Windows' Ease of Access settings can go awry

[Tracey Capen]

LANGALIST PLUS Windows' Ease of Access settings can go awry By Fred Langa Windows' numerous ease-of-use settings are meant to help — but sometimes they backfire. Accidentally triggering an assistive-technology setting can leave you wondering why Windows reacts to commands in a puzzling way. The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/02/03/05 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab). Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

[whfmcck]

Doesn't search Thunderbird v3.
Try it, and let us know how you did it.

[EricM]

Re: "Google Searches Everything"

On my Vista (fully updated) machine Google Desktop does a terrible job of searching. If I don't check the box to "display results in browser", it displays one screen of about 20 results, with NO way to go to any additional page. For example, when I search for "the" (which must occur thousands of times in files on my set of ~7 TB of drive space), it reports on 100 hits and reports "1-100 of 3(0.49S)".

And if I do check the box to "display results in browser", it searches the web instead of my own PC, and gives me no choice.

I have been a Windows Secrets subscriber for several years, and this is the first time I have encountered a recommendation for software that just plain doesn't do what it should. I can't begin to imagine how anyone can find this of any use at all. The fact that some people do suggests that I am doing something wrong, but finding information about how to do anything differently is overly challenging.

I'll stick to "Everything" for all filename searches and "grep" for everything else.

[whfmcck]

Try it Fred.
Contrary to what you said in your column (#275), Google Desktop (v5.9.1005.12335-en-pb) does not index Thunderbird (v3.1.7) messages. Not sure why, but I have had to reinstall the old Thunderbird v2 (several years old) to get the latest Desktop to index E-Mail messages in v2.

Let us know how you do it; i.e., index/search Thunderbird with the Google Desktop.
thanx

[jconverse]

I too am very disappointed in Google Desktop's not being able to index Thunderbird 3 messages. This is the first recommendation from you that has not worked out well for me.

Thanks............

[northwood2222]

Re UPHClean - the MS TechNet note and the associated Blog seem to indicate that this tool is about overcoming shutdowns that hang, rather than making shutdowns faster.

Can anyone confirm that it actually speeds up shutdowns that maybe take a few minutes.

Its beta code, development has stopped and the MS blog warns that it may cause XP to crash, it which case its recommended that it be uninstalled

So I'm a bit hesitant to use it, especially on other folks machines.

Thanks

[JoeP517]

Re UPHClean - the MS TechNet note and the associated Blog seem to indicate that this tool is about overcoming shutdowns that hang, rather than making shutdowns faster.

Can anyone confirm that it actually speeds up shutdowns that maybe take a few minutes.

Its beta code, development has stopped and the MS blog warns that it may cause XP to crash, it which case its recommended that it be uninstalled

So I'm a bit hesitant to use it, especially on other folks machines.

Thanks

I have seen UPHclean help on XP systems. However, there is no generic answer for whether or not UPHclean speeds up a slow shutdown. You need to do the detective work to determine the cause of the slowness.

Only version 2.0 was in beta. Version 1.6g is quite stable. Remember that UPHclean is not needed for any desktop OS newer than XP and any server OS newer than Win2003.

Have you checked the Event Logs?

Joe

[northwood2222]

Have you checked the Event Logs?

No I've not looked there, wouldn't know what to look out for ?

I've found that if I close all programs manually, including those in the tray (Skype, Stickies, AV Scanners etc), AND "safe remove" my USB drives, then ShutDown times are very much faster. But sisters, mothers, grandfathers, friends etc don't want to do that - they want "light switch like" behaviour

I might install it on a couple of XP systems to see if it helps, if it doesn't then I'll get rid of it. Thanks for the info re version 1.6g, I'll probably use that one.

thanks nw2222

[jpl]

Google Desktop Search is not for everyone. A friend had many problems with it because he had hit the size limit for the search database.

For several years I used Copernic Desktop Search, originally following a recommendation in Woody's Office Watch, I think. I switched to Windows Search on installing Outlook Social Connector last year.

It would be great to need only one search tool, but I find I need three:

1. Nothing can beat Everything if you known the file name, or a sufficiently unique part of it.

2. For years I was frustrated by the way Windows Explorer Search (Search Companion) works. For various file types, (e.g. program config files, XML and HTML), it just doesn't work for particular types of content.
For example, if an HTML file contains <p class="fred">rhubarb</p>, Explorer Search will find rhubarb, but not fred. The distinction appears to be that when the file is displayed in the normal way for that file type, rhubarb is displayed, but fred is not because it is just part of a tag. If the file is renamed to .txt, fred is found too.

This behaviour would be fine - indeed expected - for a document or "desktop" search program, but surely not for a file system utility like Explorer Search.

The strangely named Agent Ransack meets this search need.

3. Windows Search 4

[northwood2222]

For example, if an HTML file contains <p class="fred">rhubarb</p>, Explorer Search will find rhubarb, but not fred. The distinction appears to be that when the file is displayed in the normal way for that file type, rhubarb is displayed, but fred is not because it is just part of a tag. If the file is renamed to .txt, fred is found too.

This behaviour would be fine - indeed expected - for a document or "desktop" search program, but surely not for a file system utility like Explorer Search.

I'm assuming you are on XP.

If you're running the Windows Indexing Service then Windows Explorer Search Companion (WESC) will search the folder & file names AND the contents of files. The results of content search depends on what indexing filters are installed and what filters are are applied to different file types. I'm fairly certain that there are different filters for .html and .txt files, so that explains the different behaviours, you can change the filter used for each file type in the search settings advanced dialogues.

I have a vague memory that WESC can be configured not to search contents, my XP system is not here at the moment, If that's true then that could be another alternative for you. But that would just make WESC an alternative to Everything.

If you're using Agent Ransack for content searches then assuming it doesn't use the Windows Indexing Service then you could consider removing the service from your startup.

However,

3. Windows Search 4

If you use Windows Desktop Search 4 then you must retain the Windows Indexing service in your start up.

cheers NW2222

[cyraxote]

I found a few years ago that Google Desktop would only index Word documents if they had the .doc extension, whereas Copernic will index anything. I don't know if Google has fixed that oversight, but it would be nice.