What a little gem this is... Thank you!!!
The search pane of Windows Me/2000 was more user friendly than that of Windows XP. So, if you want to return the Windows Me/2000 interface, then open up Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerCabinetState. On the right-hand side, create a string value "Use Search Asst" and give it a value "no", and ye shall be blessed. 'http://www.vsubhash.com/writeups/winxptips.asp
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Also....
MS KB 309173 has a fix for searching various file extensions:
To configure Windows XP to search all files no matter what the file type, obtain the latest service pack for Windows XP (currently SP2) and then turn on the Index file types with unknown extensions option.
If you use this method, Windows XP searches all file types for the text that you specify.
This can affect the performance of the search functionality. To do this:
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Click Start, and then click Search (or point to Search, and then click For Files or Folders).
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Click Change preferences, and then click With Indexing Service (for faster local searches).
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Click Change Indexing Service Settings (Advanced). Note that you do not have to turn on the Index service.
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On the toolbar, click Show/Hide Console Tree.
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In the left pane, right-click Indexing Service on Local Machine, and then click Properties.
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On the Generation tab, click to select the Index files with unknown extensions check box, and then click OK.
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Close the Indexing Service console.
Network administrators can configure this setting for the current user by modifying the registry. To do this, set the FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions DWORD value to 1 in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet\Control\ContentIndex