So what am I missing?  In XP, I right click on a folder using Windows
Explorer and select search.  There are separate search options, which I
found quite intuitive:
- "All or part of the file name"
- "A word or phrase in the file"

I almost always want to specify some sort of wild card for the files I'm
looking for, and I often am looking for a specific string in these files.  I
quite often NEED both of these fields.  Unlike Windows 2000, XP was a bit
lame when it didn't search all the files, and hits could be missed until one
found the obscure registry key to enable searching all files. I spent hours
trying to figure out why I couldn't find files in XP because of some obscure
change made by Microsoft.  Windows Vista continues that frustration by
making searches harder than it was in Windows 2000 or before.

Now let's do the same thing in Vista.  Right click on a folder to search
using Windows Explorer, and select "Search...".

There is a mostly blank screen with a note at the top saying "To begin, type
in the search box".  Can I assume that this search box only knows about
what's been indexed?   This whole screen is wasted space and could show more
options like before, but one must now click on the nearby icon for "Advanced
Search".  Did usability experts really design this?

The Advanced Search screen is what I really want to see when I select
"Search" from Windows Explorer.  This new Advance Search screen shows mostly
blank space (why is all the space wasted?), but doesn't show an option that
is equivalent to searching for "A word or phrase in the file".   Where is
this search option "A word or phrase in a file" now "hidden"?

The help system has proven futile.  Online searches via Google have proven
futile. I have already spent hours searching for why search doesn't work in
Vista.  There is a checkbox for "include non-indexed, hidden, and system
files (might be slow)," which I'm assuming will search for files that are
not indexed, but how do I search for a particular string in a file?  (The
command prompt "findstr" command  isn't a good answer.)

I now launch a VMware virtual machine running Windows 2000, where I've
mapped my Vista file system.  I must do searches from Windows 2000 on my
Vista machine to find files containing specific strings because Vista's
search either doesn't work or has a new obtuse user interface that is not
intuitive nor is explained anywhere I can find.  At some point I may have to
pay the $100 to use SSScaner, because I figure out how to get search to work
in Vista.

I have had similar frustrations with Office 2007.  Simple things that took
seconds, now take hours to find, or seemingly cannot be done.  Recently I
wanted to split a table in Word 2007, which should have taken about two
seconds.  Over an hour later after various Google searches, I finally
stumbled onto this online tool that shows the old Word 2003 interface and
how the same thing is done in Word 2007.  You can select what you'd like to
do in the Word 2003 simulated interface, then an animation shows what to do
an simulated Word 2007 user interface.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx
At least in the "split table" case, this worked when online help didn't
address "split table".

If Microsoft really wanted to help its existing customers, this tool should
have been part of Word 2007, so one could quickly find out how to do a
familiar operation.  Is there any similar tool that Microsoft provides that
does this with Windows Vista?  Can I go to an online tool somewhere in
Windows XP, and be told where in Vista I can do the same thing, like
searching for a string in a file that may not be indexed?  Looking for
search terms in the help system too often is futile, even when using the
exact name of the feature.

There are many good new features in Vista and Office 2007, but the
frustration level of not being able to do old simple things is also quite
high -- needlessly.

Re: How to Enable Indexing in Vista

Doug.  Thank you for your response, but the Windows Vista search simply does
not work adequately like it did in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000,
and Windows XP (after a fix
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;309173 ).  Microsoft
should fix this problem post haste so scientists and engineers can use Vista
to find scientific data -- which is what I'm trying to do.

See this article with history of Windows search and how Vista has made
things worse, not better (Vista has brought improvements, but how can they
be appreciated when things that worked now fail?)

File Search in Vista Worse than Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP?
http://www.pcmagvote.com/story.php?title=File_Search_in_Vista_Worse_than_Windows
_95_98_2000_and_XP-1

Do you have a solution for scenario #2 in the comments to that article?

Comments from National Instruments:
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5604#toc6
"While Windows Vista searching capabilities may satisfy general users, they
MAY NOT BE ADEQUATE  for engineers and scientists. Windows Vista helps you
quickly locate saved files based on metadata, but you cannot search file
content to identify meaningful information."
"For example, you might have thousands of files containing data from
experiments or tests. To make educated decisions based on that information
stored in those files, you must not only carry out complex searches to find
the files but also identify key information or establish trends within the
files; neither are tasks that Instant Search can accomplish. To find and
interpret data rapidly, you need additional tools, such as the National
Instruments DIAdem DataFinder."

Why won't Microsoft admit that search  is a problem in Vista, that search in
Vista is "not adequate" and do something about it, instead of frustrating
scientists and engineers who are trying to search scientific/engineering
data using Vista?