Internet Search - Short Search Strings

[jimerb]

Every week I struggle to find things using internet search which have short strings.

Sometimes I'm looking for a set of files like:

hi.18.01.03.blah.blah.blah
hi.17.12.29.another.file
<hi.19.01.14.hello
hi.e233.greetings
<hi.e555.aloha

All i have to go on is the word hi. It never returns results. even if i just type hi

The poster is randomized so that won't work. It may be two hundred days old in a huge group so pulling the headers won't work.

I may have one of these files but trying to find the set is impossible. I try enclosing the "hi" in quotes or even "<hi" and nothing returns.

I wish i could search like:
*hi.##.##.##*
or
*hi.e###*

Is there any way around this??