Windows 7 search does not work for documents, broken, no results

Anonymous

My search function does not pull up files, specifically Microsoft Works word documents, that contain words i entered into the search bar.

I've tried searching through the document libraries and through the start menu, but it says "no items match your search." I've tested this by writing the words "smart world" in a document and the search function still can't find this document.

NOTE: search is not completely broken. it will return results for programs and items in the control panel. Results also return ONE document, and always the same one, which is the first word document i created on this computer.

i've spent an hour finding my way to this forum. along the way, i've seen some complicated fixes on other forums that have not worked for all. i am not a programmer and do not want to try some complicated fix that could damage my already frail and prone to stupid errors hard drive.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 15 with win 7 32bit that was a free upgrade with the computer.

make it work for me MS!

SO MY QUESTION IS: how can i fix my windows 7 search feature so that it will pull up ms works word document files containing the words that i typed into the search bar?

I am completely enervated by all of this.

Thank you so much for any help you can provide!

rob

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Anonymous

Hi rob,

If you are experiencing problems with searching, such as unusually slow searches or incomplete search results, run the Search and Indexing troubleshooter to see if it can diagnose the problem.

Open the Search and Indexing troubleshooter by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type troubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting. Click View all, and then click Search and Indexing.

Depending on the severity of the problem, the Search and Indexing troubleshooter might need to restart the Windows Search service.

For further information, visit the below mentioned link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Improve-Windows-searches-using-the-index-frequently-asked-questions

You may also refer the below mentioned link.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Searching-in-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

If this not help, you may create a new user account and check if the issue persist.

For further information, visit the below mentioned link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Create-a-user-account

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Fix-a-corrupted-user-profile

Hope this information helped!

Thanks and regards

Fouzan – Microsoft support

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62 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-08-22T01:15:52+00:00

What microsoft should have done is used there brains and not changed the way seach worked the search worked fine under xp but even that was been updated to the useless search and you have to do extra clicks to get that to work by clicking on search compainion so it goes back to the original program.

When will microsoft Learn?

or Programmers Learn, There was no need to change the search functions at all.

i wish programmers would learn about hardware instead of been so ignorant as well this is another reason why things dont always work right.

So in short i am using XP to search for files and my Windows 7 machines i use XP to search them via the network.

Microsoft as well need to know this CPU parking is moronic Seriously why overide hardware?

why try to control Power managment? hardware has its own power managment does not need some Generic interaction from software to turn off CPU's or logical CPU, another flaw that never should have been played with.

CPU parking is a load of junk.
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Anonymous

2011-08-21T14:13:08+00:00

Solution Found!

I have had this problem for weeks now (it appeared out of nowhere); that is, the search function in Windows Explorer stopped producing any results (and I use it every day, so know how and that it works).

In my case, all I needed to do was browse to some target folder via the C: drive instead of via the "Libraries" 'drive'.

I hope that makes sense, but to clarify: I keep all my personal files in a special folder, kinda like "my docs" ...so when I saw that Windows 7 used some new "library" option that allowed me to create a shortcut to that mydocs folder that would show up in every folder dialog list, I made mydocs one of my "libraries".

After that, when I open Explorer I access my mydocs folder by clicking first on "libraries" and then on "mydocs" (which seemed to work fine for a while, but eventually resulted in all of my Explorer searches producing no results at all; very annoying)..

Today, however, I discovered that if I open Explorer and then browse to my mydocs folder by clicking on the C: drive (instead of via "Libraries"), all of my searches work as expected.

I suspect the problem has something to do with setting some kind of indexing options in my library folders (that I know nothing about), but at least I got my search function back!

I hope this helps for you and all those who have been annoyed by this problem.

Steve
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Anonymous

2011-07-12T17:15:39+00:00

I cannot figure this out either. It worked for a while. I bought this HP laptop a couple of months ago. I would type in a search for a file, and it would bring up all the files that fit the search. Now, it won't bring up a single thing, not even when I am doing a search within a folder where I know (and can even see) the file is there. Why is this happening? How can I fix it? I have my search options for public folders. I saw that was a possibility, but it is set to the default, so that shouldn't be the issue. Can anyone help me out here? I am NOT computer savvy, unfortunately, even with as much as I have to use my computer daily, so if anyone can dumb it down for me and help me resolve this issue, I will be forever in your debt. Thanks...Lisa
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Anonymous

2011-06-21T21:14:21+00:00

Well this didn't work either. I'm amongst the long list of fellow frustrated with Windows7 search people I've found all over the web. This is just crazy. It shouldn't be this hard.
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