In windows 7 - I want to search for all files containing "A word or phrase in the file". The standard XP search box.

Anonymous

In Windows 7 - I want to search/find all files containing "A word or phrase in the file". The old standard XP search box.

I do NOT supply: file name; file type; drive letter; etc. - nothing.

I tried searching for this - just can't find any discussion. And of course, not having this search would be insane. It is precisely what we have a computer for.

And no 3rd party programs are allowed.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

I've been looking into this because I know the search has been failing for me. I think the difference in whether Windows search works or not depends on the FILE EXTENSION which contains your search text. For example, if you look for the word "spam", it will be found if it is in a whatever.doc file, or whatever.txt file. However, if you were to rename the file to whatever.xyz, it will no longer find the word.

Here are all the steps I think you need to follow to actually search:

Make sure that Windows 7 is actually going to search files with your extension, and it appears that using this list properly is important *whether or not you are looking in an indexed location*!!

a. Hit the start button and type "search" in the search box.

b. Select "Change How Windows Searches"

c. Hit "Advanced"

d. Select the "File Types" tab.

e. Make sure the file extension for the files you want to search in is on the list *and* is set to "Index Properties and File Contents" (yes, pick your jaw up off the floor). I know this appears to be for file indexing, but it does seem to make a difference on whether you find the file in non-indexed locations as well.

f. Say "Ok" and exit all the dialog boxes

2. Actually perform your search on the folder in question. Depending on some other settings you may have to type "content: spam" to find "spam" *in* the files instead of files with the word "spam" in the name. Alternately, if you press the "Alt" key when you're exploring in the folder, you can choose "Tools / Folder Options" go to the "Search" tab and select "Always search file names and contents".

If what I have written is actually correct, then IMHO Microsoft has coughed up the ball bigtime on this one. Personally, I now recognize that I can't use the search feature, and I'm installing Cygwin so I can use "grep" to search the contents of files. Not cool and not amused.

Good luck to all the searchers.

~Pete

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Anonymous

To get your suggestion to the right people at Microsoft, please go to the Give Us Feedback for Windows 7 page.

Boulder Computer Maven

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Volunteer Moderator

There is an option that seems to match what you're looking for:

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Anonymous

To find "phrase in the file" type content:"phrase in the file" in the searchbox.

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364 additional answers

Anonymous

2012-11-30T18:30:16+00:00

@MissSBBnyc and @JayConverse, Agent Ransack and other third-party products search primarily plain-text file formats. Which Win7 search also does quite well. I'll admit Win7 has glitches, ironically mostly in indexed locations, such as not honoring the "partial matches" option and "contains" operator (~=). But because I search mostly in non-indexed locations, it has served me pretty well--after @TheLarch explained the contains operator (page 29 of this thread).

It's the non-text (proprietary/binary) formats that stymie any search tool, including Win7 search and Agent Ransack. If you look closely at the Agent Ransack documentation, you will see that it can search Microsoft Office documents, Word Perfect documents, and PDFs only when the corresponding IFilters are present (see, for example, here). Depending on what you have installed, you might have to go out and obtain those IFilters. Which is, essentially, the same procedure you would use to enable Win7 to search those formats. (The only reason most people don't think about the Office formats is that the IFilters are automatically installed with Office. If you didn't have Office and had to search for something inside an Office document--well, that would be a problem.)

All I'm saying is no solution out there is complete or perfect. Microsoft, in my opinion, has done an abysmal job admitting and fixing the problems with Win7 and an equally abysmal job explaining it. There was nothing in Win7 "Help and Support" about the various methods that a serious user would need. As far as I could tell when I first visited this thread, there was nothing I could find with Google that explained that Win7 search used the Microsoft Advanced Query Syntax. Recently, I found this somewhat better explanation. I don't know how long it has been there, but I don't think anyone has mentioned it in this thread yet. A more technical description is here.
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