[OL2007] -> How to search for contacts with specific emails? <-

[Steve JORDI]

Hi,

[WinXP Pro SP2 / Outlook 2007 / No other MS Office apps]

I'm trying to search for all my contacts that have, say, an email
address containing "gmail".

I go to Contacts:
Then in the Instant Search I show the query builder so it displays
some additional field criterias.

In the "E-mail" field, I type in "gmail" (without the quotes)

It always returns "0 occurences" when I have plenty of them.

Should I use something like wildcards? I tried with "*" but nothing
works.

What is strange is that it looks like it looking up only emails
addresses STARTING with "g", then "gm", etc...

When I type in "g", it shows me contacts whose address emails are
starting by a "g" (the firstname, not the domain or anything in the
middle of the address").
So it shows "Georges@...", "Gael@...", etc.
As soon as I add the "m" of "gmail", then I have no occurences because
no-one is named "gm*".

Any clue on how to fix this?

I tried all the suggestions to "fix the search" bug in Outlook 2007,
reindexed everything, etc... but nothing helps.

Thanks for any help.

Sincerely,
Steve JORDI

(Remove the K_I_L_LSPAM from my email address)

 

[Brian Tillman]

I'm trying to search for all my contacts that have, say, an email
address containing "gmail".

I go to Contacts:
Then in the Instant Search I show the query builder so it displays
some additional field criterias.

In the "E-mail" field, I type in "gmail" (without the quotes)

It always returns "0 occurences" when I have plenty of them.

Does Advanced Find work any better?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Works fine here. No need to use the Query builder. Have you tried any of the
now well documented troubleshooting steps? Start here, realizing that
Instant Search on Win XP is problematic at best:
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/47

 

[Steve JORDI]

Works fine here. No need to use the Query builder. Have you tried any of the

now well documented troubleshooting steps? Start here, realizing that
Instant Search on Win XP is problematic at best:
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/47

Hi,
thanks for your input. Yes I did follow almost all procedures
described on MS forums and KB.
The one you point to, doesn't help.

Can you actually type in "rba" and get all "Barbara" with instant
search? I can't.
I get only selections of what is BEGINNING with what I type.
And there is no way to get a contact when typing in only parts
of an email address.

It works though with the "Advanced Find".

So that leads me to wonder "what the heck with Instant Search?"
Looks like it's less powerful and of no use.


Sincerely,
Steve JORDI

(Remove the K_I_L_LSPAM from my email address)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I wish I could answer your question definitively, but I can't. If anyone
else can, I hope they will. All I can tell you is that Instant Search has
worked flawlessly for me on Vista and always has. Over many years I have
learned that what Microsoft claims will work and what actually works are
widely divergent. Accordingly, my own personal bias is that I would never
install a version of Office on an operating system for which it was not
developed. Microsoft claims that Office 2007 is perfectly compatible with
Windows XP. I can't help but notice that Office 2007 requires a fairly major
update to Windows XP to install Instant Search. I also notice that most of
the users having problems with Instant Search are those running Windows XP.

Microsoft seems to be scrambling to release updates for Instant Search for
Windows XP. For starters, I would make sure you have the latest of their
updates and have re-indexed your PST file.

 

[Steve JORDI]

Russ,

thanks for the clarifications. I will switch to Vista anyway very soon
and will do a clean install. I got the CDs since May but still was to
busy to upgrade.

So we'll see whether it works any better with Vista.
In the meantime, I will use the Advanced Find feature.

Thanks again

Sincerely,
Steve JORDI

(Remove the K_I_L_LSPAM from my email address)

 

[HangedMan]

Steve,

Just wondering, do you have windows desktop search installed? I don't know
if or how the search feature you're using in Outlook is connected to destop
search but windows desktop search has Microsoft office outlook as one of it's
indexing locations. It seems they are independant but perhaps they share some
technology. Anyway if you don't, or if you don't have the newest version you
might try it. It's useful even if it doesn't help this situation. They are up
to v3.01 now. you can find it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/default.mspx

Also if you had it, you could try going to the indexing options and then the
advanced tab. In the advanced tab is a troubleshooting option to re-index.

You may also be interested in http://www.ifilter.org/ so you can index more
types of files.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Indeed Outlook 2007's Instant Search uses Windows Desktop search. Updating
to the latest version and re-indexing was the solution suggested in the
reference I posted.