Searching for word inside a file?

[Guest]

In XP I could search the contents of documents for a name. With Vista I can't
seem to find this option. For example I want to search all word documents or
text documents for ones containing the words "mileage" not in the title but
inside the document.

How do I do this in Vista?

Thanks
Lara

 

[Jon]

In XP I could search the contents of documents for a name. With Vista I
can't
seem to find this option. For example I want to search all word documents
or
text documents for ones containing the words "mileage" not in the title
but
inside the document.

How do I do this in Vista?

Thanks
Lara

This is probably how I would do it...

Start > Search > "mileage" AND (Ext:txt OR Ext:doc) AND (NOT
filename:"*mileage*")

The thing to remember is that the default is to search contents as well as
titles, so you need to explicitly exclude the title if that's what you'd
want.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

This is the default behavior if the files are in an indexed location.
Start -> Search and then type into the search box on the top-right of the
search window.

 

[Guest]

Well then Vista Search doesn't work properly then. My Documents is indexed
and the file was in My Documents. I found it eventually. It is a text
document with the word mileage clearly typed in the document. I tried all
sorts of ways after I found the file to get Vista to find it based on the
content. It didn't.

 

[theclyde]

Well then Vista Search doesn't work properly then. My Documents is indexed
and the file was in My Documents. I found it eventually. It is a text
document with the word mileage clearly typed in the document. I tried all
sorts of ways after I found the file to get Vista to find it based on the
content. It didn't.

"Vista Search doesn't work properly" = you hit the nail on the head.

 

[Dega]

More than likely the indexing wasn't finished before you were searching.
Indexing works in the background so if your computer is busy it may be a
while before the indexing completes. I'm very disappointed in the search
inside a file being available outside of indexing as I need to search many
servers that have files changing all the time, the indexing isn't an option
so Vista becomes useless for this and I'm forced to go back to previous
windows.

 

[theclyde]

More than likely the indexing wasn't finished before you were searching.
Indexing works in the background so if your computer is busy it may be a
while before the indexing completes. I'm very disappointed in the search
inside a file being available outside of indexing as I need to search many
servers that have files changing all the time, the indexing isn't an option
so Vista becomes useless for this and I'm forced to go back to previous
windows.







- Show quoted text -

Try Agent Ransack - it is a nice free search tool.

 

[SixSigmaGuy]

Why would you assume indexing isn't finished? Several of us are having the
exact same problem and indexing is definitely finished. All you have to do
is look at the indexing dialog box to see that it says indexing is complete.

 

[Todd_CAD_MAN]

This is really becoming a JOKE! I have spent more time trying to find out why
Vista will not find contents in a file, I could have found the file already!
But, I need to find out how for the next time!

 

[Michael A. Covington]

I tuned in late, but is the question how to get Windows to be able to search
for text inside all types of files, not just .doc and a few others? If so,
the answer, at least in XP and earlier, is this registry setting:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex]
"FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions"=dword:00000001

Haven't actually tried it in Vista.

 

[SixSigmaGuy]

No, that's not the issue. The issue is how you find text in specific files.
E.g., If I want to find the text "my text" in *.bas files. There seems to be
no way to do that using Vista.

But, I did find that the old DOS findstr command is still a part of Vista in
its command windows and that lets me do what I want. In fact, it's amazingly
faster than using Vista Search.

I tuned in late, but is the question how to get Windows to be able to search
for text inside all types of files, not just .doc and a few others? If so,
the answer, at least in XP and earlier, is this registry setting:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex]
"FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions"=dword:00000001

Haven't actually tried it in Vista.

This is really becoming a JOKE! I have spent more time trying to find out
why
Vista will not find contents in a file, I could have found the file
already!
But, I need to find out how for the next time!

 

[SixSigmaGuy]

use findstr in thej command prompt. It's wonderful for finding strings in
files.

 

[Celegans]

No, that's not the issue. The issue is how you find text in specific
files.
E.g., If I want to find the text "my text" in *.bas files. There seems to
be
no way to do that using Vista.

Here's the theory of what to do -- but the theory doesn't work in practice
on my Vista Ultimate machine and I've not been able to get search to work in
Vista since last July and Microsoft refuses to help.

Go to Control Panel, Indexing Options, Advance, select the File Type tab.

Inspect the settings for .bas File Type files. Make sure that "Index
properties and file contents" is set. This has resolved part of my search
problems, but it takes nearly a day to re-index my machine and I've seen no
where how small changes in the settings for file types are incrementally
applied.

With SP1 it's now harder to get to the Advanced Search selection. You might
try checking "include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be slow)"
in Advanced Search.

NONE of these options work for me and Vista Search is nearly worthless for
many of my legacy files.

I have asked Microsoft for permission to downgrade so I could get search
working again, but their greed requires I now pay for a copy of XP to
replace Vista even though search is absolutely worthless on my Vista
machine.

A guy in another newsgroup once reported he had Vista search problems for
months, and then suddenly, and for no apparent reason, search started
working. My guess is that there is a bug, but Microsoft doesn't seem to
care and has no diagnostic to troubleshoot the problem. They said they
couldn't reproduce the problem I reported, but Microsoft refuses to
investigate why Vista search doesn't work on my machine. You would think
with a new product they would care more to fix subtle bugs.

I encourage all to post your Vista search problems and frustrations here:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/05/09/advanced-search-techniques.aspx

This blog is supposed to be about "Advance search techniques", which will be
nice if we could just get search to work.

 

[SixSigmaGuy]

Go to Control Panel, Indexing Options, Advance, select the File Type tab.

Inspect the settings for .bas File Type files. Make sure that "Index
properties and file contents" is set. This has resolved part of my search
problems, but it takes nearly a day to re-index my machine and I've seen no
where how small changes in the settings for file types are incrementally
applied.

With SP1 it's now harder to get to the Advanced Search selection. You might
try checking "include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be slow)"
in Advanced Search.<<

I'm way ahead of you. I've done all that many times hoping for a
combination that might work; I've even hacked into the registry, with no
luck. The search UI itself doesn't give you a way to specify that you want
to search for text in only *.bas files. In XP, you had two fields; one for
the filespec you wanted to search on and another for the text you wanted to
search for. Why did they change it? It was working fine.

 

[Obi-wan]

Does Bill rad these Discussions? If so, Bill, Search Companion was way better
than this indexing crap. I understand concepually that indexing should help
in file location, and perhaps it does in all areas except searching INSIDE of
documents. I agree with all frustrations noted in this and other threads. In
XP I could easily right-click on folder, click Search, leave the filename
section blank and then type in a specific word and instantaneously got a list
of files, all on a networked and non-idexed folder. So please, bring back
Search Companion or some similar user-friendly approach to this. One would
think the Advanced Search might be a good place to start, but no again my
only option is to use tags, which again assume (we all know what they say
about assuming) someone had the forthought to enter these when they created
the document. Can they just add one more field in Advanced Search for
non-structured, non-indexed text search in a document? Is that really to much
to ask the All powerful Bill?

 

[Nonny]

Does Bill rad these Discussions?

You think a bazillionaire takes the time to read what doofuses like
you and I have to write?

Puh-LEEEEZ!