Apologies for not getting back to you earlier. I've seen this problem in the past, as there was indeed some problem with VS.NET 2003 Find in Files which caused a freeze. It wasn't a full freeze, only the "Find in Files" results window would freeze (and the Find in Files would never finish). I fixed it a long time ago, but this might be another manifestation of the problem.
A second option is a second problem I have only seen on my main laptop (an Asus with Vista): Find in Files in VS.NET 2003 does fully freeze Visual Studio. And I was able to find a surprising workaround: turning off Aero glass and the Vista theme, switching to the classic Windows look. I have call stack showing the "reentrancy" problem caused by theming, if proof is needed.
I've never seen a problem with Ctrl-Shift-S.
Please let me know more details about the freeze, so that we can try and investigate what is happening.
Regards,
-- Jon