All the secrets of searching on Google: you really can find everything. Advanced search in Windows or how to find a file in Windows? Search in Windows 7

The Windows 7 operating system has many different features and utilities that make life much easier for the user. Sometimes, the user accumulates on his computer great amount information, folders and files that are still located unsystematically on the computer and make them difficult to find. Then finding the desired file or folder becomes difficult, and sometimes impossible, without special Windows 7 operating systems. Then the file and folder search system in Windows 7 comes to the rescue.

Let's take a closer look at everything possible ways locating a file or folder in Windows 7.

How to find a folder or file in Windows 7

There are three simple ways find the desired folder with files or the files themselves among a lot of other information in the Windows 7 operating system:

• Using the search field in the Start menu;
• Using the search field in a folder or library;
• Or using advanced search beyond folders and libraries.

Let's look at each method in more detail.

Search box in the Start menu

The easiest way to find folders or files on your computer is to use the search box in the Start menu. To do this, just open “Start” and write any name in the search field, which is located at the bottom next to the computer shutdown button. After this, the Start menu is transformed into a list of possible options for files and folders with the same name.

Moreover, with such a search, a list will be displayed not only of files and folders with the same name, but also files where this word may be mentioned in one form or another inside the file or its properties. In addition, please note that only those files that have been indexed are displayed in the list. However, most files are indexed automatically.

Search field in a folder or library

You can also search for files locally if they are stored in a specific folder or library. For this:

This search returns results even for part of a word. The search is carried out by name, internal text of the file and file properties. The library searches all folders within a particular library. It is not necessary to enter the full name. Just enter the part and find the file you need. Also, when displaying a search result, words will be highlighted in color for user convenience.

Among other things, you can enter several keywords, which will narrow the search area very significantly.

Advanced Search

If a folder or file cannot be found by searching specific folders and libraries, you can expand the search scope. For this.

In order to find any object on your computer, just enter the name of the file or folder you need in the Start menu. The computer will search for all files containing this name in whole or in part. But this is not always enough to find all the necessary information on your computer. There are times when you need to find document(s) with certain words in the text, for example: “free computer courses”, but by default in Windows 7 this function is disabled.

Setting up file search in Windows 7

To do this, open “Computer”, click on the “Arrange” button on the left and select “Folder and Search Options”.

After such a small setup, the search will work by file names, as well as by its contents.

Finding files in Windows 7 in practice [check]

Let's check if everything works correctly. To do this, open “Computer”, enter in the search field the word that you need to find in the files. For example, I chose the word “quality”. When you enter a word or phrase, the search will begin automatically (no need to click anything).

After the search completes the task on this word, files containing the word “quality” will appear below. You should also know that after searching for the information you need, you need to change the default settings (which were). This is due to the fact that the search will take much longer, since it searches not only the file name, but also its contents.

To quickly search by content in Windows 7, it is best to go to the folder where your file may be located and search from there.

When you use a computer for a long time, a huge amount of information can accumulate on it over time (we are talking about Windows) - various programs, files. It is not always possible to remember what is where, and for beginners it is also sometimes difficult to find the programs they need. In order not to climb through folders manually in search of the desired file or not to search for the necessary Windows programs and tools through a special control panel, you can use the built-in search and quickly find the information or program you need. In this article I will show you how to search for the information and programs you need on computers with an operating system installed Windows system(using the example of Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10).

In the article, I consider the 3 above systems as examples, since they are by far the most common. For example Windows XP and Windows Vista have long been outdated and are used by a minimal percentage of users.

Search in Windows 7

In Windows 7, search is located in the Start menu and in all Explorer windows.
Let's first consider the most accessible search, which is the fastest to open - search in the Start menu. It's located at the very bottom of this menu:

Right there you just need to type the name of the desired file or program in whole or in part (just the beginning, for example) and Windows will try to find what you are looking for.

Example of program search

Let's say you want to find and run the Windows Uninstall Tool. In Windows 7 it is called "Add or Remove Programs".

