The address book searcher on the toolbar doesn't work properly.

[Outlook Obar]

My contacts are displayed in categories. I must have 10 contacts with
"microsoft" in the title or within the text. When I type microsoft into the
toolbar search box, it shows results: blank. This behaves erraticly and
needs to be fixed.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Doubt there is anything that needs to be fixed.
Perhaps you need to learn better searching methods. Try Advanced Find....