Searching for files on your hard disk ( Win. Vista & 7 )

Searching for files on your hard disk

• Click on the Start button and then click on the Search command.

• This will display the Search dialog box.

• To find a file called Password, you would type in the name of the file into the dialog box, as illustrated.  You will see that additional information is now displayed within the dialog box.   

• Click on the Search in File Contents icon and you will see the following displayed. 

  TIP: You may want to resize the window so that the window is wider.  You may also want to resize the columns so that you can see the Folder location (i.e. the folder in which the file is stored).

• Double clicking on the file will display the file contents, as illustrated.

• Close all open windows.

Advanced searching by file size

• Click on the Start button and then click on the Search command. You will see the following dialog box displayed.   

• Click on the down arrow to the right of the Advanced Search section.  This will display the following options. 

• Click on the down arrow next to the Size section and you will see a drop down list displayed.

• Select is less than. In the next box, type in the number 104.  This will allow us to find all files with a file size of less than 104 KB.

• Click on the Search button and you will see a list of all files under 104 KB.

• Close the search dialog box.

Advanced searching by date

• Click on the Start button and then click on the Search command. You will see the following dialog box displayed. 

• Enter the search word ‘Windows’.

• Click on the Advanced Search button.   

• This will display the advanced options including the Date searching options.

• Click on the down arrow to the right of the date section and you can select Date Modified or Date Created.  In this case select Date Created.

• Click on the down arrow to the right of the Any section.  In this case choose ‘is before’. 

• Click on the down arrow to the right of the next box, as illustrated below.  Select a date a few months before today’s date.

• Click on the Search button.  If you look carefully at the search results you will find that only files with the word ‘Windows’ in the file name and files that were created before the specified date are listed.

• Close the search dialog box.

Advanced searching by file content

• You can search for a file if you know the file name.  In real life you may create a document and remember what is in the document, but not remember where you saved the document, or what the file was.  The good news is that you can search for file content.  For instance let’s say you created a document continuing an unusual word or phrase, such as xyzzy, then this can be used to find the file.  

• Click on the Start button and then click on the Search command.  Type in the search phrase, in this case, xyzzy, as illustrated.

• In the left section of the dialog box, click on the Computer icon, as illustrated. 

• In the right section of the dialog box, click on the Hard disk icon, as illustrated.  This is telling Vista that the file is somewhere on your hard disk, but you don’t know where.

• You may find that you have to retype your search phrase into the search box, xyzzy, as illustrated. 

• Vista will start searching for files.  After a short delay you will see the following.

• Within the right hand section of the dialog box, click on the in the Search in File Contents icon.  Vista will start the search again.  This may take longer, and you will see a search progress bar, displayed across the top of the window.   

• Eventually, you should see the file containing the specified contents, displayed in the right hand section of the window.

• As you can see the file is called Mine sweeper. Double click on this file to open it, and you will see information about a cheat that used to work in the Windows Mine Sweeper game.  

• Close the Word document and close the Search dialog box before continuing.

Advanced searching using partial file names and specific locations

• Sometimes you may not remember the exact file name.  Take an example were we know the file name starts with the word Swim, but we cannot remember the rest of the name.  Windows will still be able to find the file for us.

• Right click on the Start button and then click on the Explore command to open Windows Explorer.

• In the left side of the dialog box, click on the word Computer.  

• The screen will change as illustrated. 

• Select the disk you want to search, in this case, the Hard Disk.  In the search box type in the word swim, as illustrated. 

• The search will then find the following file.

• Double click on the file (actually called Swimming in the sea).  You will see the following picture. 

• Close all open windows.

 
Searching for a file using wildcards instead of the full name

• In some cases we may only know part of the name, in which case we can use wild cards.  For example:  To search for all files whose names start with z  we would search for z*  To search for all files whose names start with za  we would search for za*  To search for all files whose names start with za  and contains 5 characters we would search for za???  To search for all Microsoft Excel files whose names start with za  and contains 5 characters we would search for za???.xls

• Use this information to search all the subfolders under your samples folder for any files whose names start with the letters sa.

• Close the Search dialog box, once the search is complete.