Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Windows Search (Windows 7) IS Broken - indexer quits parsing after 39k

This post has nothing to do with PL/SQL. It's about the Windows 7 search feature called "Windows Search" The bottom line is it stops indexing text files (maybe other types too) at about the 39K mark. This is NOT a problem with my set-up or configuration of Windows Search. I know this because I created a simple text file with a  unique 10-digit number on each line. Those numbers which were towards the top of the file, say lines 1 thru 3414 (approximate, I don't recall the exact cut-off point) were properly indexed. I could type in any one of those numbers on the search bar and the proper file name which contained that number would be shown. Numbers towards the bottom of the text file, were NOT indexed. i.e. the Search erroneously found that no file contained that value.

So, you are not going mad, it's truly broken. I searched for hours trying to find a solution, maybe a registry parameter, or something, ... but nothing. There was actually a registry parameter, but it was for the old indexer on windows XP.  maxTextFilterBytes   I finally gave up on trying to find a solution and instead split my files into smaller files.

If anybody finds a solution, please let me know.


2 comments:

robsoles said...

Silly you cannot tell their system that you are happy to wait longer for more meaningful results - results are more meaningful the more complete they are imho.

Even sillier that numbers are treated (seemingly) unlikely as filenames, or any part thereof - folder full of files with mixture letters and numbers; enter a string of letters and matches are found, enter instead a few numbers and serious omissions occur. Even worse if filenames are purely numerical; I was flabbergasted when I pumped in a number I knew occurred in more than 10 different files in the 'current' folder and not one of them was displayed as a result.

I was there for at least three minutes very carefully picking through the folder (in another window) for files that should have matched my query - I imagine Bing must be worse than I have ever given it credit for, at least Google will have a go at it: https://www.google.com/?q=329 (they haven't appreciated the way I make links to potential results for a while now; just makes you hit search icon (or enter) instead of just going to results these days - at least they'll try on no more than a number...).

Oh, alright, I just checked and bing will try with a number alone - I should probably go home to my Windows 7 machine and try it again in folder search before I post this; oh, stuff it - I will even post as me :)

Hmmm, maybe I should go back through the list of 'updates' I haven't manually accepted yet for that OS too - funny, I let my Linux based machines (not production servers tho) take automatic updates without fussing them much at all really.

Anonymous said...

Howtoifixit is the best guide for different types of technologies in Miami, USA. We are one of the best experts in our field.

Labels