Yes! That sounds great! Make it easy for a potential virus to find and modify anything! Sorry. I'm very happy with my limitations that aren't present in Vista. You ask for help about how to accomplish something, and than complain that the solutions are a "kludge." In other words, you don't want a solution, you want Apple to revise it for you so you don't have to do anything. Why not just switch to Vista and get everything you're asking for?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see how allowing to Spotlight to locate files that I don't know the location of (hence searching for them) is a security risk. Using my previous example, why should I not be able to locate Finder.app with Spotlight? Is it unreasonable to expect that a user will need to locate a specific .plist file from time to time?

What good is a search app if I can only look for stuff for which I already know the location? If a file is not hidden from Finder, why should it be hidden from Spotlight? That doesn't make any sense.

It does appear that Leopard, as much as I love it, has unnecessarily crippled Spotlight.

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to do what you want. It's not going to just happen though. You can use the "kludges" that have been suggested, or just accept your fate. The only other alternatives, if they're there, would require more "kludges." There isn't some magic wave of the hand that's just going to change it.

I must apologize for my outburst previously. It was late, and I felt offended that all the help offered was rejected and dismissed out of hand. If you do find a solution that doesn't require a kludge, I do hope that you're appreciative enough of this site's work on your account to publish it here.

Once again, it's a case of people not using the right tool for the job.
Spotlight is mainly intended to help folks to find *their own* sh!+.

If you want to go diving inside packages, and ferreting thru
every inch of the filesystem, then get File Buddy... or learn
how to use the UNIX command line for heaven's sake.

Seriously people, this is a post asking how to obtain this functionality from within spotlight. Telling someone that they should be using the command line or other method's is not useful at all. If you feel this is not the intended use of Spotlight, fine, but keep it to yourself, rather than offering very unhelpful answers, so refrain from posting unless you have a solution to the problem.

Personally, I would like this functionality. I don't see why, if I want to find a .plist file or a corservices app quickly, I shouldn't be able to quickly find it using spotlight! Perhaps it shouldn't be the default behaviour, but I see no reason why one should have to delve into the command line to achieve something that could be done quickly with spotlight.

I just went to the System folder, typed command-F
clicked on "System", clicked on File Name, and then
typed ".plist".

The result has 1,117 hits. [So we've got the "functionality".]

That was done *without* the 'System files - include' hint on the previous page.

Did you even try it yet?

Please keep in mind that mdutil is the underpinning of Spotlight.

Please read the man page for mdutil. One of the very first line states:

mdutil -- manage the metadata stores used by Spotlight

So there is a way to do it but the author of the post is frankly being stubborn.

Without the terminal you can't access the more sensitive files, there is probably no way to do it using the GUI since it is user base. So if mdutil is a kludge than Spotlight itself is a kludge since it lacks the functionality and power of the command line search.

Yes that is true, but, i would much rather that we could figure a way to make system files included by default, so .plist files etc. could be found quickly from the spotlight menu icon. I'm impressed by the speed of spotlight in leopard, and I like to be able to find things quickly. Opening a finder winder, clicking the system folder, running a search, then clicking results from "system", is not what i call quickly, not to mention it requires opening windows etc. that I would rather not have to do.

So, I'm well over a year late to the discussion, but that's because I just bought a new Mac, am using Leopard for the first time, and have been repeatedly frustrated that Spotlight cannot do WHAT IT DID BEFORE.

NO, I don't want to have to open a Finder window, navigate to the proper folder, and then do a search. I want to be able to just type the hotkey, enter my search string into Spotlight, and have the file(s) I'm looking for appear.

THIS IS WHAT SPOTLIGHT USED TO DO, and while that may not be how it functions any more, expecting to have this capability ISN'T BEING UNREASONABLE.

Just like leftydog, I DON'T want to open up the Terminal, or even KNOW what commands I'd need to enter to search via that method; I DON'T want to have to have saved searches, smart folders, or any OTHER method.

Reading some of the "helpful" replies in this thread, quite frankly, made me feel just a little violent. Some of you people really need to get your heads pulled out from the nether regions that they appear to be lodged in.

I came across this thread when looking for a way to index a folder (inside /private/var).
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned mdimport.

You can add the contents of a folder to the SpotLight index with:
mdimport /folder

However, the point remains that indexing the entire System and Library is of limited value and may slow things down a bit. Spotlight also has a max size for the index, apparently.

The Apple philosophy is, I imagine, that you shouldn't need to search for stuff in the System or Library folder. Firstly, they are well-organised and well-labelled; and secondly, if you're going to be tinkering with stuff there, you should really know a few Unix commands or so.

Most importantly, you may find that search results become filled with extra noise if System files are included, which may obscure the file you're looking for.