Search a bit confusing versus 2003, but maybe just us confused!

[Greg Gates]

We use Outlook as a mission critical tool for running our business. 100% of
our sales are via e-commerce. 98% of our customer communication is via
e-mail versus phone. So Outlook is a tool for processing new orders and
follow up to fulfill orders. We have grown from nothing to a just short of a
million (annually 2005) with Outlook and Front Page. And we should crack a
million this year. We could not have done it without Outlook and Front Page.

So the Outlook "search function" in Outlook is a tool we use many times each
day to make sure we find information from various main folders with sub
folders representing different functions of our process.

Using 2007 for the last few days, we are finding the search function a bit
confusing versus 2003. We used to be able to right click on a folder and
search it as well as all the sub folders beneath it. That function does
not seem to exist in 2007. Then when we go to "advance search" and highlight
a "main" folder, then "browse", even checking off the box for searching sub
folders does not activate searching of the sub folders below the one that we
highlighted. (ie the sub folders check off boxes do not show an "x" in them
as it did with 2003.

Is there something we need to do to have the search function work like we
require? Or is the information there, and we just have not found it yet?

2007 Outlook is still a great product, nice job. We just have to figure out
a few things.

Bottom-line for our suggestion:

You need a really good description of how the search function works as
compared to 2003 (if it is a bit different and it is not just this old fart
baby boomer being confused).


--
Greg Gates
Co founder
www.ringdesigner.com


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[Roady [MVP]]

How about using the Search funtion directly above your default message
store?

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
"Greg Gates" <greg AT ringdesigner.com> wrote in message
We use Outlook as a mission critical tool for running our business. 100% of
our sales are via e-commerce. 98% of our customer communication is via
e-mail versus phone. So Outlook is a tool for processing new orders and
follow up to fulfill orders. We have grown from nothing to a just short of
a
million (annually 2005) with Outlook and Front Page. And we should crack a
million this year. We could not have done it without Outlook and Front
Page.

So the Outlook "search function" in Outlook is a tool we use many times each
day to make sure we find information from various main folders with sub
folders representing different functions of our process.

Using 2007 for the last few days, we are finding the search function a bit
confusing versus 2003. We used to be able to right click on a folder and
search it as well as all the sub folders beneath it. That function does
not seem to exist in 2007. Then when we go to "advance search" and
highlight
a "main" folder, then "browse", even checking off the box for searching sub
folders does not activate searching of the sub folders below the one that we
highlighted. (ie the sub folders check off boxes do not show an "x" in them
as it did with 2003.

Is there something we need to do to have the search function work like we
require? Or is the information there, and we just have not found it yet?

2007 Outlook is still a great product, nice job. We just have to figure out
a few things.

Bottom-line for our suggestion:

You need a really good description of how the search function works as
compared to 2003 (if it is a bit different and it is not just this old fart
baby boomer being confused).

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Greg,

I think you might like the Search Folders feature. If you scroll down
the folder list in the navigation pane, you should see Search Folders at
the bottom of the folder list (it is there for every account you have in
Outlook).
Right-click it and select New Search Folder. In the dialog that pops up,
select the last entry: Create a custom search folder. In the dialog that
opens then, specify a name for the search folder and click on browse.
Select the topmost folder you want to search. For example if you want to
run a search across all folders in your PST, select Personal Folders (it
will only show you the folders from the account you right-clicked on
search folders). Make sure search subfolders is checked.
Once the search folder is created, click on it. It might take quite some
time when you do this the first time for the search folder to be
populated with mail items. From my personal experience using this with
my 1 GB IMAP account, any subsequent time is really fast. When you
switch to such a search folder (easiest done by adding it to your
favorite folders), you can now search for any term in all of them at
once.
Using search folders, you can create some for all the different groups
of folders you need and search that way. I have one search folder that
includes my entire email account and search in that. Otherwise, I am
happy with the per-folder search only.
I just wanted to point out that you can also change how the search field
works in Outlook. Via Tools, Options, Search Options, you can tell
Outlook to always search all folders instead of just the current one.

I hope this helps.

Patrick Schmid