help.artaro.eu

Content

Use Windows Search in Windows XP

Tip: keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F searches in the page contents

Looking for Windows Vista version of the article? Click here then.
Looking for Windows 7 version of the article? Click here then.

Windows XP has quite lame search capabilities by default. The somewhat functional search is still there, but well hidden under a cute yellow puppy looking for bones... err, files. Still the default Indexing options in Windows XP are not good enough.

Enter Windows Search. Now this is something that is good for finding things like "I want to find my photos - I used my Canon camera and it was probably sometime last week". Maybe even "I want to find that e-mail, it had an attachment and it came from Bill or Linus weeks ago". Yeah, Windows Search is that good! OK, you can't actually type in something like "Find my mp3-s!", but it has a very good syntax for searching for files and keywords in file contents or properties.

Downloading and installing Windows Search

Open Windows Search home page and click Get it now button.

In Get It Now page, there is a link cunningly named... Get it now! Yup, click on it.

On next page, scroll down to find For Windows XP (32-bit) link and click it.

In File Download - Security Warning box click Run.

After download is complete, another Security Warning appears. As long as Publisher is Microsoft Corporation, it is safe to click Run here.

Now Windows Search Setup opens. Click Next.

Another License Agreement... Click I agree and then click Next.

Installing Windows Search might take some time, but when it's done, click Finish.

Using Windows Search Deskbar box for basic searches

You will notice three changes right after Windows Search is installed.

First, Windows Search starts indexing your documents and e-mails (if any) and this might make your computer a little slower for some time. Windows Search does not use much processor power, but it reads from and writes to hard disk while it has new content to index.

Second, there is a white box with magnifier button on Taskbar. This is called Windows Search Deskbar and this is where you can enter your searches. While it says "Search Desktop", it really searches in all indexed files (including Start menu), not just Desktop contents.

Third, there is a magnifier icon in Taskbar Notification area. This is Windows Search icon and you can use it for configuring Windows Search.

When you click in the Window Search Deskbar box, search status and history window pops up. Here you have some nice tips, for example, typing "=calc" and pressing Enter key on your keyboard opens Windows Calculator. You can also click on "?help" link to open Windows Search help.

You could start off by typing in www.google.com and pressing Enter key on your keyboard. This opens Google home page in Internet Explorer. Nice - you can go directly to any web page using Windows Search Deskbar! You can type in how to play basketball and press Shift+Enter on your keyboard. This will open your default search engine in Internet Explorer and display its results from Web. OK, so you can even use it for Internet searches.

Most common shortcut keys for Windows Search are:

• Windows Key+Shift+F - activates Windows Search Deskbar box on Taskbar
• F2 - switches between Desktop search and Web search while Search Results list is open
• Ctrl+Enter - completes a web address and opens it in Internet Explorer. For example, type in yahoo, press Ctrl+Enter and Internet Explorer opens www.yahoo.com.

By now, many files should be indexed and you can start searching for a file. The easiest way is to type in a word or some characters. For example, you know you have a photo of horses somewhere, and that the file name of the photo includes "horse", too. Type in horse and this will find all files that include "horse" somewhere - in file properties, contents or file name. Talking about file names, this search will find "horse", "my horse", "horses on beach" and "thorsen" - it searches anywhere in file name.
You do not have to press Enter key to start searching, Windows Search will update search results with every character you type in or delete.

So there's that photo! You can click on a link to open the photo.

You can also use Windows Search Deskbar for finding programs on Start menu - type in internet and in Everything section there will be links to Internet Explorer and Internet games. This is good when your Start menu is really overcrowded.

To find exact names, use double quotation marks. For example, when you want to open My Pictures folder, type in "my pictures" and click it on the Search Results list. Note that this also displays photos in My Pictures folder and files with exactly my pictures in name.

If you would have typed in my pictures without double quotation marks, this would have also displayed "Sample pictures" folder, "11_All_Pictures.wpl" etc - any file or folder with "pictures" or "my" in it.

These were the simplest ones.

Using search window for specifying more criteria

If you want to use a user interface for narrowing down your search results, press Enter key after typing in a keyword or click more... link in search results.

Here you can see a list of all search results with previews (if possible for the file type). In toolbar there are buttons for specifying search locations (folders and items in default e-mail program) and file types to look for.
Double-click on an item in search results to open it.

When you click on All Locations button, you can select to search from files or items in your default e-mail program (Outlook Express in this case). You can also specify a folder where to search from by clicking Add Location... button.

After clicking on Add Location, a standard Browse For Folder dialog will open. Select the folder you want to search and click OK.

To select a specific file type or item type in your default e-mail program, click Other button.

This displays all types possible. Click the one you want to find.

Using advanced searches in Windows Search Deskbar box

Let's dig deeper - Windows Search syntax has myriad of possibilities. You can always combine multiple search criteria by separating with spaces, for example type:jpg datetaken:lastweek cameramake:canon.

Using date and size ranges

First, you can always use relative dates such as today, tomorrow, yesterday as well as  combinations of this, last, past, coming plus week, month, year - thisweek, nextmonth, pastmonth, comingyear.

To specify ranges, use operators "<" (less than), "<=" (less than or equal to), ">" (greater than), "=>" (equal to or greater than) and "..".

For example, to find a file with size over 100 kilobytes (KB) and containing a word "horse", use: horse size:>100KB.

