Searching the VMware Knowledge Base

Although the VMware Knowledge Base is designed to be simple to search, you can improve the accuracy of your searches by using the various tips in this article.

Searching

To switch to the other type of search, click the Advanced Search or Guided Search link. Advanced Search offers all the search options of Guided Search, with several additional options. If you do not see the document you need, see Refining Your Search Results, below.

• Select Publication Date from the Sort By: dropdown to show most recently added and modified content first.   
• Open a document by clicking its title.
• View the next or previous page of search results by clicking Next or Previous at the top or bottom of the search results.

Guided Search

Guided Search provides basic search features to help you access information in the knowledge base.

Search options include:

• Search box—Enter one or more words to search for. When searching for exact matches, enclose words or phrases in double quotes (" ").
  
  
  • Include plus (+) for required words and double minus (--) to exclude words.
    Example: iscsi +scsi initiator --software
  • A single dash (-) in front of a word is ignored. A single dash in front of a number is used in the search. Dashes in the middle of words and at the end of words are ignored.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search provides additional features to Guided Search options.

Search options include:

• Search box—Works the same as the one for Guided Search.
  
• Search In—Specifies the following document attributes to be searched:

• Product—Limits the search to documents for the product you select.
• Document Type—Use the tabs to filter by document type:
  
  
  • Communities—Limits the search to forum posts.
  • KB Article—Limits the search to knowledge base articles.
  • Product Documentation—Limits the search to VMware product documentation.

Note: To select multiple items from the Product and Document Type fields, press Ctrl and click each item in the field that must be included in the search.

Refining Your Search Results

Use the following methods to increase or decrease the number of search results.

• In the search results area, enter one or more keywords in the Search Within text box and click Go to find documents within the search results matching the keywords.
• When the search results contain a large number of documents, you can click an item under Change Focus to help you refine your search.