The "~" character is an operator in the Advanced Query Syntax used by Windows Search.
By itself, it indicates that a search contains wildcards, as in System.FileName:~"Mic?osoft W*d" matching a filename Microsoft Word.
To literally match the "*.xls~" filename you would search for System.Filename:~"*.xls~"
My old, less-well-informed answer, which I am only keeping around because of the novelty of piping to the clipboard, this:
I'd throw open a command prompt and do a dir /b /s/a x:\*.xls~ (substituting in the appropriate drive letter). If you want the list on the clipboard add a | clip to the command. You won't get your files in a pretty Explorer view, but you will get a list.
If you want to do that w/o leaving your GUI just open the "Run" box and put in cmd /c dir /s /a /b x:\*.xls~ | clip and, after the cmd.exe window closes you'll have your results on the clipboard.
Given that you're trying to search a server and not your local system, it's probably not related to indexing as you shouldn't have all your clients indexing a file server.
What happens on the system that doesn't work if you login as a completely different user and try to search the sever? If you get results, try the steps laid out on this site
There's a registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
In this key there are two values (both hex dword)
Start_SearchFiles
Start_SearchPrograms
Uninstalling Windows Search sets the value of both of these to zero, when they default to something else. However, reinstalling Windows Search does not restore them to their default setting like it probably should. By manually setting both of them to 1, it re-enabled the windows search function from the start menu. Somebody might want to notify one of the Microsoft software engineers that they should correct this issue so that reinstalling Windows Search properly configures this registry key back to its default setting, that way if anybody else does what I just did they'll avoid the same headache I went through. (I don't know how to contact them myself.)
Another thing to try would be to try the steps outlined on this site
Best Answer
I might be wrong , but from my experience it searches for the first letters from the separate words . if you would search for uk and ukmac then your results should be as expected . As far as I know (from experience ) it doesn not search for in-word "letters" .That can be changed from search options (Windows Explorer).
You could use Agent Ransack (freeware utility ) or powershell cmdlets for more advanced search options .