Follow this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx
[EDIT: Moved to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711(v=vs.85).aspx 
]
This should be included in Help and Support.
What is the syntax of Windows 7 file search (wildcards, logical signs...) ?__
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Anonymous
Hello,
I am looking for it everywhere but I can't find it.
When in Windows search and you are looking for a file, you can type in *.txt to look for a '.txt' file.
But it seems that the syntax of file name to look seems more complex that it looks first.
For instance, the quote character (") and the equal sign (=) seem to have there own significance.
And I think I have heard that it was possible to use 'not' and 'and ' signs.
Please, where can I find the complete syntax of the search paterns?
Thank you a lot
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
2011-10-19T14:56:06+00:00 This one helped me.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711(v=VS.85).aspx
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Anonymous
2012-02-07T23:48:37+00:00 All I want to do is use a wildcard to find filenames. I'm not interested in the content or type of the files. For example, suppose I want to find (to delete) all the Word system files that are opened when you open a Word .doc file but haven't been closed when the .doc file is closed. If the .doc file is, say, example.docx, the system file will be called ~xample.docx (or ~$ample.docx). So I want to put in a query using wildcards like this... ~*.* . But this search will find ALL files - the tilde (~) isn't recognised.
How can I do the search I want?
The old search method had no problem doing what I want.
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Anonymous
2012-02-08T12:53:54+00:00 file:"~"
finds files whose name starts with ~
Noel
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Anonymous
2012-02-16T23:59:30+00:00 Noel - your solution is not correct. "~" finds EVERY file and folder in Windows 7 Pro Windows Explorer. That was and still is my problem.