How to Search in Windows 7 for text within a document?

Anonymous
2010-06-28T02:30:00+00:00

How do you search for a document by using searching specific text in the document? (Word or other searchable doc.) Other forum answers suggest that this will happen with the general search box that appears in the upper right corner of explorer - but this does not seem to be the case.

I have searched for known words, and documents do not come up.

Is there a default? Is there a way turn on the search within document? (formerly, the detailed search option for any folder would prompt you to select 'search within document.')

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2010-07-06T20:15:26+00:00

Try just typing the phrase into the search box. If this doesn’t work, try content: “words in phrase”

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-09-17T00:48:19+00:00

    I've always had this problem with the Windows search-within-file function on all versions of Windows. I'd search for words I knew were in documents and they still wouldn't show up.

    You can download third-party file searching applications. I use Google Desktop, which spends a couple of hours indexing all the files on your computer and after that can search through them as efficiently and effectively as it would web pages.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-08-14T00:24:41+00:00

    I have the same problem as everyone else! I tried the fixes mentioned but it had no effect. I really hate Windown 7 search!

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-05-16T08:39:31+00:00

    Windows Search function gets less and less user-friendly with every new release. The most frustrating thing of all is that you'll not get any clue on why there are no matches to your search. Just this "No items match your search", when you know that there actually are matches.

    You are most likely right about the file types. I had the same problem in XP,

    http://news.lugnet.com/cad/dev/?n=11033

    and Anders Isaksson pointed me in the right direction to the extremely complicated but nonetheless working solution that time.

    I haven't found any solution for Windows 7 yet on how to search in all kinds of file types, other than installing Total Commander, which has a  powerful and fast search function that actually does exactly what you tell it to do.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-03-23T12:17:37+00:00

    Funny, the title says "Search text within document (Windows 7)"

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