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Windows 7 search is driving me insane!

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stevedensmore said:
I am coming from using XP and back then I could simply go to a drive in Windows Explorer press Ctrl+f and type something like this... "9231, 0350, 0285". The search function would find every image with those numbers in the filename. Windows 7 refuses to do this with it's search box though. It's weird, because when I type "DSC", it lists every file with that in it's name. Has anyone figured out why Windows 7 search is so stubborn and is there any fix?
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there is no secret just set it up to search the way you want and use your start box first.... simple enough for that.

xp's search function also had to be setup to search hidden/system files, etc. same thing.
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D700 paired with 24-70 f2.8 and 70-200vr f2.8
 
Your drive may not be setup to be indexed.
I think W7 will only search indexed drives...
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Micky - K1XH
Hartland, VT
 
K1XH said:
Your drive may not be setup to be indexed.
I think W7 will only search indexed drives...
Click to expand...
That's quite possible.

Steve, try this:
  • Open up an Explorer window to a folder that contains files which don't show up on your search queries.
  • Right-click on the column headings and click "Attributes" so that the file attributes are visible.
Does an "I" (and possibly some other letters) show up in the Attributes column beside every file? If not, then the files are not being indexed and that's probably why they're not showing up in the search. If that's the case then let us know and we can tell you how to fix it.
 
Not true.

Windows 7 will search any drive but search itself would be slower. Message comes up in that effect.

On the other hand I also had problems searching some files if these files are in restricted directories. If I searched the whole drive these files would not show up but if I am already in that directory I could search successfully.
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Eugene

The only time a smaller sensor with the same pixel count is superior to a larger sensor (aka higher pixel density) is when you are focal-length limited.

Quote by Lee Jay

 
I never thought of restricted folders.
It may be a permissions/sharing/security issue...
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Micky - K1XH
Hartland, VT
 
Sorry I did not make myself clear. I should have put quotes around word restricted.

What I meant is directories like Program files or user directories. Something you can go to from local drive but not accessible from network.
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Eugene

The only time a smaller sensor with the same pixel count is superior to a larger sensor (aka higher pixel density) is when you are focal-length limited.

Quote by Lee Jay

 
If you just want to search for filenames quickly, then it's difficult to beat Search Everything from http://www.voidtools.com/

It indexes in seconds, searches are instant. It's not fussy about what you type in either, I wanted to locate a file called IMGP7352_silk11.jpg and typed in, without the quotes, "7352 jpg" with a space between 2 & j. It's found it by the time I press the 'g' key.
 
stevedensmore wrote:

Windows 7 refuses to do this with it's search box though. It's weird, because when I type "DSC", it lists every file with that in it's name. Has anyone figured out why Windows 7 search is so stubborn and is there any fix?

I know the feeling, I don't know if this will work for you but I use a free utility called FileSearchEX, looks just like XP's search and is very fast. It is not perfect but it gets me by.
 
I don't know why these good people con't to try to help you on this. For better or worse, they're trying and that's nice of them.
 
I agree with using Agent Ransack. I had a problem a few years ago trying to get XP search to search the content of all files (XP search wouldn't find content that was obviously there, in plain text.)

I switched to Agent Ransack for most searching a few years ago, and it works very well. It does a real time search of the actual file content, so it's not super fast like an indexed search system, but you don't have to worry about corrupt or incomplete indexes. And the preview, and ability to export results is nice.

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