My thought was: does Microsoft think we're all idiots by default? Is their ultimate business plan to make a fortune treating carpal tunnel syndrome by forcing us to click click clik?

To make it easy to search, you'll want to change preferences.

I recommend:

Get rid of the stupid dog (Search without animation)

Get rid of balloon tips.

With Indexing Service.

Change files and folders search behavior

(You can also change Windows settings that are not exposed in the default XP user interface with the re-released TweakUI Powertoy for XP.)

You now can click directly in the middle box (word or phrase) - which is where all searches using Index Server must go. 

Remember the keys to search success:

Precede searches for all or part of a filename with
@filename

Precede all word or phrase searches with the exclamation mark
!

You'll get fast results....

(There will be a delay before the index is built the first time you turn it on.)

See:
Making Search Actually Use Index Servier