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Windows > Searching All Files for Text articles: • Searching ALL FILES (*.*) for a certain word or phrase
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Searching ALL FILES (*.*) for a certain word or phrase
Category: Windows
Category: Searching All Files for Text
Up until recently, searching for files on your Windows computer actually worked... you could put in *.* as the file name and some text and Windows would actually search all files for that text. Well, in its infinite wisdom, Microsoft decided that it would use filters to search files in Windows XP and later versions. If there is no filter installed on your computer for a specific type of file, Windows will not search that file, and will not inform you that it has skipped the file. This behaviour was recently noted when I was trying to find text in a folder full of Visual Basic .CLS files. These files are basically text files, but since Windows doesn't have a filter for them, it just skips over them and doesn't bother searching them. Thanks Microsoft. Anyway here is the fix so that Windows actually searches all files when you put *.* as the file name. Crazy.
Note that this fix may require the latest patch of Windows XP so go to windowsupdate.com and update first if need be. Then:
1. Click Start, and then click Search
2. Click Change preferences, and then click "With Indexing Service (for faster local searches)".
3. Click Change Indexing Service Settings (Advanced). Note that you do not have to turn on the Index service.
4. On the toolbar, click Show/Hide Console Tree (button at the top).
5. In the left pane, right-click Indexing Service on Local Machine, and then click Properties.
6. On the Generation tab, click to select the Index files with unknown extensions check box, and then click OK.
7. Close the Indexing Service console.
3/20/2008
Source: Visit
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