Is there any way of getting the old Windows XP Search functionality in Vista?

Anonymous
2009-04-16T12:21:43+00:00

I find the Windows Vista search program to be absolutely horrible.  I just want to click Start, then Search (or Winkey-F), and then just choose the drive I want to search or enter a path to search.  Or, just right-click on a folder and have Search in the context menu.  Now I have to browse to the folder or drive, type in my search term, then I can actually get to some search options, after clicking search tools, then advanced search, then check the box to include hidden locations just to get to what would be the beginning search options screen in Windows XP.  This is annoying.

Then as it is giving me my 1000 or so results, I cannot just browse through them as they come up.  You see, as I am reading the results, it is inserting results above where I just read.  Because of this, it is pointless to browse the results until after it has finished searching.  I do not need this to sort on the fly. 

Suppose I am missing a column, such as file size or date.  If I add those columns, it starts the search over!  Powerful and Robust?  Maybe.  However, Microsoft should have considered ease of use when they designed it.

I am an IT Manager and usually would have no problems trying to work with new programs.  I have been running Vista for about 1 year.  This is not a transition like going to the Ribbon in Office 2007, where I hate it at first, then I learn to love it and never want to go back.  There is not much love coming from Vista Search.

So, does anyone know how to get the old search tool into Vista, or somehow get Vista search to behave like XP?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2009-06-29T16:57:31+00:00

Even the search capabilities of XP are horrible and unfortunately it has been carried over in Vista and W7.  One of the better solutions I have found for your problem and which also works in Vista and W7 is comething called Agent Ransack. ( http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/ ) It is a free file search utility. I have used it for 2 years and it does exactly what MS removed when XP came out.  I posted the following about this in the W7 forums with any useful reply. 

Hope that will help you out.

From my Win7 forum post.

I am running the RC version of Windows 7 and have unfortunately found no solution to the problems which started in XP and apparently have made their way into W7, at least I have not been able to find it.

Prior to XP one was able to search for text in ANY file type in any directory.  For some, as yet unexplained reason the search functionality in XP was arbitrarily limited to include only known document types such as doc, xls, html etc. There was a convoluted "solution" posted on MS's website to circumvent this major issue but even it did not work as advertised.  Luckily there were some people annoyed enough by this hi-handed change who took it upon themselves to develop something to do just that.  FindinFiles and Agent Ransack come to mind.

What is it about MS that makes them ignore the requests from MANY users over the years for a return of this feature.  Do people constantly have to develop new mousetraps for every MS OS because MS figures we do not deserve these features?

I develop software and if I want to look for text inside files in a directory or on an entire hard drive, regardless of file extension, then that should be MY prerogative and I should be able to do so.  It should be a basic functionality of ANY OS. Please give us that functionality back in W7

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Anonymous
2009-04-16T21:06:56+00:00

HomerTNachoCheese,

    There is not any way to customize the default search capabilities in Vista to make it look like XP.  There may be some 3rd party software that looks and functions like the XP search but none I can recommend.  Below is a link to Windows Search 4.0.  You may want to give it a try and see if you like the functionality a little more.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-05-20T19:57:27+00:00

    I am either presented with files that have no apparent relation to what I'm looking for, or it can't find files I know are there!

    Searching for what?  If you are just trying to find files by name try disabling the indexer?   (Or changing its options.)    Then hopefully you wouldn't get its Indexing Options affecting your results.

    But then you might be restricted in your search syntax.   For example, I don't know whether the indexer is responsible for parsing our queries or how much search syntax would be used otherwise...

    Hmm...  I don't think that is going to work.   Someone else had a problem where they couldn't even see the Search bar and that turned out to be that they had disabled the WSearch service...

    <cmd_output>

    C:&gt;net start | find /i "search"

       Windows Search

    C:&gt;net start | find /i "index"

    C:&gt;tasklist /svc | find /i "search"

    SearchIndexer.exe             2716 WSearch

    C:&gt;tasklist /svc | find /i "index"

    SearchIndexer.exe             2716 WSearch

    </cmd_output>

    So, I stopped it (not disabled) and then tried a search.   Look what happened

    <cmd_output>

    C:&gt;net stop Wsearch

    The Windows Search service is stopping.

    The Windows Search service was stopped successfully.

    C:&gt;tasklist /svc | find /i "search"

    SearchIndexer.exe             5680 WSearch

    SearchProtocolHost.exe        5368 N/A

    SearchFilterHost.exe          3368 N/A

    C:&gt;sc query Wsearch

    SERVICE_NAME: Wsearch

            TYPE               : 10  WIN32_OWN_PROCESS

            STATE              : 4  RUNNING

                                    (STOPPABLE, NOT_PAUSABLE, ACCEPTS_SHUTDOWN)

            WIN32_EXIT_CODE    : 0  (0x0)

            SERVICE_EXIT_CODE  : 0  (0x0)

            CHECKPOINT         : 0x0

            WAIT_HINT          : 0x0

    </cmd_output>

    E.g. note that the PID is now different?  Proving that it was stopped but then magically came back to life and evidently started some of its own subprocesses.

    But here I have disabled it and I can still do a search (though performance is awful), so who knows?  YMMV

    <cmd_output>

    C:&gt;sc config wsearch start= disabled

    [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS

    C:&gt;net stop wsearch

    The Windows Search service is stopping.

    The Windows Search service was stopped successfully.

    C:&gt;tasklist /svc | find /i "search"

    </cmd_output>

    Supposedly there is a tool in the Windows SDK which allows developers to understand how their search filters are working.   Using that might help clarify what accounts for your results.

    HTH

    Robert

    P.S.   Don't forget to re-enable the Search service once you are done with your experiments   ; )

    C:&gt;sc config wsearch start= demand

    [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-07-04T07:02:04+00:00

    Nice try but the link for Windows Search 4.0 is not for Vista versions!

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