>>>If you can prove that a single file does not work as you expect with ADIR or SYS(2000) then you know you cannot use those functions without modification no matter if there are 10 files or 100,000. That being the case, you must lower your speed expectations.
>>>
>>>C:\*Y*.* should not return "config.sys" right? Well it does.
>>
>>It does not, on my machine...
>
>Hi Dragan!
>
>I did dir config.sys /X which is supposed to show the short non 8dot3 filenames and it has none. So even though there is no 8dot3 this happens?

Yes. I unhid the file, and sure enough dir *y*.* /x returns config.sys. With dir *s*.* /x it returns

 Directory of c:\

04.04.2004  11:43                 0              CONFIG.SYS
07.03.2006  14:46    <DIR>          DOCUME~1     Documents and Settings
20.11.2006  12:49    <DIR>          PROGRA~1     Program Files
28.11.2006  09:26    <DIR>                       WINDOWS
               1 File(s)              0 bytes
               3 Dir(s)   1,706,119,168 bytes free

Note that the 8.3 names don't contain "s". So it did the search by long names, not by 8.3 names. The trouble is the same - if your search term is surrounded by asterisks, it will be found in extension, not just in the stem.