I followed some of the instructions at http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/21142/How-to-Use-Windows-Vista-Search-API-from-a-WPF-App to create the Interop.SearchAPI.dll assembly for .NET. I then used the ISearchQueryHelper.GenerateSQLFromUserQuery()
method to build the SQL command.
The generated SQL uses the CONTAINS()
predicate, but it builds the CONTAINS()
predicate numerous times with different combinations of the search terms, including wild cards. This allows the user to enter exact phrases using double quotation marks, exclude words using the minus sign, and perform automatic wildcard matching as I mentioned in the original question.