Classic problem - SEARCH

[soho1]

Classic problem - WINDOWS SEARCH

The irony of my search is that I am looking for help with SEARCH.

So, of course, try searching the forums for information which has probably been sought thousands of times and see what irrelavant results appear.

I am looking for a forum tutorial to make me a complete expert on Windows 7 Search.








The problems I will be trying to solve with this information include:

• I am looking for a file that I created a few days back whose name I do not recall and the location of which (across a dozen drives) I do not remember but I know the file type.
• Using Explorer to search in "computer" has been running for 30 minutes now without completing and returning only an irrelevant email, suggesting that something is not optimal that I hope I can tune.

Thanks.

 

[TVeblen]

A couple of good ones here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129437-windows-search-configure-use.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/36599-search-windows-7-a.html

 

[dsperber]

You might try these alternatives...

(1) Search My Files which is an "on demand" search tool, where you define your search criteria each time you want to do a search. It also allows more elaborate searches based on file criteria, or looking for text or binary file contents, not just file names (with expected wildcards, etc.).

(2) Everything is an always-running tool which builds an index of every folder/file on your system (i.e. on all drives) subject to setup configuration options, with the index continuously updated any time a new file is created, deleted, or modified. The index initially takes but moments to build... it's quite astonishing, it's so fast. It thus supports "instant" full or partial file name search (including the expected wildcards, etc.) as you type what you're looking for, based on this always up-to-date index. As you type, there is a list of "matching" file names presented, and as you type more characters the "hit list" is reduced as appropriate.


I think you'll find both of these products much more user-friendly and intuitive than Windows Search. Furthermore, Search My Files can do things that Windows Search cannot do, because of its extensive optional search criteria variables... and is much more likely to satisfy your craving for WinXP's simple but sophisticated search.