Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual: Exactly What You Need to Get Started

2017-07-07 02:10:07

2.7. Start Search

The humble Search command looks no more special than anything else on the Start menu. In Windows XP, however, it's a powerhouse that you'll probably use often. Using it, you can quickly find all kinds of computer-ish things: file and folder icons, computers on your network, Web sites, email addresses, and phone numbers .

2.7.1. Finding Files and Folders

If you save your files exclusively into the My Documents folder (Section 2.13), you'll have little need to use the Search function to locate your files. You'll always know where they are: right there in that folder.

Every now and then, however, you won't remember where you filed something, or you'll download something from the Internet and not be able to find it again, or you'll install something and not know where to look for it. In those situations, the Search command is just what you need. It lets you look for a particular file or folder based on its descriptionby its name , size , date stamp, and so on.

Tip: To get rid of the cutesy animated dog who accompanies the Search function, either click " Turn off animated character" on the current menu, or click directly on the animated character to open up a panel allowing you to change or remove the character.

The Search command can also look for the words inside your filesa powerful feature if you remember typing or reading something, but not what you named the file.

2.7.1.1. Starting a search

Microsoft wanted to make absolutely sure you'd be able to find the Search command. It has provided at least six different ways to begin a search:

Choose Start Search.

Press F3 or Windows key+F (that's the Windows logo key on the bottom or top row of most keyboards).

If a disk or folder window is already open, press Ctrl+E, click the Search toolbar button, or choose View Explorer Bar Search.

In each case, the Search window appears, as shown in Figure 2-8.

Figure 2-8. Left: Basic Search panel, complete with Rover, the search-companion dog.
Right: If you click the desktop itself and then press F3, or if you turn on the "More advanced search options" checkbox that occasionally appears, the Search panel may look slightly different, as shown here.

Windows XP comes with a set of canned searches (listed at left in Figure 2-8) designed to help you find what you're looking for faster. Click the green arrow next to the one you want (or click the words next to the arrow).

2.7.1.2. Pictures, music, or video

When you click this link, the Search panel lets you choose one or more of these file types. Turn on the checkboxes you want, and type in part of the file name.

2.7.1.3. Documents (word processing, spreadsheet, and so on)

This link produces panel options designed to search only for documentsfiles that you can create or download. In other words, it doesn't bother looking through hidden files, system files, application files, and so on. And it doesn't find the names of folders at alljust files.

UP TO SPEED

Typing in the File Name

No matter which kind of search you undertake, Windows XP offers you the chance to look for a file whose name you know by typing its name into the "All or part of the file name" text box on the Search panel.

You don't have to type the entire file nameonly enough of it to distinguish it from the other files on your computer. Capitals don't matter, and neither does the position of the letters you typeif you type John , Windows will find files with names like Johnson, Peterjohn, and DiJohnson.

You can also search for all files of a specific type, such as all Word files, by typing *.doc that is, an asterisk, a period, and then the three-letter filename extension of the kind of file you want (Section 5.9.1). The asterisk is a wildcard meaning, "any text at all."

To narrow the search, you can enter both a partial name and an extension, such as mom*.doc . This will turn up Word files named Mom's Finances.doc, Moment of Truth.doc , and so on. (These searches work even if the filename extensions themselves are hidden .)

2.7.1.4. All files and folders

This is the slowest kind of search, because it searches the thousands of hidden in-system files as well as the ones that you've created yourself.

This kind of search offers a number of useful power features:

A word or phrase in the file . Sooner or later, it happens to everyone: A file's name doesn't match what's inside it. Maybe a marauding toddler pressed the keys, inadvertently renaming your doctoral thesis "xggrjpO#$5%////." Maybe, in a Saturday afternoon organizing binge, your spouse helpfully changed the name of your "ATM Instructions" document to "Cash Machine Info ," without realizing that it was a help file for Adobe Type Manager. Or maybe you just can't remember what you called something.

The "A word or phrase in the file" option searches for words inside your files, regardless of their names. It's extremely slow, since Windows has to read every single file, which it does only slightly faster than you could. Furthermore, this kind of search works only if you can remember an exact word or phrase in the missing document. Even punctuation has to match exactly.

Finally, the text you enter should be unique enough to assume it only exists in the file you're looking for; if you search for, say, Microsoft , Windows will find so many files that the search will be pointless.

Look in . Use this drop-down menu if you want to limit your search to a single folder or disk. Every disk attached to your PC at the momentyour hard drive, Zip disk, CD-ROM, and so onshows up in this list. (To search your whole computer, choose My Computer and then proceed.)

When was it modified? What size is it ? When you click one of the double-down-arrow circle buttons (like those shown in Figure 2-9), you expand the Search panel for additional options. For example, the "When was it modified?" feature lets you find only files or folders you created or changed in a certain date range (see Figure 2-9), and the "What size is it?" feature lets you screen out files larger or smaller than a number of KB you specify.

Figure 2-9. By clicking the double-down-arrow circle buttons, you can expand the Search panel considerably (shown here scrolled down so far that you can't even see the file names you're searching for). This search will find Word documents in the My Documents folder created during June 2002.

