Windows 7: Search does not find files that it should, directory is indexed, and *.php included on the extension list

Brilliant, amuzeini, thank you. Agent Ransack works a treat. Looks like I have found a jewel. But WHY DO I HAVE TO? The search facility in 7 should work. I tried all the solutions proposed here but it still wouldn't find file names (quite randomly deciding whether to find something or not, even within the folder I was searching from). I should not be having to edit my registry. This is complete madness and I'm wondering why purchasers of 7 don't take out a class action against Microsoft for their money back.

As I posted above there is a fix for this. Here it is again in case you missed it.

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 the number 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 stepjust 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 wasnot 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.

Indexed search DOES NOT WORK. When I added the directories I want to search to libraries, it appeared to work - at first. I rebuilt the index, and left the (control panel) Indexing Options window open. It said I had 12,000 items indexed, and it was done indexing. I went out for the afternoon. When I returned, the window - still open - said I had (only) 1200 items indexed (and it was done indexing). At this point it could no longer find the files I was testing with. I closed the window, installed another program, and rebooted. When I opened the Indexing Options window again, it said 94 items indexed, indexing complete. Even as I watched in astonishment, it changed to 84 items indexed (indexing complete). And, of course, it cannot find any of the files I search for, even those that appear in the Windows Explorer that I'm using to search!

This is crazy. Microsoft, FIX THIS.