Windows Search and the XP Indexing Service

Since upgrading to XP, we have problems searching in files with the built-in Windows Search. This is, a college of mine who runs the Indexing Service locally is able to find strings in files on the network (which are - obviously- not indexed on his machine). Whereas, performing the same search on my machine yields no results. This is very annoying: although only a small percentage of the people here use this feature (myself included), it is the most easy way to find things without using third party tools. I've heard of Regexps and command line tools, but that's a step too far for most people here). And, it was working under NT, and I just don't like the idea of something working since 1996, and not in 2004. Anyway, I started this rant because we couldn't think of any other differences between my college's PC and mine, which could explain this difference in search results. And on the net I couldn't find any solution so far. It seems there are problems with the Windows Search, but where's the solution???