The Search task paneYou can use the Search command in Microsoft Office programs to find files on your computer hard disk, your local network, your Microsoft Outlook mailbox, and on your Network Places. You can also find e-mail messages, meetings, and other information in your Outlook mailbox. The Search feature provides two methods of finding files — basic search and advanced search.
The basic Search feature is the most comprehensive way to look for files, Outlook items, and Web pages. You can look for files by specifying text that is in the title or the contents, or by the file's properties. You can also specify where to look for files.
The Advanced Search feature is more specific. You use it to look for files based on their properties. You do this by creating queries. An example of a query is "author equals(only) John." This specifies that the files you are searching for should contain only the text "John" as the author property.
The Search task pane
To open the Search task pane, click Search 
.
In the Search task pane, you can use the arrows at the top to switch between a search and its results.
If you search for files of all types in Microsoft Word, and you open an Excel spreadsheet from the search results list, the search results are also displayed in the Excel Search task pane.
Viewing search results
When you start a search, the Search task pane lists the names of files it finds. Files are displayed separately by location — your computer, your mailbox, and your network places.
In the Results list, you can select the following options:
Basic tips for searching for a file or folder
The following tips will help you get the best results when you're looking for files.
In the Search text field, you enter one or more words. Basic search returns files that contain these words, whether they are in the body of the file, in keywords, or in other file properties. The more words that you enter in the Search text field, the more specific your search.
Basic search finds files that contain various forms of the words you enter in the Search text field. For example, if you look for "swim", Basic Search finds any documents that contain "swim," "swimming," or "swam." Basic Search uses word forms only if you are searching in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, or Swedish documents.
You can use wildcard characters in when you use Basic Search:
- The asterisk character "*" represents any group of one or more characters. For example, if you enter "s*nd", Basic Search finds any documents that contain "sand," "sound," or "send."
- The question mark character "?" represents any single character. For example, if you enter "f?nd" , Basic Search finds any documents containing "find" or "fund," but would not find documents containing "friend."
When you use basic search to look for items in your Outlook mailbox, you can use natural language in your search text. In natural language search, you formulate searches by using conversational phrases such as "Find all messages sent yesterday." You can use natural language search to find e-mail messages, calendar items, contacts, tasks, and notes. Natural language search is only supported in English versions of Office XP.
Before you search, you must specify at least one location in the Search in field. If you know exactly which folder or Internet address you want to look in, enter the name of the folder or the Internet address.
To search across multiple folders or network places, use the Search In list to specify where to search:
- My Computer contains all the drives and folders on your computer. Selecting a folder automatically selects all sub-folders.
- My Network Places contains all the network places that you use. Note that some network places do not support searching, and some only support searching of document libraries.
- Outlook contains all your messages, appointments, contacts, tasks and other information stored in Outlook. If you only want specific types of Outlook items, such as tasks, or E-mail messages, you specify them in the Results should be field.
You specify the types of files to find in the Results should be field. You cannot enter a file-type directly into this field. Use the Results should be list to specify the types of files to search for:
- Anything specifies the broadest set of file types, including file types unfamiliar to Office.
- Office Files specifies Microsoft Office documents. You can narrow the search by selecting specific Office applications.
- Outlook Items specifies e-mail messages, calendar items, contacts, tasks, notes, and journal entries.
- Web Pages specifies Web page (.htm or .html), Web archive (.mhtml), and other Web page related formats (.mht and .asp).
Speeding up search with fast searching
Fast searching extracts information from files and organizes it in a way that makes the files quicker and easier to find when you use the Search feature. The fast searching index is always up to date because it is built whenever your computer is idle.
In Microsoft Windows 2000, fast searching uses the built-in Windows 2000 Indexing Service. On other Windows platforms, you can install a similar indexing service, Support For Fast Searching, during Office setup. When you install fast searching support on Windows 98 and Windows NT, Office automatically builds an index.
If you're running Office on Windows 2000, you enable fast searching support from the Windows Search task pane. On Windows 98 and Windows NT, you enable it from the Basic Searching task pane.
The Basic Search task pane displays a note if fast searching is not installed. If fast searching is installed, its status — enabled or disabled — is displayed.
Along with enabling and disabling fast searching, you can specify how often to build the index and which files and folders to include in the index. You can also pause and restart the indexing process. Note that only administrators can configure Indexing Service on Windows 2000.
Building more complex searches using conditions and values
Conditions are limitations you set on the value of a file property in an advanced Search to make it more specific. Each type of property has a set of relevant conditions that advanced Search displays automatically. For example, if the property is a date, advanced search displays, among others, the following condition choices: "today," "tomorrow," "yesterday."
Some conditions do not require a value following them. In the example "Last Modified yesterday," no additional value is needed because the condition "yesterday" gives advanced search all the necessary information.
Some conditions do require a value following them. For example, the condition "equals" always requires a value following it, which you provide when you configure the search.
Searching from the Open dialog box
You can search for a file using Basic Search or Advanced Search while when you are in the Open dialog box. As with the Search task pane, results are displayed separately by location. In addition to opening a file, you can view its properties.