Advanced search in Vista

[Boris]

It seems there're big changes in Vista Search GUI (as opposed to XP), which
Microsoft in its infinite wisdom imposed on us. Did they try to copy this
functionality from Mac, but couldn't do it right?
In XP, you could right-click on folder name and select Search UI from
context menu. Advanced search was part of the Search UI.
I have a simple Vista Search related question:
Let's say there's directory: c:\somefolder - how do I (recursively) search
contents of all files (in the above folder) for some string?

Boris

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You set your search options to do that.

There are a number of paths to the options, and search is context based by
default (searching the current, and sub folder structure first.) In most
cases, this is 'indexed' for speed, but the others are freely available (an
'everywhere' search, hidden and system inclusive)

One method: Control Panel, Folder Options, Search tab, set.

Another: "Organize" item in explorer menu bar, "Folder and Search options"/
Search tab, set

3: Start orb, type 'control folders' ...

4: Perform any search, then use the "Search Tools" menu item to choose
"Search Pane", then click the double down-arrow.

5: Use the folder option on the View tab to "Apply to folders" after setting
it the way you prefer.


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[Mr. Arnold]

It seems there're big changes in Vista Search GUI (as opposed to XP),
which Microsoft in its infinite wisdom imposed on us. Did they try to copy
this functionality from Mac, but couldn't do it right?
In XP, you could right-click on folder name and select Search UI from
context menu. Advanced search was part of the Search UI.
I have a simple Vista Search related question:
Let's say there's directory: c:\somefolder - how do I (recursively)
search contents of all files (in the above folder) for some string?

Boris

You use the Location box at the top of the ADV Search, you select the drive
and you select the *Choose search location* at the bottom of the box. You'll
figure it out from there. You enter the string you looking for in the
Search Box. I also suggest that you look at the Search Tools tab, and also
take note on the Include System, hidden and non-indexed files, because
otherwise, when you use the search it's only going to look for indexed
files..

 

[Kerry Brown]

It seems there're big changes in Vista Search GUI (as opposed to XP),
which Microsoft in its infinite wisdom imposed on us. Did they try to copy
this functionality from Mac, but couldn't do it right?
In XP, you could right-click on folder name and select Search UI from
context menu. Advanced search was part of the Search UI.
I have a simple Vista Search related question:
Let's say there's directory: c:\somefolder - how do I (recursively)
search contents of all files (in the above folder) for some string?

Boris

Open Windows Explorer. Click on the folder you want to search. Enter the
search term in the box at the top right that says Search. Press the Enter
key.

 

[Celegans]

It seems there're big changes in Vista Search GUI (as opposed to XP),
which Microsoft in its infinite wisdom imposed on us. Did they try to copy
this functionality from Mac, but couldn't do it right?
In XP, you could right-click on folder name and select Search UI from
context menu. Advanced search was part of the Search UI.
I have a simple Vista Search related question:
Let's say there's directory: c:\somefolder - how do I (recursively)
search contents of all files (in the above folder) for some string?

On some Vista machines (like my Vista "ultimate" PC), Vista search for
strings will not work on files that do not have the proper extensions. I
simply cannot search files for a specified string for many file types. The
check box "Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)"
simply does not work on my version of Vista Ultimate, and no one at
Microsoft cares. They said they could not reproduce my problem report, but
they refuse to investigate the Vista search failure on my machine.

You can try going to Control Panel | Indexing Options | Advanced | File
types and make sure that files types of interest have "index properties and
file contents" specified. I love the new Vista way: discover a file
extension that is not indexed correctly. Fix the specification for that
file extension and wait for your sysem to be re-indexed. Repeat (and waste
your time) as necessary, until all needed file extensions have been indexed.
For those with many old legacy files, and files from other platforms that do
not conform with Vista's extensions, you may not be able to effectively
search those files in Vista -- ever. Discovering that Vista is not finding
old files can be quite fustrating and time consuming, but again, no one at
Microsoft cares.

I have searched for months for a solution and cannot find a Vista search
solution without a 3rd party search tool on my Vista "ultimate" machine. I
have found Agent Ransack to work reasonably well as a replacement search for
Vista: http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/download.aspx.

Vista does not have the search capability that has been present in Windows
Explorer in Windows 95, but no one at Microsoft cares. Microsoft is quite
happy to give us a very fast seach, but does not care that the search is
flawed or only works on certain machines. And if you have many files on
your machine, you can't search until everything is indexed.

Microsoft management has stopped answering my E-mails about the flawed
search in Vista -- they simply do not care that Vista search does not work.
Unless or until a very large customer demands that Vista search be fixed,
Microsoft will ignore the problem.

 

[Boris]

On some Vista machines (like my Vista "ultimate" PC), Vista search for
strings will not work on files that do not have the proper extensions. I
simply cannot search files for a specified string for many file types.
The check box "Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be
slow)" simply does not work on my version of Vista Ultimate, and no one at
Microsoft cares. They said they could not reproduce my problem report,
but they refuse to investigate the Vista search failure on my machine.

You can try going to Control Panel | Indexing Options | Advanced | File
types and make sure that files types of interest have "index properties
and file contents" specified. I love the new Vista way: discover a file
extension that is not indexed correctly. Fix the specification for that
file extension and wait for your sysem to be re-indexed. Repeat (and
waste your time) as necessary, until all needed file extensions have been
indexed. For those with many old legacy files, and files from other
platforms that do not conform with Vista's extensions, you may not be able
to effectively search those files in Vista -- ever. Discovering that Vista
is not finding old files can be quite fustrating and time consuming, but
again, no one at Microsoft cares.

I have searched for months for a solution and cannot find a Vista search
solution without a 3rd party search tool on my Vista "ultimate" machine.
I have found Agent Ransack to work reasonably well as a replacement search
for Vista: http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/download.aspx.

Vista does not have the search capability that has been present in Windows
Explorer in Windows 95, but no one at Microsoft cares. Microsoft is quite
happy to give us a very fast seach, but does not care that the search is
flawed or only works on certain machines. And if you have many files on
your machine, you can't search until everything is indexed.

Microsoft management has stopped answering my E-mails about the flawed
search in Vista -- they simply do not care that Vista search does not
work. Unless or until a very large customer demands that Vista search be
fixed, Microsoft will ignore the problem.

It seems, some new command-line tools are (to certain extent) suitable for
string search.
1. there's FIND command, which performs string search inside individual
file.
2. FOR /R command - does recursive operation.
So:

for /R c:\somedir %c in (*.*) do find "somestr" "%c" >> c:\output.txt

- fill search all files in (and below) c:\somedir for somestr and log output
into c:\output.txt.

Boris

 

[Celegans]

string search.
1. there's FIND command, which performs string search inside individual
file.
2. FOR /R command - does recursive operation.
So:

for /R c:\somedir %c in (*.*) do find "somestr" "%c" >> c:\output.txt

- fill search all files in (and below) c:\somedir for somestr and log
output into c:\output.txt.

Yes, there are DOS command line tools that could work do do search.

But since Windows 95 there has been a reliable string search in Windows (OK,
Windows XP needed a registry patch to get string search to work). I don't
know why it's asking too much to have a Windows Explorer in Vista that
provides a string search feature that works 100% all the time.

As someone who occasionally needs to provide technical support on the phone
or via E-mail, the Windows search approach is usually much simpler to
explain to neophytes than anything on a DOS command line.