Windows operating systems have standard tools for finding files, folders, and applications on local and external storage media. Standard search engines in Windows are available to all users of a Windows personal computer, regardless of the version of the operating system.
Search for files and folders
To search for files or folders, go to the Start menu. At the bottom of the menu there is a quick search bar "Find programs and files".
Click once with the left mouse button on the search bar and enter the query text (the name of the file, program or folder in full or only part of it). The search engine will instantly return a list of results that match the user's query.
To search for files and folders through the standard Windows Explorer, open the directory in which they are supposed to be located.
Click on the line "Find: XXX" (where "XXX" is the name of the open search directory), located in the upper right corner of the explorer window. The text cursor will move to the search bar.
Enter the query text with the name of the file or folder. In this case, you can enter the name of the element in whole or in part.
Users of Windows operating systems are given the opportunity to enable search filters, i.e. search for files and folders based on some of its properties, for example, file type, size, etc.
To enable filters, open the file and folder search directory and left-click once on the "Find: …" line. At the bottom of the list that opens, select the required search filter and set its parameters. For example, when choosing the "Size" filter, the user is presented with a range of file sizes (empty, tiny, small, etc.).
If there is no file or folder in the list of results, the user can expand the search locations. To do this, scroll down the list of results using the mouse wheel or special scroll bars on the right side of the window.
In the Windows 7 operating system, the user is offered several options for expanding the search. You can choose, for example, to search in libraries, in any folder, on the Internet and in the contents of files (in the text of documents, in tags, in comments, etc.).
General recommendations
To speed up the search operation in Windows, location indexing is used, i.e. adding the most frequently used files and folders to the system index. Indexing is not carried out in system and locked folders. The user can add any location to the indexing list.
To search for files and folders on all local and external drives, select the "Computer" library as the search directory. In this case, the search for the required folders and files will be carried out in non-indexed locations, such as system and locked user folders.
