Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit 2003
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 338
Pages: 338
Searching for files, folders, and network resources is easier in Windows XP Professional than in Windows 2000. You can perform a search from the Start menu, My Computer, My Documents, or My Network Places. As in Windows 2000, from My Network Places you can connect to shared folders, a Web folder, or an FTP site.
In Windows XP Professional, using Windows Explorer is similar to using a Web browser. Forward and Back buttons, a History folder, an Address bar, custom views, and the Search Assistant are available in Windows Explorer windows and in all windows accessed by using My Computer, My Network Places, My Documents, and the Search command on the Start menu.
When you use Windows XP Professional in a Windows 2000 Server Active Directory domain, you can search the Active Directory directory service by specifying attributes for the resource you want. For example, you can search for printers capable of printing double-sided pages. For more information about searching in an Active Directory domain, see Searching for Network Resources In an Active Directory Environment later in this chapter.
Windows XP Professional offers a number of ways to find files or folders. Each method provides access to the History folder, Search Assistant, and Indexing Service on the local computer.
Users can search for files and folders in the following ways:
On the Start menu, point to Search, and then click For Files or Folders, On the Internet, For People, or in an Active Directory domain, For Printers.
Open Windows Explorer.
Open My Documents, My Computer, or My Network Places.
The Windows XP Professional History folder integrates Web links and network shares, so users have access to their navigation history no matter where they view the History folder. Users can sort the History folder by the following categories: By Date, By Site, By Most Visited, or By Order Visited Today.
You can also select the History view from the toolbar in Windows Explorer, which tracks the history of all Web sites and documents opened. In this view you can sort by location or by date used, or search the history list, using option buttons.
Windows XP Professional allows you to map drives directly to shared subfolders on the network. In previous versions of Windows, you mapped drives to \\servername\sharename. In Windows XP Professional, you can map drives to \\servername\sharename\subsharenname.
You can use the Add Network Place wizard to connect to frequently accessed network resources. Mapped network drives do not appear in My Network Places; to view mapped drives, use My Computer or the Windows Explorer Address bar.
Indexing Service extracts information from documents on the local hard disk drive and shared drives and organizes it in a way that makes it quick and easy to access that information by using the Search Assistant, the Indexing Service query form, or a Web browser. The information can include text contained in a document (its contents), and information about the document (its properties), such as the author s name. Indexing Service automatically stores all the index information either in the system catalog or in the Web catalog.
After the index is created, users can search, or query, the index for documents that contain specified words or properties. For example, a user might run a query for all documents containing the word product or run a query for all Microsoft Office documents written by a specific author. Indexing Service returns a list of all documents that meet the search criteria.
To enable Indexing Service on a local computer
Click Start, point to Search, and then click For Files or Folders.
In the Search Results dialog box, under What do you want to search for?, click Change preferences, and then click With Indexing Service (for faster local searches).
Click Yes, enable Indexing Service.
Indexing Service is designed to run continuously and requires little maintenance. After it is set up, all operations are automatic, including index creation, index updating, and crash recovery in the event of a power failure.
When Windows XP Professional based computer is connected to a Windows 2000 Server domain that uses Active Directory, users can search the directory for resources such as computers, people, and shared folders, providing that the resource is published in Active Directory.
Active Directory contains objects, and each object is assigned specific attributes. For example, if a printer can print double-sided pages, the Active Directory administrator might specify that attribute for the printer object in Active Directory. If a user searches for printers that can print double-sided pages, the search returns all printers with that attribute. If the administrator chooses not to assign that attribute to the printer, even if it is capable of that function, the printer cannot be found by searching only for that attribute.
To help users locate resources quickly, create custom Active Directory searches and save them as query directory search (.qds) files. You can then distribute the .qds files to the workgroups or organizational units that need them.
| Warning | To search using Active Directory, your computer must be part of a Windows 2000 Server Active Directory domain. |
For more information about Active Directory, see the Distributed Systems Guide of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit.
In Windows XP Professional, as in earlier versions of Windows, users can search for computers by using NetBIOS. In an Active Directory environment, users can also search for computers using Active Directory. It is important to understand the difference between the two methods.
In a NetBIOS search, if the computer the user is searching for is logged on to the network, the user can connect to it and view its shared folders.
To search for computers using NetBIOS
Click Start, point to Search, and then click For Files or Folders.
Click the Computers link.
In an Active Directory network search, computers in the directory are represented by objects. Users can locate an object even when it is disconnected from the network. When a user double-clicks the icon representing a computer found using an Active Directory search, only the properties for that computer are displayed. Users cannot locate the actual computer and its available shares by using an Active Directory search. To access shares in an Active Directory domain, the shares must be published, and the user must know the name of the share.
To search for computers using Active Directory
In My Network Places, double-click Entire Network.
Do one of the following:
If Web View is enabled, click the entire contents link, and then double-click Directory.
If Web View is not enabled, double-click Directory.
Right-click the object representing an Active Directory domain, and then click Find.
In the Find box, click Computers.
| Note | You might need to specify an object in the In box. |
For users to access files and folders in an Active Directory domain, the Active Directory administrator must first publish them. Folders that are shared but not published do not appear in the Search Results window. If a user searches for a computer by using an Active Directory search, no shared folders that might reside on that computer are accessible or visible. To view and access shared files and folders, the user must run a NetBIOS search.
While users can use the Search Assistant in Active Directory to locate shared folders, they must specify the exact folder name. Users cannot browse a list of shared folders. To find a shared folder in Active Directory, open the Search Assistant, and in the Find box, click Shared Folders. Then, in the Named box on the Shared Folders tab, type the shared folder name.