XP file search can't find files that have "O" attribute

[Eric]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

The file search feature of Windows Explorer (or XP shell) consistently can't
find some files that obviously exist. There are two distinguishing features
of the files that are missed, as far as I can tell:

1) An attribute of "O" (whatever that means) is listed in the attributes
column of Windows Explorer
2) Their icons (under Windows Explorer) have an overlay that looks somewhat
like a white clock on a black background, but maybe it's supposed to be
something else (see attached). In any case, it's the overlay in shell32.dll
that immediately follows the icon overlay for shortcuts.

Only text and document files seem to be affected. (Binary files don't seem
to get the weird attribute and icon overlay, and I can always search for
them, AFAIK.) The file properties box looks the same as for any other files
and the "For fast searching ..." advanced property is enabled for the files.
(I'm just searching by filename instead of trying to search inside the
files, so I don't know why file indexing should matter, but since only text
and document files are affected, maybe it is relevant.) The shell search
tool can't even find the files just searching for a filename of "*.*", but
using DIR finds the files (and doesn't list any unusual attributes). If I
copy the file, there is no problem finding the copy of the file (which
doesn't inherit the "O" attribute or the clock-like icon overlay).

The "O" attributes appeared suddenly several months ago on a bunch of files
(for unknown reasons). Since then, I haven't noticed new files getting
those attributes, but the files that got those attributes keep them (and
aren't found in any searches).

I'm guessing that the file indexing catalog(s) might be corrupt. (But the
problem affects filename-only searches, so maybe that's not relevant.)
Unfortunately, I can't read all of the help file
(D:\WINDOWS\Help\isconcepts.chm), which is displayed if I click on "Learn
more about Indexing Services". For example if I go to the "Error Detection
and Recovery" topic, there are various links that have properties like:
"mkMSITStore:\WINDOWS\Help\isconcepts.chm::/ISMain-concepts_27.htm#",
but nothing happens when I click on them. (It acts like the Office 2000
help files do after an Office 2000 security "fix" disabled many of the
features of the Office help system.) Therefore I don't know what to do
even if it is corrupt. In any case, disabling the indexing service doesn't
seem to help.

Other information: I'm running Windows XP home, Service Pack 2, all
critical updates. Firefox is my default web browser, but I have Internet
Explorer 6, Office 2000 Professional, Outlook Express, MSN Messenger, Google
Desktop Search, Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, and Trend Micro PC-cillin
installed, plus other software that hopefully is less likely to be relevant
also installed on my system. I've hopefully removed McAfee (sp?) antivirus
and firewall successfully (easier said than done), and never had any viruses
/ pests cause any damage (knock on wood!), but I've played around enough
with the system to have probably screwed it up I plenty of ways I don't know
about.

I would appreciate any help with this. I've been beating my brains against
this one. Unfortunately, the keywords "clock" or "O" (which are the only
unique keywords that I can think of to describe the problem files) aren't
very useful, so I really haven't been able to figure out what's going on.
I'm just guessing that it is the indexing service, somehow.

Eric



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end

 

[Guest]

Sounds like indexing from MS Onenote;

Googling for Atttibute "O" turns up that it's supposed to mean "offline," for when files have be copied from a network resource to a local drive. Or so google says. However, I found these files on a Network drive. That doesn't mean they weren't copied there from another remote network location, but they definitely weren't a "local" drive.

Anyway, one thing is for sure, the Icon is OneNote's icon, and onenote, like windows search and outlook, will index a directory and watch the attribute for changes.

For me, it was screwing me up as I had thousands of text files that a program was chocking on reading (although as soon as I opened it notepad and closed it, it was OK). That change the file attributes to archive.

I used the attrib command (after mapping a drive) attirb +A *.txt, in my case. That worked but then I looked at attib /?, and found that I probably should have used, attrib -I *.txt or perhaps attrib +I *.txt (I = Not content indexed file attribute.)

 

[Guest]

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