Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Workaround for Windows Search and Office 2007 documents on Windows Vista 64-bit.

Kristan Kenney: Confessions of a Windows Enthusiast — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:27:20 GMT

If you are using Windows Vista 64-bit, you may have noticed that if you filter your search by "Documents"

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

bladehawk — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:54:55 GMT

Hmmmm....

"We may be able to help you troubleshoot knowing this information."

No advice or is this feature over-hyped?

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Ted McCarty — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:17:40 GMT

Hi Nick, well I am not at all interested in this aspect of search. What I need to know is how to search JUST the local computer like you could do in XP and ALL previous versions of everybody's OS that I have ever used. I do not want to search the whole domain for a file that I know should be on the local computer.

Thanks, Ted

PS why did they break so many thing that worked so well?

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Gallus — Sun, 20 May 2007 06:55:41 GMT

These Searchmelts are so good, they ought to be trademarked. In fact, SP1 should allow for their creation to be automatic if a user so chooses.

I found these past few posts on the capabilities of Vista's search functions quite useful, I doubt I would have stumbled into these features for another year or so.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Xepol — Wed, 16 May 2007 20:20:55 GMT

Bladehawk -> I suspect you'd be able to talk her through filling in the search boxes faster than her learning to use email enough to receive attachements and save them into the right folder.

Mind you, she would still have to track down the search folder every bloody time, so I would write the whole affair off as pointless.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

bladehawk — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:21:28 GMT

indexing really makes no difference to spying, theres so much software that designed to do exactly that, and that would be far more useful then indexing that I'm really not too concerned about the very remote and inconvenient spying via indexing than I would be about real keylogging software.

Search melt lets you share a search, cute, but I think some of this relates better to complex searches and the fact that I could use it to email my mom a few search folders because she cries using word and it's easier than trying to walk her though it (she's a technophobe).

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

I forgot — Wed, 16 May 2007 15:02:41 GMT

I guess it's just me, but Vista indexing and search gives me the "Big brother" creeps. Take for example "Previous versions" which needs file-sharing enabled to work. Or IPV6 installed automatically, which can effectively bypass most inexpensive hardware firewalls.

Do you use a computer at a library, internet cafe or on a wireless network? Regardless of your librarian's philosophy about privacy, Vista's features make it easier than ever, for those who care, to know: What you run, what you search for, and by extension what you care about/buy/etc. And the "search melts" could be categorized and warehoused for years (forever). Your text messages are archived somewhere, as are your emails, and now the names/contents of all of your files you wish to index are as well.

Ok I know no one cares and this makes more titillating gossip fodder, but I just couldn't lay down without a peep and let the Vista experience trickle down.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Xepol — Wed, 16 May 2007 06:59:46 GMT

Unless this searchmelt thing lets me create a shared folder that only shows certain files, this whole concept seems a little... pointless... How hard is it to say "word documents that contain the word 'fruit'" ? I assume no one believes its so hard to create a search that we have to use external apps to custom modify a saved search file that shouldn't need custom modification in the first bloody place. (All drives, my documents, C: all seem mighty transportable to me, not a lot to change unless someone did something REALLY stupid)

So ya, still fuzzy of search melts. Does it create a special share with a custom view or is it just a stupid solution to a problem no one actually has, or worse a solution to a stupid problem that could have easily been avoided?

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

girlgeek — Wed, 16 May 2007 03:47:35 GMT

Why is the assumption that a computer is a music collection device? I have read all 3 articles and am wondering why it takes so much research to find a file with the extention txt somewhere on my machine that was created in the last month. I am getting nothing but simple searches for *.txt on 120Gb without the date constraint. This should be easy. What a PAIN this VISTA is!

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

bladehawk — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:15:20 GMT

I have 207,197 items indexed with 2287MB ram and a 512 MB Readyboost thumb drive installed.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

omgbbq — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:58:06 GMT

On Windows XP, I can use something like "*.sql" to only find files with the "sql" extension. How do I achieve the same effect on Windows Vista? When I use "*.sql" it returns all files and directories containing ".sql" anywhere in the filename.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

arvindmishra007 — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:38:43 GMT

Xepol, it's scoped to your machine. You can't search and see results from another Windows Vista PC unless you have rights of access to the contents of that target PC.

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

Xepol — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:20:39 GMT

Nick -> Ok, which machine gets searched? The host of the searchmelt or the client requesting the searchmelt?

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

cas — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:20:06 GMT

it would be nice to have it in Vista SP1 :)

re: Searching, part III: Do you know what a SearchMelt is?

ROSENKRIEGER — Tue, 15 May 2007 08:47:22 GMT

Nice one. I am still waiting for my DELL XPS ( with Vista Ultimate ) to arrive ( it will come today :-) - but I am reading every post on your blog.

I am collecting tools/gadgets on my drive already so I can pimp-up my Vista ;-) So thanks for the hint with the SearchMelt Tool - sadly I would have to register @ the hive to download it :-/ so I am not (yet) gonna do it.