How do I use 'Search'?

mborner · 09 Dec 2010

martinlest said:

I'm still reading through the various links: I see that, unlike XP, Win7 search will not find anything in unindexed folders.

Continue reading. Windows 7 can, in fact, search unindexed folders and drives. It just takes a couple of more clicks, that's all. As a matter of fact, Windows 7 is capable of searching your entire system, including all connected drives, external drives, network drives, flash drives etc. If you do a search for a file and get 0 results, look at the bottom of the results window and you'll see a link called "See More Results". This will open a window in which Windows is asking you to now search for your file outside of the index. Clicking on "computer" will find your file.

martinlest · 09 Dec 2010

Well, I've left Windows indexing the whole PC in any case. An example of the less than user-friendly nature of the search function is that I just temporarily paused the indexing process in the Indexing Options box. No way then of resuming - the box remains greyed out. Had to do another search online to find that I had to manually go to Services and restart the search service. Apparently Vista was the same.

Well, I like Windows 7 well enough (more than that in fact, the 64-bit version runs my PC beautifully) and I don't expect everything to be perfect, but I still can't help feeling that Microsoft needs to dwell on the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' maxim a bit more often - in Office as well as Windows: the need to show that something has been redesigned (though not necessarily improved, of course) to encourage people to buy the latest incarnation of whatever software has lead Microsoft (as well as many others) to 'upgrade' features which in everyday use are definite steps backward (IMHO) from what existed before. Not everyone wants (or has the time) to spend hours and hours relearning what they have taken years to become well acquainted with. (A bit like supermarkets you use regularly moving all their stock around so you can't find anything any more!! LOL).

Martin

Dzomlija · 09 Dec 2010

martinlest said:

I'm still reading through the various links: I see that, unlike XP, Win7 search will not find anything in unindexed folders.

For now (and probably for the future too) I use a programme called 'search My Files' which is fast, customisable and thorough (and free). I've pinned a shortcut to it on my taskbar so I probably have no need to use Win7 search at all (but I will read all the links people have posted here, out of interest). Yes, possible that once I get used to the Win7 Search function, I will use it again, but I agree with James that it is not intuitive at all for someone fairly new to Win7 - and to be honest I consider myself anything but a PC software beginner: I am involved in programming and there is very little now 'under the hood' of WinXP that I am not able to fix or modify.

Thanks again for the input,

Martin

Here's some more info for you. A new tutorial on SevenForums: Windows Search - Configure and Use.

mborner · 09 Dec 2010

Dzomlija, that is an excellent tutorial. I wish everybody would read it.

Hopalong X · 09 Dec 2010

Bookmarked to my sevenforums folder.

Bah! Rep button says I got to spread it around!

Here's some more info for you. A new tutorial on SevenForums: Windows Search - Configure and Use.

Dzomlija · 09 Dec 2010

Hopalong X said:

Bookmarked to my sevenforums folder.

Bah! Rep button says I got to spread it around!

Here's some more info for you. A new tutorial on SevenForums: Windows Search - Configure and Use.

mborner said:

Dzomlija, that is an excellent tutorial. I wish everybody would read it.

Thanks. you the first people that I know of outside of the Admins and SF Team to notice.

mikedl · 09 Dec 2010

Dzomlija, that's a heckuva tutorial. Magnificently done! Thank you.

martinlest · 11 Dec 2010

Yes, very useful.

M.