It was bugging me that I could not find .exe files with MSN Desktop Search.
A quick look through the registry found the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\RSSearch\Gather\RSApp\MyIndex\Extensions\ExtensionList
This contains a list of numbers and file extensions, e.g.:
Value 0 Name: 0 Type: REG_SZ Data: 386 Value 1 Name: 1 Type: REG_SZ Data: aps Value 2 Name: 10 Type: REG_SZ Data: chk Value 3 Name: 11 Type: REG_SZ Data: ci Value 4 Name: 12 Type: REG_SZ Data: crwl Value 5 Name: 13 Type: REG_SZ Data: dbg Value 6 Name: 14 Type: REG_SZ Data: dct Value 7 Name: 15 Type: REG_SZ Data: DeskLink Value 8 Name: 16 Type: REG_SZ Data: dir Value 9 Name: 17 Type: REG_SZ Data: dl_ Value 10 Name: 18 Type: REG_SZ Data: dll Value 11 Name: 19 Type: REG_SZ Data: drv Value 12 Name: 2 Type: REG_SZ Data: AudioCD Value 13 Name: 20 Type: REG_SZ Data: dvd Value 14 Name: 21 Type: REG_SZ Data: evt Value 15 Name: 22 Type: REG_SZ Data: ex_ Value 16 Name: 23 Type: REG_SZ Data: exe Value 17 Name: 24 Type: REG_SZ Data: exp
I changed the entry for 'exe' (value 16) to 'exex' to hide it from the list (I didn't delete it to avoid breaking the numbering of the keys and to make it easier to change it back). I also changed the entry for 'dll' in case I want to search for a dll file (I do strange things).
I rebooted desktop search (right click on the toolbar item and exit, then launch again from start menu) and told it to index. In a minute or two I could search for *.exe and get executables! Clicking on them ran them! Bliss, happy, waiting for something bad to happen.
My justification for this being reasonable is that desktop seach can find zip files but does not try to index the contents and the zip file extension is not found in the list above so hopefully it has enough brains to just list the executable files but not look for strings inside them.
Peter's Moblog
nice post.
i used the old windows search function to search for .dll's, .ax's, .exe's more than anything. Now we can do it instantly.