"No need for anything complicated. Just type what you're looking for. If it's in the filename, those results will be returned first, above any results where your search term isinside the file. Easy."
This IS NOT true!!! Most times I search for a file with 'xyz' in name, the top of the list contains files with obscure references to xyz somewhere inside the file, and the files with xyz in the name are hidden half way down the page.
My main reason for wanting to use search is to save time. I usually know the file name and the directory it's in, but there may be 50 other files in that directory, so I want to save time by not having to look through a list of 50 files to find the one
I want to open.
Now with Windows 7, that's exactly what I have to do, unless I type file:xyz
there's no easy auto completion by typing the f - it doesn't default to file: so that I can fill in the bit that I want - it goes to a previous search, and trying to remove the previous file name and insert the new one is more effort than retyping 'file:'
In fact, it's usually easier just to look through the 50 or so filenames. Sorting them by date and looking for the file you want is now usually the quickest option.
My question is why did Microsoft come up with something so stupid, and why haven't they fixed it? There is the odd occasion (maybe once a month, compared to dozens of times a day for the normal search) where I need to search through file contents, so the indexing
can sometimes be handy, but not giving users the option turn off looking through file contents suggests they really are out of touch with their users.
Isn't it about time they started to do something about it - or at least fix this problem by providing the option to make the default search only for filenames in the search box, and an option c:xyz if you want to search for contents? Even an abbreviation
f:xyx instead of file:xyz would save the time!!!