Search subfolders is much more practical. It looks for files within folders inside the disk or folder you've specified. Turn this option off only when you know for sure that the file you need is in the disk or folder you're starting with, but not within any subfolders there. Skipping the subfolders makes the search process much faster. Case sensitive instructs the Search program to match the capitalization of the characters you enter; searching for files containing "dentist" won't find files containing "Dentist." And Search tape backup , of course, searches for the specified files on your tape-backup system, if you have one.

Windows uses the checkboxes you turn on in addition to any data you entered into the basic search fields.

2.7.2. Managing the Found Files and Folders

Once you've set up the search, click the Search button (or press Enter). As the search proceeds, the screen changes. On the right side of the window, you now see a list of files and folders whose names contain what you typed in the blank (Figure 2-10).

Figure 2-10. When you click Search, you see your results in a standard list window (Section 3.2.1). Anything Windows XP finds in My Documents appears twice in the list. Repeat to yourself: "It's not my fault."

UP TO SPEED

The Path to Enlightenment About Paths

Windows is too busy to think of a particular file as "that family album program in the Program Files folder, which is in the My Programs folder on the C: drive." Instead, it uses shorthand to specify each icon's location on your hard drivea series of disk and folder names separated by back- slashes , like this: C:\program files\pbsoftware\beekeeperpro.exe .

This kind of location code is that icon's path. (Capitalization doesn't matter, even though you may see capital letters in Microsoft's examples.)

You'll encounter file paths when using several important Windows features, including the Search command. When you choose the Search command, Windows identifies the location of each file it finds for you by displaying its path.

2.7.2.1. Using the Search Results panel

At this point, you can proceed in many different ways. A few of these ways are listed in the panel at the left side of the window (the exact assortment depends on the kind of search you performed).

Yes, finished searching . Click to close the whole left panel (and lose the dog).

Yes, but make future searches faster . Click this link to turn on Window's XP's Indexing Service. (To learn more, consult a book like Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual )

Refine this search . Windows XP often offers you a number of links that let you adjust the search settings you just used. For example, you may opt to perform the search again, this time including hidden and system files, or restrict the search to a different folder or disk, and so on.

Sort results by category . Click the double-down-arrow circle button to open controls that let you sort the listby name, date, and so on.

View results differently . Click this double-down-arrow circle button to change the view of the results windowto Details, Tiles, or Thumbnails view, for example (see Section 3.2.1).

Start a new search . Click this option to start all over with new search parameters.

2.7.2.2. Using the results list

You can also manage the list of found files by treating the right side of the window just as you would any desktop window. For example:

Read all about it . If you point to the name of a found icon, a pop-up rectangular balloon displays a little paragraph identifying the file's path, full name, modification date, size, and other information.

Find out where something is . The In Folder column just to the right of an icon's name shows you exactly where it is on your machine, using the standard Windows path notation described in the box on Section 2.7.2.1.

You may have to widen the column to see the complete pathname; to do so, drag to the right the dividing line that is to the right of the In Folder column heading. Alternatively, point to the location information without clicking. As shown in Figure 2-10, a screen tip reveals the complete folder path.

Open the file . If one of the found files is the one you were looking for, double-click it to open it. This, in fact, is what most people do most of the time when using the Search program. In many cases, you'll never even know or care where the file wasyou just want to get into it.

Jump to an icon in its home folder . If you want to view the found file in its native habitat, sitting somewhere on your hard drive, right-click the icon in the Search window and choose Open Containing Folder from the shortcut menu. The Search window instantly retreats to the background, as Windows opens the folder and then highlights the icon in question, sitting wherever it is on your hard drive.

Move or delete the file . You can drag an item directly out of the found-files list onto the desktop, directly onto the Recycle Bin icon, or into a different folder, window, or disk. (For more on moving icons, and all related hazards, see Chapter 4.)

Send To, rename, or create a shortcut . After highlighting an icon (or icons) in the list of found files, you can use any of the commands in the File menu: Send To (which lets you move the icon to one of several standard folders), Rename, and so on. (See Section 4.5.2 for more on shortcuts.)

Tip: You can also right-click a found icon to copy, move, rename, or create a shortcut to it. Just choose from the resulting shortcut menu.

Adjust the list . By clicking the column headings of the results window, you can sort the list of found files in a variety of ways: by name, size, date modified, and so on. (You can reverse the order by clicking the column heading a second time.) You can also adjust the relative widths of the columns just by dragging the column-name dividers . And, as with almost any Windows window, you can drag the lower-right corner of the window to make it bigger or smaller.

Save the search setup . By choosing File Save Search, you can immortalize the search youve just set up. You might use this feature if you perform the same search each dayif, for example, you like to round up all the documents you created yesterday for backing up.

Windows XP automatically names the search file with a description it derives from the criteria you entered into the search fields, and adds the extension .fnd (for example, Files Named Budget.fnd ). You can save the resulting search icon anywhere you like.

To use the search criteria again, double-click the saved .fnd file. The Search window opens, with your data already entered. Click the Search button to get the canned search underway.