Make Windows Search a Million Times More Useful with These Simple Tweaks. Windows 7's search function kind of sucks. You can only find what you're looking for half the time, and you never know why.
Replace Windows Search with a faster more powerful desktop search alternative to find files faster when you are using the operating system.
Windows 10 is better than ever and does more to make your life easier. Learn about why you should update Windows and shop for the latest Windows 10 laptops, PCs. Windows 10's Universal Search feature is a work in progress, but it shows promise. Greg Shultz takes a closer look at the changes in Universal Search leading up to. A complete guide How to Remove Better-Search.net Search Page from Internet explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Computer, PC, MAC. Earlier this week we asked you which desktop search apps were the best. You responded with tons of great suggestions, but we only have room for the top five.
Here are 10 Free Desktop Search software that let you search for all types of files and folders on your PC. All these desktop search software are completely free. Windows 8 search features are quite robust once you get used to them. You can use modern and desktop approaches to search your computer and the Internet. Windows search results are largely based on the first characters of a program name, but program names are inconsistent. For example, there’s a Windows system.
Here's how to make Windows search work the way you want it to. Perform Your Search From the Start Menu. For the longest time, I'd open up Windows Explorer and start typing in the search bar, and I'd rarely find anything.
This is because Windows Explorer only searches the folder you're in. If you have Libraries open in Explorer, it'll only search your libraries (which, to be fair, it says in the search bar. If you aren't sure where the file is that you're looking for, open up the start menu and search from there. It'll search your entire computer for files, folders, and programs matching those terms. If you want more detailed results, you can then click .
But thinking that you can shortcut your way to the detailed results by opening up Explorer first will get you nowhere. Search the Contents of Your Files.
By default, Windows does search the contents of your files, meaning if your search term shows up inside a document (but not in the file name), it'll show up in search results. However, for some reason, this only works some of the time. I've had certain files come up for one search term and not another even though both terms appeared somewhere in the document.
I found the best way to improve content searching is to open up Windows Explorer and head to Organize > Folder and Search Options, then go to the Search tab. From there, check the . When the default option is checked, it can't always find the contents of indexed files. When I check the second option, it seems to find all the contents of any file I search for, which is exactly what I want (and without significant speed decreases, as it claims).
Despite references to the contrary, neither option searches unindexed locations. I've tested this on two separate computers and it seems to work fine, despite what the option says it does. And if anyone can explain to me what this option is supposed to do.
To search the contents of a file Windows doesn't know, go to the Start Menu and search for . Choose the top result that comes up and then click the Advanced button. Under the File Types tab, you can add a new extension to the list, or edit any extension on the list to index the contents of the file.
You can also uncheck any file extension to stop search from indexing that file type. Introduction to who? If that's what you thought when you saw the title of this article, then. It searches your Start Menu, your Users folder, and your Offline files. If you have moved any folders in your Users folder, or are storing something useful elsewhere on your drive, you can add that folder to the index in one of two ways. Note that the more folders you add, the slower Windows search becomes, so don't just add your entire C: drive.
Windows Explorer automatically indexes all your libraries, so either create a new one or right- click on an applicable library and go to Properties to add a folder to it. That folder will then be added to your index. Alternatively, you can go back to Indexing Options (by searching for it in the Start Menu) and clicking the Modify button to add a new folder to the index. This is useful if you want to index a folder but don't want it to appear in any of your Windows 7 libraries. Manually Type In Your Search Filters.
If you want to search within a specific folder, you might find that searching from Windows Explorer's search box offers you a number of search modifiers to refine your terms, like . What you may not realize is that these filters change depending on what folder you're in. Usually it's helpful, changing them to Artist/Album/Title in the Music folder, or . If you ever want a filter that isn't shown, however, you can always just type it in yourself (e. In fact, it isn't unlike searching Google in this way.
You can also change what type of file a certain folder is optimized for, which will change the search filters available to you in that folder. For more examples of advanced filters and operators, check out Microsoft's page on the subject. These tips are simple, and some of them may seem obvious to veteran Windows user, but I've been frustrated with Search for months and these tips have made it a million times more useful.
Of course, if you really want speedy and powerful searches, you could try a program like previously mentioned. Everything, too (though Everything can't search file contents). Got any of your own tips for improving Windows' search feature? Sound off in the comments below.
Free search utility Everything is a lightning- quick, find- as- you- type file locater for Windows that.