Outlook 2007 instant search with special characters in message subject or body

Question

Hi everybody

I have outlook 2007 with "instant search" installed and Win server 2003 both in en-us language.
Do you known a way to find messages with subject containing string with special characters as "[" (square bracket)  ?

For example, for two emails one with subject "[DEV]Batch notification " and another with "Development connection changed ", all following instant search:
subject:[DEV]
subject:\[DEV\]
subject:"[DEV]"
subject:"\[DEV\]"
match both messages and highlight both "dev" substring:
[DEV ]Batch notification
Dev elopment connection changed

While I expect to match just [DEV] Batch notification .

In general I didn't find any Outlook documentation describing how to find special characters by "instant search"...


Thanks
Mario A.

Answer 1

I have the same problem with a search for "folder /db/abc/ has" " returning "folder /db/abctemp has".

Did you find a solution Mario A?

EDIT: rough work around; create a MS access link table to your mail folder and filter the table by your search term. :(

Answer 2

Can someone point me to a list of special characters?  I've found the hard way that * and ~ cannot be searched.  Good luck finding the last time you met someone at the coffee shop *$s  :-)

Any link describing : "create a MS access link table to your mail folder "

Thanks