To find a file created between 31/01/2009 and 26/02/2009, use: created:>31/01/09 <26/02/09. Please note that this excludes files that were created on 31/01/2009 or 26/02/2009. To find those files, use: created:=>31/01/09 <=26/02/09 or created:31/01/09..26/02/09.

Rules for search criteria

Just like searching with and without quotes produces different results, there are rules for combining search criteria. Suppose you want to use the same keyword - horse.

• horse author:bill - finds everything that contains "horse" and has "bill" for author.
• horse author:linus torvalds - finds everything that contains "horse" and "torvalds" plus has "linus" for author. This is a common mistake made by people - search criterias must be kept together with quotation marks or parenthesis (no space!), everything after space will be treated as a keyword again.
• horse author:"linus torvalds" - finds everything that contains "horse" and has exactly "linus torvalds" for author.
• horse author:(linus torvalds) - finds everything that contains "horse" plus has "linus" and "torvalds" somewhere in author field (could be "linus benedict torvalds" or "linus torvalds" or "benedict torvalds, linus")
• horse author:(linus OR bill) - finds everything that contains "horse" and has "linus" or "bill" as an author. Note that OR is a boolean operator and it must be in capital letters, otherwise it will be treated as a keyword.
• horse author:(linus NOT bill) - finds everything that contains "horse" and has "linus" for author, but not "bill".

You can always combine several keywords and criteria: horse author:"linus benedict" size:>10MB NOT kind:(video OR picture).

Searching by kind

Suppose you want to find all photos with name containing "horse", but you have some documents and e-mails containing "horse", too. Simply typing in horse is not very useful then. Use kind: to narrow down your search results - "horse kind:pictures" finds only pictures that include "horse" somewhere. "horse kind:photo" does exactly the same.
Here is a list of possible kinds:

• communications (e-mails and appointments)
• contacts (also person)
• docs (also documents)
• email
• folders
• im (for Instant Messenger conversations, for example Windows Live Messenger)
• journal
• link
• meetings
• music (also song)
• notes
• pictures (also pics or photo)
• programs
• tasks
• tv (for Windows XP Media Center Recorded TV shows)
• videos

So kind:music finds all your mp3-s, wma-s, wav-s etc. Please note that "email", "journal", "meetings", "notes" and "tasks" work only if you have Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail installed and configured with at least one e-mail account.

You can also type in just pictures to see a list of photos or just video to see a list of videos.

Searching by type

If you have a large music collection and you want to find only mp3-s, not wma-s, use type: instead. For example, mozart type:mp3. If you have many photos and you want to find only files with .jpg extension, use type:jpg. You get it, right?

To see a list of all possible file types, open Windows Search help file by typing ?help in Deskbar box and pressing Enter key. Expand Reference section from the left side and click Searchable file types.

Searching by file properties

All files that Windows Search indexes have several properties that you can use in your searches: Suppose you want to find a tune named "Canon in D" by "Johann Pachelbel" and you know you had it both in mp3 and wma formats with wma sounding better. But the file has some pretty cryptic file name, something like "00jpcid.wma". Use artist:pachelbel title:canon type:wma to find that file.
You can find Word documents created by you by searching for type:doc author:<your name> or all e-mails sent to bill@ubuntu.com by searching type:eml to:bill@ubuntu.com.

Here's a selection of properties that you might find useful (the whole list is accessible by typing ?help, pressing Enter key, expanding Reference section on the left and clicking Rules for advanced searches):

• album
• artist
• author
• bitrate
• cameramake
• cameramodel
• cc
• created
• date
• datetaken
• genre
• firstname
• lastname
• modified
• size
• subject
• title
• to
• track
• year

This is not so easy at first sight, but it enables finding exactly the right file. You'll learn it very quickly really.

Clearing Windows Search history

If you want to clear your search history for some reason, activate Windows Search Deskbar box by pressing Windows Key+Shift+F on your keyboard. Click the down arrow button of Windows logo and click Clear Search History.

Pausing Windows Search indexing

If you add many files (videos, for example) at once, Windows Search indexing might slow down older computers temporarily while it indexes the new files. If you want to do some work and you need all the processing power your computer has, pause indexing by right-clicking on Windows Search icon (magnifier) in Notification area. Then click Indexing Status.

You can also select Snooze Indexing from Windows Search icon right-click menu. This disables indexing until next computer restart or until you click the command again.

Select time to snooze indexing for, click Snooze button and then click Close.

Modifying folders in Windows Search index

By default, Windows Search indexes all files in users' common folders (My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos, Shared Documents, etc) and items in default e-mail programs. If you happen to have some important folder outside My Documents, you can manually add it to Windows Search for indexing. If you do not use any e-mail programs, you can exclude them from index, too.

To do that, right-click Windows Search icon (magnifier) in Taskbar Notification area and click Windows Search Options...

Indexing Options window opens. Here Outlook Express (Windows XP default e-mail program) is not listed yet. Documents and Settings is the folder where common folders (My Documents, etc) for all users are.
Click Modify.

In Indexed Locations window select or deselect the items you want. Never deselect Documents and Settings folder on Local Disk (C:). Never select whole hard drives (Local Disks), select just the folders you need instead.
Click OK to close Indexed Locations.

Click OK to close Indexing Options.

Looking for Windows Vista version of the article? Click here then.
Looking for Windows 7 version of the article? Click here then.

---