Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Search and Windows

help me search for many files on my HD at once?

stupidsexyFlanders — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:04:41 -0800

help me search my HD for about 600 files all at once. I have an xls with about 600 filenames of the form AB-1234.pdf (except there is no extension. so really, they're not file names, but in my system, they are document codes on which the filename is based).

The files to which these strings refer are scattered on my hard drive. I need to collect them all in a single folder, and that folder can have no other files in it, other than those referenced on the xls.

If it were one file, I would use Windows search, using the AB-1234 as the search term. But it's 600 files. How to do this? Windows xp.

Need a text search program like a browser URL bar.

inthe80s — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:49:40 -0800

Is there a utility for Windows that will take a text file, and let you enter words into a field and remove entries from the list as you type in more words? Something like typing in the address bar of a browser, where as you type, the entries that no longer match are removed. I have a text file with entries of performer/song titles, one to a line. I generally just use the search function of a text editor to find all the matching lines for a keyword. However if there was something that would remove entries the more I typed, I wouldn't spend as much time typing out full performer names or song titles.

Winamp does this with the "Jump to file" box in it's playlist. I need something for text files however.

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes?

booksherpa — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:27:30 -0800

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes? [rant]I can't believe I even have to use a question on this, because it seems like it should be dead stupid simple, but there ya go. Either I'm missing something, my Google-fu sucks, or iTunes really is that annoying.[/rant]

So I've got a bunch of TEDTalks in my podcasts, and everyone of them begins with "TEDTalks : " - i.e. TEDTalks : Joe Blow talks about technology. I'd like to remove all those leading TEDTalks (I know what podcast I'm listening to) because it takes up space on the screen when I'm trying to figure out which is which. I do NOT want to have to edit 70+ files by hand. Nor is TEDTalks the only podcast that demonstrates naming convention.

I run iTunes in Windows XP, so DougScripts are not an option. Nor is getting a Mac or running something in place of iTunes. I've tried doing a search and replace with a file renamer, and a different program that edits mp3 file tags. All that happens is iTunes refuses to recognize the files anymore, I have to reimport the folder where they live, and the names are back to what they were before.

There's got to be an easier way. I can't believe that something as basic as search and replace is impossible with iTunes or a script.

Methods that are free are preferred, but I'll consider paying if the software is that fabulous and time saving.

How to keep Google Desktop gadgets without the search?

inbetweener — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:54:42 -0800

Is there a way to keep Google Desktop without it hijacking Vista's search? I installed Google Desktop on my Vista Home Ultimate PC. I want to keep it installed because I like the gadgets.

However, I really don't like the way it hijacks the windows search (which I much prefer to the Google Desktop Search).

Could anyone suggest a way to keep the gadgets but ditch the Google desktop search - Google helpfully doesn't provide an option...

How do I find al word documents containing a particular phrase?

Tnuocca — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:54:18 -0800

Hi, I'm trying to find some old Word documents in Windows Vista and I don't seem to get the option to look through file contents when I use search. Could someone please tell me how I can do an advanced search to find all documents containing a particular phrase in Windows Vista? As well as searching within documents, are there any free software programmes that allow you to arrange files on a timeline? It would be really great if I could see at a glance on what day each file was created.

Thanks for your assistance.

How to get the Vista Search Indexer to index all of my files?

Amaterasu — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:26:08 -0800

How can I get the Vista Search Indexer to index and find all of my files? Since switching from Mac OS X to Windows Vista early this year, I have had problems with the Vista search feature not locating files I know exist. I usually use the search box in Explorer to filter file names in the current folder view. Most of the time, this works as expected. However, I have discovered that there are actually a large number of files that Windows refuses to index and can only be found by using the advanced non-indexed search, which is very slow.

I have tried all of the suggestions in this Microsoft Support article, including rebuilding the index and restoring the default settings.

I've been able to put the non-indexed files into two categories. One set of files show up in the Indexing Options Indexed Locations window as grayed out. Looking at the advanced attributes of these files, I've found that the "Index this file for faster searching" option is unchecked. I have been unable to determine a pattern for which files have indexing turned off. They can be added to the index, but it seems there is no way to automate this process. I would have to manually search for each missing file and then add it to the index; five clicks per file.

A second set of files does not even appear in the Indexed Locations window file list.

The non-indexed files come from various sources, and are not limited to a single application or file type. In some cases, I've found a series of files from the same source where half will be randomly non-indexed.

I feel like I must be missing something simple. Coming from a Mac background, I can't understand why something as basic as searching would be so difficult.

Splunking files on Windows boxes

ajp — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:04:21 -0800

Getting Splunk running on Solaris 5.8, with log files on Windows boxes. So I've installed Splunk on a Solaris 5.8 box, and now I need to get some data into it. We have a large amount of Windows servers, among other things, with Tomcat logs that I'd love to get into Splunk. People currently remote desktop onto the servers and peruse the logs in Notepad.... ugh!

How best to do this?

It seems that the most obvious way is to mount the Windows drives using SaMBa so Splunk considers them to be locally hosted files (albeit from another server).

Any other way? The less painful, the better.

Let's assume disk space and network bandwidth aren't an issue. I'm just new to Splunk and not too sure of my options. I did RTFM but can't see much specifically about this. I'm sure it's there, somewhere painfully obvious.

How to search multiple files?

Ramithorn — Fri, 04 May 2007 10:24:42 -0800

I have a list of several thousand serial numbers in an excel file. Each of these serial numbers is located in another excel file in a seperate folder on my computer. Is there any program/method of finding which file each serial number was originally in? Is there an easy way to do this without typing each serial number into the windows search feature? For example, my list might say:

Serial1
Serial2
Serial3

I would like to know:

Serial1 - spreadsheet4.xls
Serial2 - spreadsheet7.xls
Serial3 - spreadsheet2.xls

How to stop XP automatic search when drive is plugged in?

univac — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 11:31:48 -0800

How do I stop windows from automatically searching for media when a new drive is plugged in? (Minor annoyance.) When I plug in an external USB drive, windows automatically begins cataloguing the media, and an annoying little window pops up.

It gives me the option of cancelling the search, but I ususally can't click it in time.

There must be a way to turn this off altogether!

Stop desktop search engine from indexing contents?

Oneirokritikos — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:28:04 -0800

Is there a way to tell those fancy desktop search engines like Google or Copernic, to NOT index the contents of any file on my PC? I love the features and speed of those products, but I ~~hate with the searing intensity of a thousand suns~~ don't like that much the fact that they spend ages indexing mostly because of doing it inside file types - I don't need it, and it's obnoxious to me. I would rather use them as a glorified windows search. I couldn't find a way to change settings to achieve this, and Copernic tech support even told me it's not possible yet, but they are considering it.In the meantime, is there a hack that could work, or another product that allows it?
Thanks !

Searching inside files in Windows

RobotHero — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 19:51:01 -0800

How do I make Windows XP search inside TPL files? I know they're text files, but because Windows doesn't recognise the extension, when I try to search for "a word or phrase in the file" it won't search inside the TPL files. I know I did this once before to get it to search PHP files, but I can't remember how I did it.

Windows XP search improvement: suggestions for how to use the built-in search more efficiently, or for search programs to replace it

Iax — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 22:34:52 -0800

I need a search tool replacement for the built-in windows XP search, or suggestions for it. I have a lot of files on different drives in different directories (C:\AA F:\BB ...) and I when I want to find a specific file that I know is in one of those directories, I have to select and search each directory one at a time. (searching all folders on all drives would take too long.) Anyway to make this quicker?