I have far more than that!
That's when I learned that by default, the only thing Windows Search indexes is your My Documents folder and your Outlook/Outlook Express mail.
The enormity of the stupidity of that choice just shocks me. Even better, a FAQ for Windows Search says you shouldn't index everything because that will slow down your searches! Oh no!
The point of search...is to find files. And by default, you're excluding the vast majority of the files on everyone's drives. And even worse, it's not clear from the interface that this is the problem or how to fix it by adding new locations to the index - adding more is NOT easily done and the option probably will not be found by many people. And when you do find it, infuriatingly, it won't let you even just add an entire volume if it's the volume Windows is installed on - it still wants to exclude certain sub folders, and it doesn't even accurately report which files are being excluded, so you have to laboriously expand folder after folder looking for unchecked boxes!
And what about some of the other ways we use search? It's a tool I use often to scan a machine for changes in any file anywhere, in a range of time, for issues related to malware or unauthorized access. Now whenever I sit down at someone's machine for this, I'll have to tell the machine to index for hours instead of searching for 10 minutes.
The new search has some great features. It lets you build complex Boolean strings so you have more control over what you are searching for. And the concept of indexing is of course not a bad one. But the implementation is outrageous.
Edit: I'm wondering if I was too harsh - obviously you don't have to index content to search it. But then, why didn't my search work at first? I don't think by default it's setup to work properly but perhaps there was an easier way to search entire drives than indexing them. I've got it indexing my whole system now and I don't want to revert to test more, but I'll try it on another machine at work.
Also, if you click on "Click here to use the Search Companion" you get, mercifully, good old Search. You know, the kind that just works.
I admit I was lazy and all I really noticed was that more icons had squeezed their way into my start bar. That is, until I tried to search for a file.
0 results? But I'm sure that's what it's called, it's just somewhere on my massive data drive. Let's fire up help and see.. "Check that indexing is complete" - yup, it says it's done, but wait - 10,000 documents indexed? C'mon, I have far more than that!
That's when I learned that by default, the only thing Windows Search indexes is your My Documents folder and your Outlook/Outlook Express mail.
The enormity of the stupidity of that choice just shocks me. Even better, a FAQ for Windows Search says you shouldn't index everything because that will slow down your searches! Oh no!
The point of search...is to find files. And by default, you're excluding the vast majority of the files on everyone's drives. And even worse, it's not clear from the interface that this is the problem or how to fix it by adding new locations to the index - adding more is NOT easily done and the option probably will not be found by many people. And when you do find it, infuriatingly, it won't let you even just add an entire volume if it's the volume Windows is installed on - it still wants to exclude certain sub folders, and it doesn't even accurately report which files are being excluded, so you have to laboriously expand folder after folder looking for unchecked boxes!
And what about some of the other ways we use search? It's a tool I use often to scan a machine for changes in any file anywhere, in a range of time, for issues related to malware or unauthorized access. Now whenever I sit down at someone's machine for this, I'll have to tell the machine to index for hours instead of searching for 10 minutes.
The new search has some great features. It lets you build complex Boolean strings so you have more control over what you are searching for. And the concept of indexing is of course not a bad one. But the implementation is outrageous.
Edit: I'm wondering if I was too harsh - obviously you don't have to index content to search it. But then, why didn't my search work at first? I don't think by default it's setup to work properly but perhaps there was an easier way to search entire drives than indexing them. I've got it indexing my whole system now and I don't want to revert to test more, but I'll try it on another machine at work.
Also, if you click on "Click here to use the Search Companion" you get, mercifully, good old Search. You know, the kind that just works.