"Search" tool doesn't find files, even after indexing

[Anonymous User]

Original User: DeSchlong

I'm having trouble getting the search tool (eg., the tab in ArcCatalog) to find my geodatabase features and geodatabase features within feature datasets. I've followed the instructions carefully for correct usage of the search tool, including indexing my folders which contain my data.  However, the search tool continues to not find all geographic data.

For example, if I look for the term "*shp*", successfully finds all kinds of Shapefiles, as well as .xml or .txt files with "shp" in the path or file name.  But, (using a different search term, of course) it does not find any kinds of features located within geodatabases (although it will locate the geodatabase file name).

Also, do we know where ArcGIS hides the index file it builds?  I'd like to investigate as I have some suspicions.

[Anonymous User]

Original User: DeSchlong

All of my GIS files are also located on a network.  Windows sees this as a "Local" drive provided it's mapped to a drive letter (usually the case - like G:, P:, S:, etc). I looked at all the ways I could to try to fix this (including indexing, then seeing where these index files are put, and trying to figure out if this is in the correct place).  All I can say is that it seems to be an internal setting (possibly something in the registry), and that a repair of the installation did fix the problem.  I can't offer any other solutions to the problem because I spent a considerable amount of time (read: $) looking, and didn't find anything. Out of exasperation I was prepared to nuke and pave the installation, but then I saw the 'repair' feature and tried that first.