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

I think Win search does work, just that you have to jump through hoops and spend time to know all the ins and outs of it. It seems like it was designed for MS employees rather than the average Joe who may mistakenly assume it works right off the bat. I simply decided to do without it in favor of a free 3rd part search program (Agent Ransack) which works right away with no fiddling or messing about. No indexing either, yet its lightening fast. I need absolute reliability that when I search for something it is there when I need it. I cant trust Windows search to provide that reliability.

Yes, Ransack and FileLocator are the same app but with different UI design. Same solution I use now.

OK this worked for me. 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: IfSetupCompletedSuccessfully 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 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.

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”.

I find that it works reliably so long as you specify "Computer", or from there, a drive where you know the file to be.  It searches thru 600,000+ files fast enough for me without indexing (way faster than XP)   Indexing is fairly illogical because you are most likely to already know where things are in the indexed places!  And if you index everything, it is constantly running and using resources for those relatively few occasions you need to find something.

The problem is that "Computer" is too many clicks away for my limited patience level /attention span.   Also, the last search should never be erased from the start menu input field --that is annoying because if you double click a potential candidate and it turns out to be the wrong file, the whole search evaporates and you are forced to start over.  

Also I wish it didn't start searching on partial words that I type --that is very distracting.   If you run Office Outlook, it will begin to show you your spam before you can get to "Computer" to do a serious search.  

Those are all UI problems, and I dont understand how a room full of alpha testers could miss these annoyances unless there was a problem with the randomness of the personnel selection --the only way you can not be annoyed is if you had never before sat in front of a keyboard and have no frame of reference.