Why does the Search function in XP not show all files?

Hi everyone,
Thanks for the nice forum. This is my first post. Anyway - does anyone know why the search function in the start menu won't list all the files? I'm running XP. I told it to search for all files and folders in both C drive and "My Computer" with my keywords anywhere in the text. I told it to search system and hidden files and additionally made sure the program and windows files in c drive were not listed as hidden anyway. Thing is, with ME when I did this it showed my the actual file in question, plus an enormous .dat file I figured out must be the search function itself looking for my keywords, plus two shortcuts I figured had to do with memory/disk cache and MS Word's cache (it was a word program.) Now, trying it on XP I can only see the actual file. I liked the extra info, because it helped me see how the computer thinks and where stuff gets saved. In case it matters, this time it was a wordpad file (no longer have word), but I figure I should still get to see the .dat file and the non-word cache file. Being able to see my computer "think" was helping me learn about it, and I don't like the idea that it's not displaying stuff I know must be there, as if I don't need to see it. (It did offer a choice of animated characters to watch while it searched though rolleyes) Thanks!

 

Hi DomLuc,
Thanks for your reply. I understand that the function isn't broken. I asked my question out of curiousity about how the computer works. What I'm trying to understand is if this extra information is not there because XP doesn't do things the same way, or because they figured I don't need to see it and are making it inaccessible. If they are simply making it inaccessible I'd like to know how to view the information. If XP operates differently, in what ways? Does the lack of a cache related file mean it isn't creating a "most recently accessed files" cache like older systems did? Does the absence of the .dat file mean it no longer needs to create a huge file in this manner to conduct the search? I did tell it to search hidden files and additionally unhid the system files, but got the same result.
Thanks again!

 

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