• You may need to install fast searching on the computer you are searching.

  How?

  From the Windows Control Panel, reinstall Office using Add/Remove Programs, and, in Office setup, do the following:

  1. Choose Add or Remove Features and click Next.

  2. Click the expand indicator   next to Office Tools.

  3. Click the icon next to Support for fast searching, and then choose Run from My Computer.

  Note  After support for fast searching is installed, fast searching is enabled by default.

• Fast searching may be disabled on the computer you are searching.

  On Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition

  1. In the Basic Search task pane, click Search options.
  2. In the Indexing Service Settings dialog box, click Yes, enable Indexing Service.

  On Windows 2000

  For help on enabling or disabling the index on Windows 2000:

  1. On the Windows Start menu, click Search, and choose For Files or Folders.
  2. In the Windows Search task pane, under Search Options, click Indexing Service, and then click Help.

You cannot save search queries in Microsoft Office XP. However, the Search task pane will display your most recent query.

The current search may specify the correct location of the file, but other criteria might exclude the file you're looking for. Try the following:

• Reenter search criteria in the Advanced Search task pane.

• Make sure all files are included in the search. In the Results should be box, click Anything.

• Make sure subfolders are included in the search. In the Search in box, click Everywhere, or review your folder selections.

• Make sure the file type you are searching for isn't hidden. To learn how to display all files, including those with extensions such as .dll and .sys, see Windows Help.

The index may be out of date on the computer you are searching.

On Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition

On Windows 2000

Not all types of Web folders support searching from Office. However, if your Web folder is a SharePoint team Web site, based on SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft, on your local network, or is on a Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, or points to a file share where Indexing Service is installed, you can search it.

You may have a previous version of Microsoft Outlook. Office searching will search mailboxes only if you are running Outlook 2002.

If you are searching for a Microsoft Office file, such as a Microsoft Word or Excel file, make sure the Office file type you want is selected in the Results should be field of the Search task pane. To search for a file type not listed, click Anything.

Here are some things to keep in mind to improve your results with natural language searching:

• Are you searching a public folder? Natural language searching is not supported in Outlook public folders.

• Is your natural language search text ambiguous? For example, in a search it may be unclear whether "Monday" is a person's last name or a day.

• Outlook may not know some things that you expect it to. For instance, the following search text fails because Outlook does not keep track of team roles: "All mail from my manager."

• You may be including "and" or "or" in your query in a way that is not supported. For example, the following query will work: "E-mail from Emma or Bob." The following query will not work: "E-mail from Wei or about sales forecasts."  In general, use "or" or "and" to separate possible values of a field.

• You may be including "not" in your natural language search in a way that is not supported. "Not" is only recommended in a natural language search when it is part of a property name, as in "All e-mail items that are not read." Natural language search does not work well on general "not" clauses, such as "E-mail not from Marie."