I had made use of the Search Companion ADVANCED OPTIONS and CHANGE PREFERENCES to do the necessary fine tuning search of excel files.  But, it can only search for the files of those previously created files.  As for the recent created files, the xp system don’t seems to detect the file when actually there are.  Please help, thank you.Here are my remarks. Bear in mind that I am not longer activity involved in IT work.
The subject line you have given above suggests that you are looking for words or phrases inside of a file. Then you go on to say that you are creating Excel files and the search is not giving you the results you expect. Is this correct?
The Windows search companion is a dog. Friendly and eager but he does not always fetch what you're looking for. This dog does better at finding files and folders by their name. It is not very good at finding a file by a word or phrase inside the file.
As for workarounds, I don't know of anything that works very good. Background indexing takes time, and it can have some impact on the performance of your system. Only after a file has been indexed will the search engine and be able to find something by its content.
This subject has come up before, I believe on some other forum, and I responded that there is almost two orders of magnitude of difference between looking for file names and looking for content inside a file. Actually, that was an understatement. It's almost 3 orders of magnitude. So you can understand that Windows search feature tries as many shortcuts it can in locating text in a file and it just skips  over some things are never finishes in a reasonable timeframe.
If you really need to search for the contents in the files as part of a major project, you need to consider using some type of database manager for your documents and not the search engine that is part of the Windows operating system. Or to put it in a matter of perspective, it was only intended for household use and not for industrial applications. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
If you need to be able to locate documents by content you may need to consider using some type of them data management tool that is much more powerful for your specific application.
Perhaps if you provide some more information about what you want to accomplish, how large your project is, and what kind of results you expect to get, perhaps someone here can offer some ideas about how to organize a database for your specific needs.  Hi Geek,
Thanks for your reply.
Previously I was using Office 2000 software and I am able to do the search without any problem, very accurate result.
Then, I SWITCHED to using Office 2003 and I observed that the searching don't seems to do the work.  Hence, I uninstall and reinstall the 2000 but still the same problem.
So, I immediately made a test to make a search on those old created files.  Believe or not, the system can detect.  Again, I purposely re-key some data in another worksheet with the same phrase.
My GOD, the system manage can find the old one, but not the new one.  Quickly , I went to the Microsoft website to make a Windows Update.  But that don't solve the problem.
But when I used another PC to do the search on the new created file, the system is able to give accurate result, I mean find the file.
 
what about reinstalling office 2003? did you try that?I had forgotten to mention that actually before reinstalling to 2000, I had uninstalled 2003 and reinstalled again the same 2003.  When this don't solve the problem, then I uninstalled again and used the 2000.  Too bad, all these works done did not solve the problem.  Seriously, I am 100 percent confident that the excel data files got no problem, else I won't be able to do a SUCCESSFUL SEARCH in other PC & laptop.  I personally feel that is the Window or Registry problem.  Any other suggestions, please?
Searching for data inside of a file using windows search makes use of a set of components called Search Filters; basically, an application can install a filter that can be used by windows to search inside data files for relevant data. a Prime example is Excel.

If you try opening it in notepad, you will find t hat it appears to be "encrypted" well, it's not, it's just not in plain text. Office installs a Search Filter for Excel.

The Search Filter that is installed with Excel 2000 cannot read Excel 2003 documents, and skips over them.

the Excel 2003 search filter can see both.

The best I can suggest is to remove both versions of office and install 2003, and see if you can search now. since you installed 2000 afterwards it's possible that the documents in question are in 2003 format and therefore unreadable by the search filter.

While strictly speaking the search filters and their configuration are stored in the registry they are done so by method of registered COM components and implemented component categories, which means that unless you want to stare at and compare CLSIDs all day it's best to get the program's installation routines to fix the "issue" which may even simply be a missing component category entry.Hi BC_Programmer,
So you are suggesting to remove 2000 and install the 2003? I will make a last attempt to see whether workable or not?
But like what I had mentioned earlier on, initially I am using 2000.  Thinking 2003 is of a more updated software, hence removed the 2000 and installed 2003.  This is where the stupid SEARCH problems starts.
Also, the other PC and laptop where i tested, they are with the Office 2000.  I have no problem filtering accurate data for those 2003 created excel file.
Thanks for your suggestion.

BC_Programmer,
Still the same.  Any other suggestions?
Any kind friend to help?
  Let me try to explain it in. The default settings for the search engine in Microsoft Windows is not very good for finding a word or phrase in a file. Perhaps this knowledgebase article from Microsoft will help you understand the problem.
Using the "A word or phrase in the file" search ...may not work.
From the above you can see that the Microsoft search engine inside of Windows was never intended to be a replacement for an efficient database manager. Of course, there is the Microsoft Access program, which is part of Microsoft office. Setting up Microsoft Access to index all your Word files and Excel files is beyond my ability. Perhaps somebody else can assist you with this. Quote from: BC_Programmer on April 26, 2010, 04:58:37 AM

The Search Filter that is installed with Excel 2000 cannot read Excel 2003 documents, and skips over them.

I had made use of the Search Companion ADVANCED OPTIONS and CHANGE PREFERENCES to do the necessary fine tuning search of excel files. 

That's not true.  I just conducted a test on my Win 98SE/Win XP dual boot system. I have Office 2003 installed with Win XP and Office 97 installed with Win 98SE.  In Excel 2003, I created file with the only contents being the words "test file" in one cell.  I saved the file on a FAT32 I then Since Excel 97 through 2003 all use the .xls format,

I said Search Filter, not the program itself. Although now I wonder if the filters can read them as well.

I guess it's true then that MS simply rereleases software that is functionally identical to previous versions, heh

Well, at least with regard to this particular functionality, it seems so.  It may be worth noting that Excel 97 through Excel 2003 use the .xls format.  I also have Office 2007 on my Vista laptop.  If I want to save a file in .xls format instead of the Excel 2007 .xlsx format, I click the drop down arrow for the format to save as, and select the choice titled Excel 97-2003.