In the name of "optimization", Microsoft has ruined XP's search
facility. The subfeature that searches for files "containing
text" that the user specifies only searches files that contain only
text. What this means is that while the subfeature is still
useful for finding text in text and document files, it is useless
for finding text that might be embedded in binary files. And
granted, by ignoring all the non-text files during text searches,
the search ends faster, which is good if that is what you want it
to do, but if you want it to actually find a non-text files
containing a little bit of embedded text, you will be extremely
disappointed when it finds nothing.
In the Microsoft Knowledge Base, there are a variety of "fixes" for
problems that sound similar to this, but all depend on there
existing a filter program that can actually extract the text from
the binary file. "Tricking" it by using an existing filter
doesn't really work for binary files, although it can work for text
files with non-.txt extensions, and the like.
So the only "real" solution to be found, is a separate program that
does what the Windows search feature used to do in older versions
of Windows. The program "Agent
Ransack" fills the bill nicely, as well as having much more
powerful capability than the Windows search feature ever did.