Classic Shell: Forum

I am using Windows 8.1. Using the Classic Shell search box, typing *.doc (in an effort to show ALL MS Word files of the pre-2007 format), the search results come up as "No items match your search". However, using the Metro search, the same wildcard search correctly displays all of my files with the .doc extension. Oddly, the Classic Shell Search will, in fact, find all files with the extension *.docx (just not the older .doc format)

In addition, when performing a wildcard search of *.pdf, only ONE document is shown, whereby you must click on "See more results" in order to see anything other than just the very first *.pdf document. The Metro Search, however, correctly displays all Acrobat files.

Please advise. I suspect the answer lies in how the Classic Shell Search derives its results.

Thanks folks.

ML

Let's do some logging

Open regedit and go to HKCU\Software\IvoSoft\ClassicStartMenu\Settings
Create a new DWORD value named "LogLevel" and set it to 8
Log out and log in
Open Explorer to this folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClassicShell
Copy the text *.pdf in the Clipboard (for example type it in Notepad and copy it)
Open the start menu and paste the text
Wait for the search to finish
Look in the ClassicShell folder you have in Explorer for a file named StartMenuLog.txt. You may have to refresh the window
Immediately rename it to something else, like for example StartMenuLog1.txt

Send me that file

Besides the logging steps Ivo mentioned, if you can answer:
- Are any of these DOC or PDF files located on the Network? What is the folder/directory path where these files are located?
- Is the folder location where these documents are located added to the Documents Library or to Indexing Options Control Panel? Are they indexed? Metro search may be searching them even if they are not indexed. The Start Menu does not have this ability.
- Have you tried selecting the "Files" or "Documents" header and pressing Enter to see if more documents are shown?

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Mr. Beltchev - A pleasure. Attached are two files (<<files deleted 11:16 on July 30, 2015 >>): one for a search for DOC files and another for a search for PDF files. I found the results promising; the question is why the initial search box isn't showing the first 30 or so of these files.

GuaravK - In answer to your questions:



>>>As you can see from the log files, all of them are in my local Dropbox folder on my hard drive: c\Users\Username\Dropbox. But for a lark, I copied two of the .DOC files to my desktop, and the ClassicShell Search box still couldn't find them.



>> The local Dropbox is indeed a search location in Indexing Options (that was actually the first thing I checked). As it happens, the entire Users directory is indexed, except for the Appdata directories. I also rebuilt the index twice.



>>Not sure I understand your question, but if you're asking whether "See more results" works, it indeed does for *.PDF, but for *.DOC it just shows EVERY file on my harddrive that is indexed (tens of thousands of random files).

Thanks folks.

Thanks for the reply. So it seems they are indexed correctly. About the third question, I meant that you can expand the category by clicking on the horizontal line of the category or by pressing Enter (see the screenshot). Is there a chance that in case of PDF files, it's not on the top most search results but expanding the category is showing them?

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Yes, that works for the *.pdf search (it has a category called "Files 16,353"), which is openable in a window that says "Search Results in CLSID_StartMenuProviderFolder". The resulting file count is similar, but not equivalent, to the file count yielded by clicking on "See more results", which has about 1,500 or so more files.

However, regarding a search for *.doc in the Classic Shell Search, no such categories appear.

Looks like it found 11217 files. Maybe they are mix of .doc and .docx and even files that have .doc in the contents. To filter just the doc files, use ".doc" (with the quotes).
Also to search for file names only, uncheck the "Search contents" setting.

A search of ".doc" while keeping the "Search contents" checked yields nothing. However, a search of ".doc" while the "Search contents" is UNchecked yields a category called "Files 11,778", which from a cursory view seems to yield .doc files and any file with the phrase "doc" in the title.

That's certainly not a bad ad-hoc tweak, but I certainly still need the ability to search within files for certain strings, and at 3AM in the morning with a few shots of single malt in me, regrettably I don't think I would remember to uncheck the "Search contents" option if I only wanted to search for .doc files.

Thanks for your prompt responses thus far.