Added on 19/11/2007
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How to use the new Search feature
Vista new search feature will change the way we were used to
navigate through our hard drives in the earlier versions of Windows. Specially
when you downloaded some file and you can't remember where you saved it or
in many other cases,instead of opening Windows Explorer it's much easier and
faster just typing the name of the file you searching in the search box and
the results will pop up as you typing. It's truly much different from the old
Windows xp search.
Figure
1
Figure 2
- Click on Start and then ,type the name of what you
searching in the Search box located at the bottom of the start menu(Figure 1),you
won't have to click on the search button,as you type the results appear on the
left pane of the start menu.
- To open the item you were looking for,click on it,or select it and
press enter
- To open a Search folder with the complete list of
results,click See all Results,or you can search the internet as
well just clicking Search the Internet (see Fig 2)
- To undo the search just press Esc or backspace over
the search text or click the X button
Tips
- To find files by extension just type *.extension.For .doc files type *.doc
and all the words documents will pop up.
- You can also type the kind of file,for instance Documents
for word Picture or Music and so on.
- Search is case insesitive,alex Alex or aLEx will return the
same results
.
- You can use wildcard characters like ? for any single character or
*
for zero or more characters.Type *.jp?,for example to find all the files with
extension .jpeg or .jpg or type page*.doc to find all the word documents
beginning with page followed by any character.
- Looking for several related files might be easier using column heading see the
article about filtering and sorting
Files
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The search box in the control panel is to search only control panel related tasks.You
won't find any file or folder from this search.
- Start /ControlPanel and look in the
right corner
- Start typing in the search box and the results will come up in the CP
window
-
To open a task , just click on it
Figure 3
When you want to use multiple criteria or choose the location where you want to search,then it's better using the search folder
- Go to Start / Search or from the Desktop or windows explorer press F3
- As the window opens ,don't click in the search box but just type,the result will start popping up
-
Filter your results by clicking one of the buttons next to show only
- Use Advanced Search to refine your searches,click
Advanced Search on the right corner
-
Refine your search by location,date or any option.
Tips
- To Search files with the word holiday
in it,type
holiday in the name box
- Or you can find a photo you've taken last summer using the date box and then
filter the results by clicking on Picture only.
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Figure
4
You Using natural language search you don't have to be worried about
searching operators like AND,OR,NOT but ,for example,an advanced search like
kind:country OR rock gives the same results as country or rock
music with natural-language.
- To turn on natural-language go to start/ControlPanel / Appearance and personalisation / Folder Option / Search Tab
- Check Use Natural Language Search(see Figure 4)
Tips
- To Revert your changes to the Windows Vista default
settings,click Restore Default
- Using Natural-language you have more flexibility but if you need to fine
tune your searches it's better the basic search
folders.
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Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
There is a lot of things that Windows does invisibly and indexing files is
one of them.The index is a record where Vista stores the name of the file,date
modified,size,file type,author,tag,and other information that will let Vista do
very fast searches.when required.By dafault , the most common files in your
computer will be indexed,like all the files in your personal folder,but not
files that have been saved in other location like if you have a different Hard
drive to store music or movies and if you want search to be faster you'll have
to index them manually,but don't add more than what you need to avoid the index
file to become too big .
- To add or remove index location Go to Start > ControlPanel > Appearence and
Personalization > Indexing Options,Click Modify
(see Fig 5)
- On the next window click Show all
Location and on the Change Selected Locations pane, check the box next
to the location you like to add or uncheck it to remove that location
(see Figure 6)
- To rebuild the index click the Advanced
in the Indexing Options.
- In the Advanced Options (See Fig.7)
on the Index Setting Tab click Rebuild.
- In the Files Types tab you can
check what type of files have been indexed.
- You can also change the drive where the index file
has been stored from the Index Setting Tab (see fig 7).
Tips
- You can't index shared folders or any Network location
- You can't turn off the Index.
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