Simple Search

To perform a simple search, just type in your search keywords or phrase into the search box. By default, you will receive results from the entire Knowledge Center, including the Knowledge Base, Hotfixes, Product Documentation, Forums, Tools and Resources, and Learning Center.

For detailed information on how to form search queries, see the search query help page.

Refining Your Results

Results will be presented in order of relevance, based on your search query. The results you see can be narrowed using the refinement menu to the left of the results. You have a variety of refinement options, which are described below. Results can be refined multiple times, allowing you to progressively narrow your results as needed.

Refine by Content Type

Choosing this option allows you to see only results of a particular content type, such as Knowledge Base or Hotfixes. Certain content types can be further refined by product.

Refine by Product

Choosing this option allows you to see only results in a particular product family, such as Presentation Server or NetScaler.

Note: Refining by product will limit your results to only the Knowledge Base, Hotfixes, and Product Documentation content types. Other content types such as Forums and Tools are not refinable by product. The ability to add other content types by product will be added in a future release.

Refine by Product Version

After refining your results by product, you further refine by product versions within that product.

Refine by Topic

Knowledge Base results that have already been refined by product can be further refined by topic.

Keeping Track of Your Refinement Path

Each time you select a refinement option, the refinement menu will updated to reflect the options you have already chosen, and the remaining refinement options you have available.
Your refinement path is also tracked above the search results using "bread crumbs" navigation. Each item in the bread crumb trail represents a refinement option you've chosen, and clicking on that item will return you to that particular set of results.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search offers several ways to target your search to a more specific set of results. Advanced Search is offered separately for Technical Content and Forums. Select the appropriate tab for the type of content you wish to search.

Advanced Search - Technical Content

Search Terms

Enter your search words or phrase in the Search Terms field. For more information on how this field works, see the search query help page.

Content Types

Limit your results to one or more of the following content types: Knowledge Base, Product Documentation, or Hotfixes. At least one content type must be selected.

Note: Content from the Learning Center, and Tools & Resources section is not searchable using Advanced Search for the current release. Support for these content types will be added in a future release.

Select a Product

Limit your search to a single product family. All products are included if no product selection is made.

Select a Version

Limit your search to a particular product version. You must first select a product before selecting a version. All versions are included if no version selection is made.

Select a language

Search content written in one or more languages. English results are returned by default. You must have at least one language selected, but you can select as many as you wish. Not all content is available in all languages. Knowledge Base content is typically available only in English and Japanese. Product Documentation and Hotfixes are typically available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

Modified

Limit your search to content that has been created or updated within the given time period, for example within the last 30 days. The default selection "Any" includes content from any time period.

Advanced Search - Forums

Search Terms

Enter your search words or phrase in the Search Terms field. For more information on how this field works, see the search query help page.

Category or Forum

Limit your search to the topics and messages in a particular forum or forum category. All forums are included if no selection is made.

Modified

Limit your search to content that has been created or updated within the given time period, for example within the last 30 days. The default selection "Any" includes content from any time period.

User Name

Limit your search to forum messages authored by a particular user. This field searches on a user's display name as opposed to their user ID.

Getting Started with Search

To search for a document, type a few descriptive words in the search box, and press the Enter key or click the search button. Google produces a results page with a list of documents and web pages that are related to your search terms, with the most relevant search results appearing at the top of the page. By default, Google returns only pages that include all of your search terms. So to broaden or restrict the search, include fewer or more terms. You do not need to include "and" between the terms. For example, to search for print spooler documents, type the following:

Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. For instance, Google analyzes not only the candidate page, but also the pages that link to it, too. Google also prefers pages in which your query terms are near each other. Every search result lists one or more snippets, or excerpts from the document, to display the search terms in context. In the snippet, your search terms are displayed in bold text so that you can quickly determine if that result is from a page or document you want to visit.

Capitalization

Word Variations (Stemming)

Common Words

Google ignores common words and characters, such as "where" and "how," as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google indicates that a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a plus ("+") sign in front of it. Include a space before the "+" sign, but not after it. For example, to search for documents that pertain to missing icons on the Web Interface application landing page, type the following:



Alternatively, you can enclose a series of words with quotation marks and do a phrase search.

Expanding Your Search

You can expand your search by using the OR operator. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms. For example, to search for VMWARE support on either 4.0 or 4.5, type the following:

Refining Your Search

Since Google returns only web pages that contain all of the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. The refined query returns a subset of the pages that were returned by your original broad query. If that does not get the results that you want, you can try to exclude words, search for exact phrases, or restrict the search to a range of numbers. These techniques are described in the following subsections.

Word Exclusion

If your search term has more than one meaning, you can focus your search by adding a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid. Make sure you include a space before the minus sign. You can daisy chain a list of words you want to exclude.

For example, to search for the Citrix 4.5 platform and exclude search results about licenses or printing, type the following query:



Google will return pages about Presentation Server 4.5 that do not contain the word "licenses" or "printing."

Phrase Searches

Phrase searches are useful when you are searching for famous sayings or specific names. You can search for an exact phrase or name in the following ways:

• By enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. Google will return only documents that includes the exact phrase you entered.
• By using phrase connectors--such as hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs, and apostrophes--in between every word of your search query.

Phrase connectors and quotation marks join your search words as a single unit. For example, if you type the following query, Google treats it as a phrase search even though the search words are not enclosed in quotation marks.

Range Searches

You can confine your search query within a certain range. You can set ranges for dates, weights, prices, meta tags, and so on. The following subsections describe ways you can refine your searches with ranges.

Number Ranges

To search for documents or items that contain numbers within a range, type your search term and the range of numbers separated by two periods (".."). You can set ranges for weights, dimensions, prices (dollar currencies only), and so on. Be sure to specify a unit of measurement or some other indicator of what the number range represents.

For example, to search for citrix clients between versions 7.0 and 10.1, type the following: