strange windows search problem - please help

vista enterprise 32bit SP2. outlook 2007

since a couple of days I do have a strange behaviour of windows search.
indexing and searching work actually. a week ago, everything still
worked fine. not sure what i have changed in between...

symptoms:
- searching within outlook will work fine, as expected.
- searching over start menu will not produce search results from outlook
(E-Mail), but only from filesystem
- searching via WIN-f shortcut, search patterns entered in there will
not produce any search results whan "Show only:" is set to "All" or
"E-Mail" or "Other"(--> No items match your search). however, it WILL
produce search results with either "Document", "Picture" or "Music"
selected.
- in Advanced Search menu, "Location is set to "Indexed Location". If I
change that to i.e. Outlook, it will find results from Outlook again.
- I have reset the search index several times, including disabling
outlook indexing and rebooting. I have reset the indexing to standard.
- I have also set the registry key "SetupCompletedSuccessfully" to 0 to
force re-initialization.

all that has not fixed the problem.

some observations:

- if I open the file "C:\Users\<my_USERNAME>\Searches\Indexed
Locations.search-ms", the search entered in the window opening WILL
produce search results in "All", "E-Mail" and "Other".

I would guess that the "Indexed Locations" in Advanced search is
somewhat related to that file "Indexed Locations.search-ms". it looks
almost as if the WIN-f shortcut (and the Start Menu search) are using a
wrong (?) Indexed Locations file?

any idea on how i can make the WIN-f shortcut and the Start Menu search
produce search results including E-Mail?

thanks a lot

dan

I would just disable the Windows Search crap.It's worthless,wastes memory
and slows the computer down.
"Dan" <> wrote in message
news:...
> vista enterprise 32bit SP2. outlook 2007
>
> since a couple of days I do have a strange behaviour of windows search.
> indexing and searching work actually. a week ago, everything still worked
> fine. not sure what i have changed in between...
>
> symptoms:
> - searching within outlook will work fine, as expected.
> - searching over start menu will not produce search results from outlook
> (E-Mail), but only from filesystem
> - searching via WIN-f shortcut, search patterns entered in there will not
> produce any search results whan "Show only:" is set to "All" or "E-Mail"
> or "Other"(--> No items match your search). however, it WILL produce
> search results with either "Document", "Picture" or "Music" selected.
> - in Advanced Search menu, "Location is set to "Indexed Location". If I
> change that to i.e. Outlook, it will find results from Outlook again.
> - I have reset the search index several times, including disabling outlook
> indexing and rebooting. I have reset the indexing to standard.
> - I have also set the registry key "SetupCompletedSuccessfully" to 0 to
> force re-initialization.
>
> all that has not fixed the problem.
>
> some observations:
>
> - if I open the file "C:\Users\<my_USERNAME>\Searches\Indexed
> Locations.search-ms", the search entered in the window opening WILL
> produce search results in "All", "E-Mail" and "Other".
>
> I would guess that the "Indexed Locations" in Advanced search is somewhat
> related to that file "Indexed Locations.search-ms". it looks almost as if
> the WIN-f shortcut (and the Start Menu search) are using a wrong (?)
> Indexed Locations file?
>
> any idea on how i can make the WIN-f shortcut and the Start Menu search
> produce search results including E-Mail?
>
> thanks a lot
>
> dan
>