“Seek and ye shall find“. This should be the motto of Windows 7 Search as this is what is does very efficiently.
Using Advanced Query Syntax
You can use Advanced Query Syntax. Now that’s a mouthful! What on earth does mean? Putting it simply it means “using certain keywords to refine the search query”.
There is a huge range of keywords available and for full information about this check out these two web sites.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266512%28VS.85%29.aspx#wildcards
and
www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx
Keep these points in mind when Searching
Restrict your searches using a range of keywords which will limit your query to:
- Search using Wild Cards (* and ?)
- Search by File Types (located throughout your Hard Drive)
- Search using Common File Properties
- Search in Specific Locations
- Libraries (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Downloads)
- Searching for Specific File Kinds
- Seaching by Specific Dates (Date/ Week/Month/Year)
- Searching using Boolean Filters
Searching using Wild Cards
To search for a group of files or to carry out a more general search you can use wild card characters. they are two wildcard characters are: *and ?
- The * symbol stands for any number of characters.
- The ? symbol stands for a single character.
Wild Cards can be used to search for files in the following ways:
| Wildcard Combination | Action |
| * | Finds all files and folders. |
| *. | Finds all files. |
| *.doc | Finds all files with the extension .doc (Windows 2003 files). |
| *Win* | Finds all files and folders with win with in the filename. |
| *Win | Finds all files and folders with win at the end of the filename. |
| *Win? | Finds all files with win in the second to last portion of the filename with one character at the end. |
| ? Win | Finds all files and folders with one character in front of win in the filename. |
Searching by Files Types
These are located in many places on your hard drive.
| Type | Example | Syntax |
| Font (True Type) | ttf | Type:.ttf |
| Zipped | zip | Type:.zip |
| Hypertext | htm | Type:.htm |
| Web Page | xml | Type:.xml |
| eml | Type:.eml |
Searching using Common File Properties
You can limit your search to specific types of files, which are called kinds. The table below shows you some examples of searching by Kind.
| File Kinds | Finds | Syntax | |
| Contacts | Person | kind:contacts | |
| kind:email | |||
| Documents | docs | kind:docs | |
| Folders | folders | kind:folders | |
| Programs | programs | kind:programs | |
| Music | song | kind:song | |
| Pictures | pictures | kind:pictures | |
| Videos | videos | kind:videos | |
| Recorded TV | tv | kind:tv |
