This page is dedicated to answering some of the most commonly asked questions and also contains information for existing customers who may be experiencing difficulty. Any known 'bugs' (which we like to call 'unspecified features') and possible workarounds will also be posted here. More Q&A's will be added as the need arises.

Q2  What do I need to run it?
A  As long as you have a PC running any of Windows95/98/NT/Me/2000 or XP it will be happy.

Q3  Im trying to do a contents search but the Keywords box is greyed out and won't let me type in my search words.
A  The only reason this box will be disabled (greyed out) will be because you have the 'Folders' box ticked. The 'Keywords' box is for searching the CONTENTS of FILES and so if the 'Folders' box is ticked, Power Searcher will assume you are just doing a name search as you cannot look for keywords in a 'Folder'. Just untick this box and it will allow you to enter the Keywords area.

Q4  Im starting my search but it isnt finding anything. Whats wrong?
A  Depending on which type of search you are attempting (Name/Contents/Size/Date etc) there will be various options you will need to check. First thing is to check the starting drive/area/folder is correctly chosen in the boxes at the top of the screen.

• Searching by Name - If you are seaching for files by name only then make sure the 'Files named' field is correctly formatted with wildcards etc (if not doing an exact name match). You will find a lot of examples in the Name & Contents section of the Help Screen if you get stuck but this works exactly the same way as the standard Microsoft formatting. Also check that the 'Directory Depth' menu is set to search the correct number of sub-folders. If it is files you are looking for then make sure that at least the 'Files' box is ticked as this box tells the search engine you are interested in file names. Failure to tick this box will cause the engine to look for 'Folders' instead.
  
• Searching Contents - It is possible that a contents search will not retrieve files for a number of reasons. The main one is that the Keywords/Phrase you are searching for have been compressed or encrypted in the file when it was saved in its creation program. Adobe Acrobat for example uses a compression technique to make files as small as possible which is why you need a special program (Adobe Acrobat Reader) to read the .pdf file. Opening one of these files in Notepad will simply look like gibberish even though the file contains pages and pages of plain readable text. For this reason, some files that encrypt text will not return any matches even though the files will still be searched. Due to the sheer number of programs that use different techniques to compress documents, it is almost impossible to provide support for each type of encrypted file. To enable searhing to work, save documents as text format only which most programs support.
  

  Another reason no results were found could be because the Tolerance level is set very low which will restrict the number of files searched. The Tolerance is simply a way of saying 'Dont search files larger than.....' Setting this box to 5 and the option at the side to 'Mb' will only let the search be performed on files of 5 Megabytes or less.
  The 'Match case' box will also need to be checked as this can cause no results if set incorrectly. If you wish to find a name of 'John Doe' then if the 'Match case' box is ticked the search will become case sensitive and will NOT find 'JOHN DOE','john doe' or 'JoHn DoE'.
  Lastly, we come to the 'Line only' and 'Whole document' options. If you wish to find the entered keywords all on the same line (for example a sentence) you should keep this option set to 'Line only'. This will ensure that all entered keywords/phrases appear all on the same line in the document. If you wish however to find all documents you know contain those words but they may be spread throughout the file, then select the 'Whole document' option. It is possible that you know certain words exist as text in a non-text file (like an MP3 for example) but search finds nothing. In this case, as the file being search is NOT a text file, you MUST use the 'Whole document' option as it performs its searching in a dfferent way to the 'Line only' method.

Q99  It isnt doing what I think it should be doing.
A  If you think you have found a bug then please email us by clicking on the 'Email Us' link on this page with full details on how it happened and any help you can give to allow us to reproduce it. If it is simply a misunderstanding of the documentation, someone should be able to get back to you with an answer very soon. It will also allow us to clarify it to others on this FAQ board.