Finding files on Windows Vista



  • The results of a search for files named "winres.h":





  •  Thats pretty good actually... They do a close search vs exact caz they know most of the time people have it almost correct. Remember developers are not 100% of the users.



  • I wouldn't really call it a WTF either.  Yeah, it's different from what XP did and better IMO.  I would guess if you wanted an exact search, you'd put the name in double quotes?

     

     



  • It managed to find your file as the top result? That's a shame. Wait...



  • @Carnildo said:

     

    You must be trying hard.  Not only did it find the file you were looking for and put it in the top result it found lots of files that were close.  Although, I disagree with the others, there is certainly a WTF here...



  • Didn't anyone ask themselves why filenames resembling "WinResrc.h" appear so many God damn times? Christ, how many does Microsoft need?



  •  well, the header file would be probably be with some source (and if an idiot did it, the distribution) for something that uses WinResrc - I like to have my header files in a 'depenency' location in svn when working with windows (or with .net, the whole dependent library for non-standard frameworks or libraries) so anyone that checks out the code doesn't require the same system setup.



  •  Yeah, how dare a search implementation go out of its way to find what you're looking for.  It should do an even more strict lookup, and not return any results unless you give it the full path.



  •  Meh, Vista search sucks worse than XP search. attrib /s FTW!



  •  The Vista search will also return results for filenames if you enter the search term backwards. ecnatsid in the sample music directory returns Distance.wma.



  • Does anyone else think it's treating the period as a wildcard?  I don't think that.s a WTF, and Windows XP always put a wildcard before and after the search text when searching.

    So if you're searching for the "spa" file that was somewhere hidden in your filesystem, it would find all the "spanking" porn you have.



  • @benryves said:

     The Vista search will also return results for filenames if you enter the search term backwards. ecnatsid in the sample music directory returns Distance.wma.

    I can't tell you how lufesu that is. I'm always gnitirw my words sdrawkcab.



  • Clearly the problem is that you are still using the built in search... Have you heard of SSDS?



  • @bstorer said:

    @benryves said:

     The Vista search will also return results for filenames if you enter the search term backwards. ecnatsid in the sample music directory returns Distance.wma.

    I can't tell you how lufesu that is. I'm always gnitirw my words sdrawkcab.

    backwards is nothing, try writing everything umop apisdn.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    Does anyone else think it's treating the period as a wildcard? 

    It looks like it splits the search criteria and the file names on punctuation, and checks if the resulting tokens match.



  • @benryves said:

     The Vista search will also return results for filenames if you enter the search term backwards. ecnatsid in the sample music directory returns Distance.wma.

     

    Are you running SP1?  I don't see that behavior on my Vista SP1 PC, but I do have an index built on my user folders.

    @Spectre said:

    @belgariontheking said:
    Does anyone else think it's treating the period as a wildcard? 
    It looks like it splits the search criteria and the file names on punctuation, and checks if the resulting tokens match.

    Spectre's analysis is probably right on this one.  Splitting on certain characters and tokenizing the resulting strings is fairly common in fuzzy matching algorithms.

     

     



  • @Spectre said:

    @belgariontheking said:
    Does anyone else think it's treating the period as a wildcard? 

    It looks like it splits the search criteria and the file names on punctuation, and checks if the resulting tokens match.

     

    That or it just strips the file extension before searching. Since it now automatically un-selects the file extension when you rename a file, maybe they got cautious in other places too.



  • @mallard said:

     Meh, Vista search sucks worse than XP search.

     

    That is not possible.



  • @astonerbum said:

     Thats pretty good actually... They do a close search vs exact caz they know most of the time people have it almost correct. Remember developers are not 100% of the users.

    They could've just put something like an "Exact Search" checkbox and just leave it unchecked. I don't seem to see something like that... and I would definitely hate for file searching to default to fuzzy search with no "exact" option!


  • @lpope187 said:

    @benryves said:

     The Vista search will also return results for filenames if you enter the search term backwards. ecnatsid in the sample music directory returns Distance.wma.

     

    Are you running SP1?  I don't see that behavior on my Vista SP1 PC, but I do have an index built on my user folders.

    Running SP1 one one machine and not on another (hooray for blacklisted drivers, really need to un-Dellify that install at some point) - same behaviour on both. Unchecking "Use natural language search" does the same.



  • @mallard said:

     Meh, Vista search sucks worse than XP search. attrib /s FTW!

     

    dir /b /s

    FT left-justified W!



  • @benryves said:

    Running SP1 one one machine and not on another

    SP1 One one???



  • @PileOfMush said:

    @mallard said:

     Meh, Vista search sucks worse than XP search.

     

    That is not possible.

    It's not only possible, it's absolutely true.  I can search for a file and find it one day, the next windows might not find the file even if it hasn't moved, changed, or otherwise been altered.  And don't even get me started on encrypted files.  I constantly ask myself why Microsoft is bothering to compete with google on that front.  Just license their technology already. 



  • @clively said:

    @PileOfMush said:

    @mallard said:

     Meh, Vista search sucks worse than XP search.

     

    That is not possible.

    It's not only possible, it's absolutely true.  I can search for a file and find it one day, the next windows might not find the file even if it hasn't moved, changed, or otherwise been altered.  And don't even get me started on encrypted files.  I constantly ask myself why Microsoft is bothering to compete with google on that front.  Just license their technology already. 

    Is this reproducable?  I've never encountered this.


  • @tster said:

    Is this reproducable?  I've never encountered this.

    It is on mine.  Vista 32 SP1, all updates applied. 

    My wife first noticed it.  MS's solution was to force a reindexing.  Which I did and it worked for about 3 days before getting out of whack again.  Bear in mind, it consistently finds things that I look for on a daily basis (like programs I'm starting); however, if a data file hasn't been touched in a couple of months then it won't find it.  Not even by explicitly giving it the name.

    My guess is that the full text indexing cache size of Vista is limited in some way.  Either that or it doesn't work too well with multiple user accounts, which we've also seen other problems with. 

     



  •  I don't see a WTF here, unless you're talking about the other search results being, at least, odd.

     You found what you were looking for as the first result, so the search itself is functioning perfectly (at least in this instance).  This to me seems like complaining about stupid drivers on a new bypass the city built, theres not much the producer of the thing can really do about it.


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