searching Customer name starting with wild cards throws error, is there a way around?

Dear All,

I have a weird issue at hand. Customer Search in R12 is pretty easy provided you do not start the search word with wildcard(%). But my client is very concerned as they used to search even by having % in the very beginning lik %Roger. I tried to convince them a lot, but they want that old convenience.

I searched Metalink and found a similar issue with InstallBase, Note-

Performing wild card searches in Install Base simple search (using '%') results in an error like:

Please fill in search criteria values in at least one of the following fields: Item Instance, Serial Number, Item, Owner Party Name, Owner Account Number, Sales Order Number, Purchase Order Number, Contract Number, Agreement Name, System, Asset Number.  Note that the search criteria values should not begin with a "%" or "_" for at least one of the listed fields.