search function malfunctioning

[Greg]

I have a large number of messages in my inbox. Some were imported from
previous XP version on another machine. Now running Vista and Office Outlook
2007. Outlook search function has just ceased to do what it should. It only
searches and returns results from a very small number of messages in the
Inbox (like about the last week or so), instead of the whole lot. This is
very annoying as I can no longer easily find old emails with forgotten
passwords, etc when I need them without manually scrolling through hundreds
of emails.

I remember a similar bug happening in a previous incarnation of Windows
(98?), and it had something to do with Outlook not really deleting deleted
and archived messages from the inbox file, but just pretending it had, and I
had to open it in a word processor and edit the file to get it to work. Is
this the same bug re-appearing?

 

[TechieBird]

Do you have Exchange admin tools installed by any chance? If so, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927676 - I followed the instructions in there
and everything has been fine since.

If you're running Outlook with elevated privileges, look at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923937.

Or it could just be that the indexing has got stuck. Go to Control Panel >
Indexing Options > Advanced to rebuild it. (Best to do this before you leave
for the day as it will leave you without instant search across the whole of
Vista for a while though.)

 

[Greg]

Do you have Exchange admin tools installed by any chance? If so, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927676 - I followed the instructions in
there
and everything has been fine since.

Thanks for replying. No I don't even know what Exchange admin tools is.

If you're running Outlook with elevated privileges, look at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923937.

1. This page says it applies to Vista Business, Vista Enterprise & Vista
Ultimate. I am running Vista Home Premium
2. I do not wish to use UAC. I seem to remember reading several suggested
fixes for one of the other 500 or so known bugs in Vista that recommend
turning UAC OFF to fix them! And why should I have to log on as someone not
the administrator to fix a problem. And I don't want any more than one user
account. When UAC is turned on it just keeps asking stupid questions all the
time, denying permissions, and being generally paranoid and annoying about
everything. I want an OS that does as I tell it, not one that tells me I've
been a naughty boy and can't do that all the time.
3. The cause of the problem as stated on this page would imply that you
should have this problem from the start. I didn't. It was working perfectly
until recently, and I suspect the cause is simply that my inbox has reached
a certain size, because I know there was a similar problem in an earlier
version of Outlook whereby once it got over a certain size it couldn't
handle it. In the end I suspect I may have to make a copy and delete the
entire pst file and start over to get rid of it.

Or it could just be that the indexing has got stuck. Go to Control Panel
Indexing Options > Advanced to rebuild it. (Best to do this before you
leave
for the day as it will leave you without instant search across the whole
of
Vista for a while though.)

Yes I am trying that now, thanks for the suggestion. It is very slow - so
far has taken about ten minutes to index a thousand items! Will post again
if it works (but I doubt it will - I suspect it is an Outlook only problem).

Thanks for the help.

 

[Greg]

Further to above reply:

Or it could just be that the indexing has got stuck. Go to Control Panel
Indexing Options > Advanced to rebuild it. (Best to do this before you
leave
for the day as it will leave you without instant search across the whole
of
Vista for a while though.)
--

I have done this, but it has only partially fixed it. It does now appear to
search at least back to the start of the inbox (which is only the start of
this year since I moved earlier messages to another folder when this problem
started). But when you do a search you get the message "search result may be
incomplete because items are still being indexed. Click here for more." When
you do you are told "Outlook is now indexing your items" (even though it is
not!) and "search result may be incomplete because items are still being
indexed...2054 items remaining in Personal Folders, 2055 items remaining
across all open mailboxes." I get this message even though the Control Panel
indexing program said it was complete and I have since rebooted the machine.

Should I move the older emails that I removed from the Inbox back into it
and run the indexer again?

 

[TechieBird]

Difficult to say to be honest... unless someone else has had this specific
problem and can post their experience, I'd suggest removing the additional
PST(s) from the index options, possibly consider re-indexing again tonight,
then see if that completes successfully. Hopefully that should run OK (and
show that it's complete) then you can add back the other location(s). If the
problem seems to always occur with a specific PST, consider running SCANPST
against that (but make sure you take a backup copy first) then try it again.

WDS on WinXP (which provides similar functionality) is known to stick during
Indexing if it finds a corrupt attachment in a mailbox or a corrupt index in
a PST, so my reasoning is that you may be seeing a similar thing here.