finder is not finding files

Finder repeatedly misses files that I know exist on the computer. For instance, there's a file called somethingsomethingref. If you enter "ref" into the finder, somethingsomethingref doesn't show up in the search results (and it's searching the entire hard drive). This is my boss's computer and he's had problems with viruses in the past. Is this a virus problem or could it be something else?

The computer is a 2010 iMac running the current version of Snow Leopard and has all the normal Mac updates as of when I checked out the problem today. Any ideas?

Hi blicket and welcome to M-F

1st thing is there is no viruses for Mac. If anything he picked up some Malware.
For more info check out the Official antivirus, malware, and firewall FAQ Sticky

How long has it been since your boss did some house keeping on his Mac ?? You might want to try and Repair Permissions Via Disk Utility. IF you need something stronger there is MainMenu ~ 1.7.4.

Goto batch tasks>configure and check everything except the Remove .DS_Store Files. I would normally recommend not checking the Spotlight Reindexing as well, but bc finder seems all screwed up, this will straighten it all out again for you. Spotlight reindexing will take some time to complete as well.

If it still persists return and post what you have done to try to sort it out . . . .See what happens

Cheers

I made a test file named somethingsomethingref in textedit.

It would find it with some, something but had to have the some on the beginning. I right now can't try it on Windows for a comparison, but Finder is looking for the first part of the filename. I tried a few options in Spotlight really fast and same results. Nothing wrong but the way it searches for files.

To search for wildcards like *ref there a little app called easyfind.

Download

No matter how I have tried I can not find it by searching for ref. Maybe someone else knows a way but I have tried everything in help.

There is this way in Spotlight but it requires more than just typing ref.

This worked. Check the 2nd screenshot.