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Here's a weird one. We are using Search on an Enterprise install of SP2010. Content source is set to a specific folder in a file share and the search service account has read and execute access to all files and folders in that path. I have scoped the entire content source as well a test scope for just .xls files under the content source. All of the file names of interest have a sales order number in them so that is always my search criteria.

If I search for files with a number of 5xxxx in them which are all under a particular sub-folder, an exact match is made. However, if I search for a number of 4xxxxx, I rarely (if ever) get a correct result and ususally no results. The number exists in the file itself but search completly ignores the filename that has the number in it. For instance, if I search for 413208 I get 0 results. But, if I search for 413122 I get the file name 413208mg_shake%20software_re%20po#%603.xls which is what I was looking for by searhing for the first number. If I search for po#603 the correct result shows up but not 413208!?!

Can anyone give some suggestions as to what might be mixing up the results? The only difference I can see is that the 5xxxx files have the sales order number in the middle of the file name versus the beginning. e.g. FileOne_59311_D25.xls? Could it be special characters like spaces in the filename corrupt the results?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You can search with a '*' to ensure you get all results, for example:

the 413208mg_shake%20software_re%20po#%603.xls search can be returned via 413208mg or 413208*

Point of reference, it seems * can only be used at the end of a search term.

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Thanks, @per and @zork! Makes sense but I thought I'd tried an asterisk in my testing to no avail. Tried it now and it does work using a test tool so I'll add it to my code. –  Toadmyster Apr 2 '12 at 23:07

FileOne_59311_D25.xls has the word 59311 in the filename

413208mg_shake%20software_re%20po#%603.xls doesn't have the word 413208 in it (it has the word 413208mg, but that's not the same). It seems that it has 413122 somewhere in the content.

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