Dave said:
wrote in message I have 1000's of files in a directory structure. They are types .TXT, .RTF, .DOC,
and .PDF. I need to search thru them to find files that contain 'String1' and
'String2'. e.g. find any file that contains 'Red' and 'Blue' where the strings can
be anywhere in the file. How do I do it? Is there some utility program I need?
If you have Microsoft Office and have installed the Microsoft Outlook Integrated File
Management Advanced Find component, the easiest way to search as you specified is to
use the Advanced Find Tool. If the Advanced Find tool is installed you can open it
by either: running Outlook and on the menu bar clicking Tools | Advanced Find... Or
running the executable named: finder.exe
Searching with the Advanced Find Tool is simple enough. For example, to search in
your My Documents folder as you specified you would select the following:
Look for: Files
In: My Documents
Named: *.doc, *.rtf, *.txt
Of type: All Files (*.*)
Search for the word(s): Red Blue
In: contents only
Note 1: To find the phrase Red Blue you would use double-quotes such as "Red Blue"
Note 2: If you try to use Advanced Find to search objects (folders, subfolders,
files) on a volume that is formatted with NTFS, and you do not have permission to
access the objects, Microsoft Outlook may stop with the following error message "You
don't have appropriate permission to perform this operation." If that happens either
exclude the directory from your search, or change permissions so that you can access
the folder. For more information and an example that uses the System Volume
Information folder, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:
KB309531 - How to Gain Access to the System Volume Information Folder
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?Product=winxp&scid=kb;en-us;309531
For some information about how to search for items and files using Advanced Find
search Microsoft Outlook Help for these two different phrases: "search items" then
"search files" and read the topics returned.
Alternatively, you can use the Windows XP program named "Indexing Service" to create
indexes of the contents and properties of the documents in question. Once these
indexes are built you can search the folders that contain these cataloged documents,
per your requirements.
For example, after the Index Service has created your indexes you would do the
following to search your My Documents folder as you specified:
- "Change the appearance of Search Companion" to Advanced. For more information
search the Help and Support Center for the words in double-quotes.
- Select the following:
All or part of the file name: *.doc, *.rtf, *.txt
A word or phrase in the file: @contents Red AND Blue
Look in: My Documents
For some information about using Indexing Service, click the Action menu in Computer
Management, then click Help, then read the Chapter titled: Indexing Service.
Note: There are three requirements that must be meet before you can search the
contents of *.pdf files (that have searchable text).
First, you will have to install a free filter provided by Adobe. For more information
see the following Adobe web site:
Index PDFs using PDF iFilter
http://support.adobe.com/devsup/devsup.nsf/docs/52174.htm
Second, you will have to following the instructions in the following archived
newsgroup post:
From: Andrés Naranjo[MSFT]
Subject: RE: PDF and DWG ifilter stopped working on XP Pro
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.inetserver.indexserver
Date: 2004-02-12 17:40:15 PST
http://www.google.com/groups?&[email protected]
And third, you will have to use the Indexing Service for your search [either by
adding *.pdf to the example given above for the Search Companion, or as explained in
the Indexing Service Help].
