This looks like a bug in FIM, but I can't be sure. Can someone enlighten me please? I've created two resoruces in FIM with the following display names: normal-test underscore_test If I search for "test", I find only normal-test. The one with the underscore in is ignored. The first thing I thought of is this is a bug, perhaps FIM is having problems with the underscore (which is a reserved keyword in SQL Server), so did some SQL Profiling, and found a NASTY query with the following relevant part: SELECT valueOfProposition0.ObjectKey, valueOfProposition0.ObjectTypeKey FROM [fim].ObjectValueString AS valueOfProposition0 WHERE ( ( (valueOfProposition0.ObjectTypeKey = 32687) /*Country*/ ) AND (valueOfProposition0.AttributeKey = 66) /*DisplayName*/ AND (CONTAINS(valueOfProposition0.ValueString,N''"test*"'')) I've done some full-text query work before in SQL Server and tried playing with the Cotains predicate but couldn't get the result I wanted. If I look in the [FIM].[ObjectValueString] table, I can find both display-names using a "like '%test%'" query. Anyone else had any experience with this?

I have no problems with underscores at all

show your search scope configuration: you might be searching on wrong attribute

I think there are issues with underscore in starts-with() which means any attribute other than DisplayName in a SearchScope. Don't think it's an allowed character from that perspective. Can't remember. There's something in the release notes. IIRC I've also experienced issues with underscores in contains() (i.e. against DisplayName, specifically before a clause, e.g. in Evgeniy's example _ETG might fail whereas ESPG doesn't). What you can do is use the SQL wildcard though, e.g. in your case: %test

Paul, you're partially right - search for _ETG will find nothing But the reason is not the underscore itself. Search for 'hat' will also find nothing - it looks like search works on words or on their first part. So, in my example ESPG, ESPG_, Group, Grou or Chat will find that role. But '_', _ETG, hat, '(' or ')' will not. going back to original request for 'underscore_test' to be found with 'test' search request - yes, it won't work. it might be confusing that FIM 'contains' really does 'test%' and not '%test%'. but I don't think its a bug.

Evgeniy, what happens if you search for "ETG Chat Room"? It's the latter-part I am unable to match on. Here's the search-scope for the country page:

Sure to say "ETG Chat Room" will not find anything as 'ETG' is not the beginning of the word 'ESPG_ETG' It will not even find it if the role will be named 'ESPGETG Chat Room' - without underscore.

FIM executes a full-text CONTAINS search, not a like 'term%' one, at least not from what I can see. I get a single result for "country" when the two records available are: Normal-Country Underscore_Country Is this a difference in our configurations?

no differences. if I would search for 'country' I would also get only 'normal-country' in results. I don't know how full text search works in SQL, but it looks for me that it divides Normal-Country into 2 words and sees Underscore_Country as 1 word. so only Normal-Country is returned in results. ps. why do you need that underscore in Country name/ISO code at all?

I don't know if this will help, but when I had some weird search behaviour I was told to rebuild the catalog: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ilm2/thread/e145a780-c743-4820-8ec1-15a51f00c71d http://www.wapshere.com/missmiis

that was easy - no need to rebuild the catalog just talked to our DBA, this is how SQL Full Text search wordbreaker works: So this is the answer