Is Vista going to allow searches across *selected* drives again?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andreas Eibach
  • Start date Start date
A

Andreas Eibach

Hi there,

I'm not yet on Vista, but I'd really really plead for this feature to
get *re*implemented.

In Windows XP and Server 2003, Microsoft clearly removed the ability to
search across _selected_ drives using the built-in search tool. As a
long-time Windows 2000 user - who was eventually recently forced to
upgrade due to my MP3 player having XP or higher as a requirement - I do
miss this feature to the extreme.

I mean, if you have games on D:, and your work stuff on C: and E:, and
you want to search C _and_ E (not C _to_ E), you were formerly able to
type in Windows 2000:

C:;E:

which means that you will SKIP the D: drive during search.
This is not allowed anymore in XP "Search Companion" ('C:;E: is not a
valid folder'), and I really hate that.
To call this poor excuse of a search tool "Search Companion" is another
good joke.
Finding strings in binary files worked way better too in 2000, while XP
would only be able to give useful results with half of the files in
question (if at all).

So my question: is this planned to get reimplemented in Vista?
I strongly hope so, as @Microsoft: it is a real ridiculous thing to
require EXTERNAL software to search in selected drives since the
software does not allow it anymore! (but definitely did before)

-Andreas
 
Andreas Eibach said:
Hi there,

I'm not yet on Vista, but I'd really really plead for this feature to
get *re*implemented.

In Windows XP and Server 2003, Microsoft clearly removed the ability to
search across _selected_ drives using the built-in search tool. As a
long-time Windows 2000 user - who was eventually recently forced to
upgrade due to my MP3 player having XP or higher as a requirement - I do
miss this feature to the extreme.

I mean, if you have games on D:, and your work stuff on C: and E:, and
you want to search C _and_ E (not C _to_ E), you were formerly able to
type in Windows 2000:

C:;E:

which means that you will SKIP the D: drive during search.
This is not allowed anymore in XP "Search Companion" ('C:;E: is not a
valid folder'), and I really hate that.
To call this poor excuse of a search tool "Search Companion" is another
good joke.
Finding strings in binary files worked way better too in 2000, while XP
would only be able to give useful results with half of the files in
question (if at all).

So my question: is this planned to get reimplemented in Vista?
I strongly hope so, as @Microsoft: it is a real ridiculous thing to
require EXTERNAL software to search in selected drives since the
software does not allow it anymore! (but definitely did before)
Click to expand...

Yup that is in Windows Vista.

Search -> Advanced Search -> Location -> Choose search locations, you can
then check the drives you want, network locations etc.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/
Get ready for Windows Vista: http://www.windowsvista.com/getready/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*
 
Andreas said:
I mean, if you have games on D:, and your work stuff on C: and E:, and
you want to search C _and_ E (not C _to_ E), you were formerly able to
type in Windows 2000:

C:;E:
Click to expand...

Try searching the following path (in Windows XP):

C:\;E:\

It works fine here. I just used it to search for files on my E: and H:
drives and it found the files there without any of my other drives.

HTH,
 
Back
Top