[Solved-Workaround] Windows indexing problem

[Vitesse]

I first noticed this a few months ago but put it down to a failing hard disk on my W7 machine. However, I'm now on a new W8.1 laptop with a clean install of OpenOffice and the problem persists.

I have a large folder, which is an ongoing project containing about 45 .odt text files, mostly with some illustrations, each created in OpenOffice and duplicated into Word using MultiSave (so about 90 altogether). I always edit the OO versions and then save, but in recent months some of the OO files seem to be getting excluded from Windows search after I edit them - although the Word versions are indexed.

I've worked on one particular document, since it contains two words which occur nowhere else in the text.

First, I tried adding another unique word to the end of the document and saved it as normal via MultiSave. Windows search found it in the Word version, but not the OO version.

2 Then I tried copy/pasting the whole document from the OO version into a new .odt document and saving as .odt. Again, Windows didn't find the words. Saved via MultiSave - Windows found them in the .doc version.

3 Next, I opened the .doc version in OO and saved it as an .odt document. Windows still didn't index it.

4 I opened the .doc version in Word Viewer and copy/pasted into a new .odt document. However this was at the expense of a lot of formatting - and it didn't copy over the illustrations either, although it did import the captions. Finally, Windows search indexed it!

Any guesses as to what's going on? A fix? I know Windows 8.1 search has a bit of a reputation for being flaky, but this definitely started under Windows 7. The particular document I worked on was almost certainly originally created in one or other version of OO 3, if that gives anyone any ideas.

[Vitesse]

And further to the above, I've tried installing Everything Search, which is claimed to be better than Windows' own and builds its own index on installation. That didn't find the .odt version either! So - something seems to be blocking searches of some of my .odt files.

One other detail, these files are backed up to the Copy website.

[RusselB]

The open document format used by Open Office (and the preferred method of saving), is a compressed file format, similar to that of a .rar or .zip file
I don't have Windows 8.1 so I don't know if there's a way to configure it to allow searching of compressed files for specific text.
The .doc files are not in compressed format, thus searching them is not a problem for Windows (from 3.1 on)

This is just a guess as to what is actually happening. I encounter the same problem when searching a compressed drive.

I am unfamiliar with Everything Search, so you might want to check the settings options (presuming there are some) and see if there's an option to check inside compressed files.

[Vitesse]

Everything Search can search compressed files - either separately or as part of a general search.

Both Everything Search and Windows can find the original .odt file by title. But neither of them can find any of its content. They also can't find any of the content of the copied .odt file - or the one which I created by copy/pasting from the original. Both those are in a separate location.

[Vitesse]

This gets weirder. If I edit the .odt versions of these documents and then close them, they aren't listed under 'recent documents' in the File menu. But if I edit the the .doc version in Open Office, save as .doc and then close it, that does show up in the File menu.

[eremmel]

You might check out this thread. It contains info how to examine how, what and via windows searches

[Vitesse]

Thanks eremmel. I took the easy way out and installed Copernic. It didn't initially find any of the files in Copy at all and I had to point it to them and add the folder manually - all now working and indexed. Although not in Windows, which still can still only consistently find .doc files in it!

[eremmel]

With my current W7 64bit install and LO 4.2.8.2 and Filterpack of MSO 2010, I can only let Windows Search work with IFilter from IFilterShop. All others do not work correctly (see here for the download link. Note however that you need to apply a patch in registry to make it work on 64-bit, at least in 2012).