Erm... Where is Custom Search in Windows 7?

BoT · Aug 25, 2009

it will search for printers and devices but not computers. also in the old search you could even typ in the ip address if you don't know name or just part of the name and it would look for it.
this is even worse in the home versions of vista, don't know about home versions of win7

in the network search it will only list computers that are in the same workgroup or domain .. if that

c627627 · Aug 25, 2009

Much obliged. Post #36 complete. Problem solved.

Off topic:
I've turned indexing off. I can find anything I want (reasonably) quickly on my computer with indexing off so why bother having it crunch away 24/7 reducing the life of my HD?

Excellent tip on system/hidden files search. It turns out it is enabled by default which is the way I want it.

splat said:
only allowing you to connect with "trusted" computers.

In here bro regarding that:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=616394

c627627 · Aug 25, 2009

My suspicions about inconsistency/unreliability of Windows 7 (and Vista's) search engine have grown after I made a new folder and created a hidden and a system file to test if Windows 7 will find them just now.

Moving the folder to different locations did not produce identical results. This bothers me very much.

splat · Aug 26, 2009

BoT said:
it will search for printers and devices but not computers. also in the old search you could even typ in the ip address if you don't know name or just part of the name and it would look for it.
this is even worse in the home versions of vista, don't know about home versions of win7

in the network search it will only list computers that are in the same workgroup or domain .. if that

when I opened up "Network", it found my 3 printers, my router (go figure, i think it saw my two 8port switches too), two windows xp machines, one vista machine, and two linux machines all automagically. that worked exactly as it does on xp when you open My Network. i didn't try to type anything in to the address bar or search for a specific computer because they were all right there in front of me. If i were at work tho, on my companies domain, I could see the value of being able to search for a hostname since there are a couple hundred computers on the network and they all have obscure names based off country, city, department, etc.

at any rate, it seems the search function in 7 works satisfactory to my needs...even tho i never use it

c627627 · Nov 21, 2009

In Windows 7, what is the command line to search for a specific word (for example the word 'content') inside txt files only?

chawks2 · Nov 21, 2009

I have spoken about the shortcomings of w7 search many times.

random search blurb said:
I had 6 files that were out of sync with what was displayed in Task Scheduler. Once I deleted all of the offending files, Task Scheduler fired up without issue.

To make modifications for file types in the index, press Win+R or click on Start \ Run… to open the Run window and type

control.exe srchadmin.dll

In the Advanced Options window, click on the File Types tab.

Here, you can add or remove known file types by checking or unchecking the box next to the file type. You can also select how the file should be indexed (circled in screen shot below) by Index Properties Only or Index Properties and File Contents.

splat · Nov 22, 2009

sounds like everyone has issues with windows indexing. i always turn it off. looks like if you want a good search for windows you need to install google desktop

redduc900 · Nov 22, 2009

First make sure 'Always search file names and contents...' is selected under the Search tab in Folder Options. Then in order to search for the word 'content' in *.txt files, type name:*.txt text:content into the Search field. You can also replace name w/ ext, for example ext:*.txt text:content

stool · Nov 22, 2009

I remembered reading about http://www.copernic.com
in Maximum PC mag a bit ago. It appears to have good writeups, but I haven't personally used it, as I'm just getting involved with 7. As is most of the time usual, third party apps almost always work better than MS designed stuff.

c627627 · Nov 22, 2009

redduc900 said:
First make sure 'Always search file names and contents...' is selected under the Search tab in Folder Options. Then in order to search for the word 'content' in *.txt files, type name:*.txt text:content into the Search field. You can also replace name w/ ext, for example ext:*.txt text:content

Thank you kindly. This allowed me to finally confirm what I suspected all along, namely the unreliability of Windows 7 search. When I follow your instructions on a test file, they work perfectly. But when I try to find contents of the file that I am actually looking for, I get zero hits.

Proof is that I reboot into Windows XP and simply do as pictured in my post above and I get a hit. But if I try in Windows 7, I get nothing. There is something that causes some searches to get no hits in Windows 7 even though they are there.

Here's what's happening. If I move this txt file to another location and try a test search there, I get a hit. But searching for it at its original location, I get zero hits. Why is Windows 7 doing this!?

Same txt file - moved - there's a hit there but nothing comes up if a search is done for it at its original location...

splat · Nov 22, 2009

did you double check that 7 is indexing the file contents?

chawks2 · Nov 22, 2009

splat said:
did you double check that 7 is indexing the file contents?

I'm so confused why this is acceptable. The whole idea you need to KNOW where the files you are looking for defeats the purpose of search. This should be fixed.

c627627 · Nov 22, 2009

splat said:
did you double check that 7 is indexing the file contents?

Turning indexing off is one of the first things I did.

I should get a hit with indexing turned off, it just may take a few seconds longer which I'd rather it do then having my HD *constantly* be active indexing stuff.

nikhsub1 · Nov 22, 2009

Sticky'd here:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=603901

c627627 · Feb 13, 2010

Case sensitive search in Windows 7?

polarys425 · Feb 14, 2010

Heres something that seems to work ok. I Havent used extensively, but the couple searches i did went ok.

http://download.mythicsoft.com/agentran.exe

c627627 · Feb 14, 2010

Well thank you. It's called Agent Ransack and it's freeware. http://mythicsoft.com/agentransack/ It has the basics and a match case option too. I looked and couldn't find anything like it anywhere before, so thanks for this! I just tested it and it works with Windows 7 just fine.

Windows XP search engine is great but something is very wrong with Windows 7's search engine, even when I pull out the cheat sheet

to manually specify Windows 7 search options.

The program you linked to will be on my Windows 7 desktop and used whenever I need to do a custom search for a file or contents of a file. Great find.

polarys425 · Feb 14, 2010

I'd noticed that the search in Win 7 was seriously lacking, but had never put much thought in to it. I saw the thread you resurected and remembered that it was something ive been meaning to look into. My first thought was maybe XP's search could be moved over, but its part of explorer, so thats a no go. I did a google search on the subject and found that freeware prog. Installed it and it seemed ok. Now if i can find a way to put that in my portable apps thumbdrive.

polarys425 · Feb 14, 2010

It works just fine in Portable Apps. After you install that search program on your computer, just copy the program file folder to the portable apps directory. Some progs work this way, some wont. This one does though.

Info from the Portable Apps site....

"So, in a standard layout, you'd create a directory within the X:\PortableApps directory and place it within there. For example, if you have a portable program MyApp.exe, you could create a folder called X:\PortableApps\MyApp\ and place MyApp.exe and all its files within there. Then, just click Options - Refresh App Icons within the PortableApps.com Menu and your new app will show up."

c627627 · May 6, 2010

Two freeware programs with clickable Search options:

• http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/search_my_files.html

and

• http://mythicsoft.com/page.aspx?type=agentransack&page=home

Erm... Where is Custom Search in Windows 7?

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