IMHO, I'd rather take the time to give my advice out then throw out the "Use the search" canned answer. I know that they could probably find alot of their information in the search, but:
1) Yes, the search is a bit cumbersome. If you want to search all topics, it can take up to 8-10 minutes depending on your connection speed. I'm on a DS3 and it can take me almost 5 minutes. Imagine how long a dialup would take?
2) They're NEWBIES. Don't just tell them "Use the search, use the search!"! Give them advice and THEN tell them about the search. Scolding them for not using something they never knew about in the first place is kind of redundant, huh? Kind of like rubbing a dog's nose in it's poop after it happened 5 hours ago.
