how does one search these forums?

Go here and type some key words, like other search engines, although it can jumble your results a bit and less is more…
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/

3ds Max 9 thru 2013
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit OS SP1
Dual Intel® Xeon® 6 core X5650 @ 2.67GHz CPU 36GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
450GB HDD (x3) and 2TB HDD

3ds Max 2012 Certified Professional Models to Motion

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Moved to this Website Support forum because it is totally unrelated to Max.

As DB said - use the search field, or you can click the Advanced Search link which gives a few more options, including restricting the search to specific forums.

Me? I use Google - give it “site:” before the address of the section you want to search. Tends to bring up more than you might want though.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.