To find this tool, in the search you just need to type “programs” (1) and after a few seconds a list will appear where you can already see the tool we need (2):

All you have to do is click on the search result and required program will open.
Also in this window you can see the “Programs and Features” and “Uninstall a Program” tools. It's all the same.

Example of searching for a file or folder with files

Let’s assume that on my “C:” drive in the “Documents” library there is a file with a work report called “Report for 2015”.

To find this file through the search, just type part of the name, for example “report” or “report”, and Windows will try to find everything that is with that name on your computer.

For example, I typed the query “otch” (1) into the search and my file (2) was found.

In Windows 7, you can quickly open the search tool using the keyboard shortcut: Win+F.

Search in Windows 8 and Windows 10

In Windows 8 and Windows 10, searching for information is no different in principle from what it was in Windows 7. The only difference is in the interface operating systems, since in new Windows it's quite different.

How to open and use search in Windows 8

Let's look at the search capabilities using Windows 8 as an example. There is also a search through the Start menu. The search button in this menu is located at the top right (magnifying glass icon).

Before searching for something, you can select a search area, namely, search in parameters, files, pictures or videos from the Internet, and also everywhere at once. To select an area, click the default area (1) and select the desired one from the list (2). If you don’t know where to look, put “Everywhere”, you will find most of everything.

For example, I want to find and open the panel Windows management. I selected the “Everywhere” area and entered “Control Panel”. The results appear below. What was found in Windows will be displayed in the very first options (1)?, before the line. After the dash there are options for searching via the Internet (3).

If you click on the search button (4) with a magnifying glass icon, a more detailed list of results will open, including search results for Internet sites.

Another option to open the search: while on your desktop, move your mouse cursor to the lower right corner and hold for a couple of seconds.

A panel will appear on the right, where you will see a search button at the top:

Everything works exactly the same. Let’s say you have a file somewhere on your computer called “List of Workers.” Having selected the search area (in the example “Everywhere” was selected), I enter part of the name, for example “list” (1). The results appear below, among which will be the file you are looking for (2), which can be immediately opened from this list.

In Windows 8, you can quickly open the search tool using the keyboard shortcut: Win+F.

How to open and use search in Windows 10

In Windows 10, search is located on the Windows taskbar by default:

Clicking this button will open a search window. In the bottom line (1) we indicate search query. Let's say I want to find and open the Windows tool for removing programs from my computer, so I enter the "uninstall" part of the query (1) into the search bar. Search results will appear above, among which I see the one that suits me “Add or remove programs” (2).

You can select a search area by clicking on the default area:

From the list that opens, you can select a specific area of ​​Windows to search, for example, search by photos, programs, documents, etc. If you want to search in all areas at once, select “All”.

Another search example. Suppose there is a “My Database” file somewhere on your computer. I enter part of the name into the search, for example “Base” (1) and in the results I get what I need (2).

In Windows 10, you can quickly open the search tool using the keyboard shortcut: Win + S.

Search through "Explorer" in Windows 7, 8, 10

It happens that there is no point in searching for a file throughout the computer, so as not to waste extra time, because searching for a file throughout the computer can take a long time, depending on the amount of information on the computer, and especially since you know approximately in which folder or on which This file can be located on your local disk. To do this, it is easier to use the search by separate folder or local disk, i.e. through the Windows Explorer program. Let's look at an example based on Windows 7.

In Windows 8 and 10, searching through Explorer is absolutely no different!

Search in Explorer is located at the top right (1). When you open a folder, the search bar will indicate where the search will be performed (where you are now). For example, now I have the “Program Files” folder (2) open.

Let's say I want to find the "Drivers" folder in the "Program Files" folder where I am now. To do this, in the search at the top right (1) I write “drivers” or you can enter the first few letters (in case you don’t remember the full name). The results will appear below (2).

All that remains is to open the desired file, folder or program directly from the search results!

It can also sometimes be useful to use a filter when searching, for example, to search for files, folders and programs by a certain size or modification date. When you enter the name of what you are looking for, the filter modes will appear below:

Let's look at another example...

Somewhere on my “C:” drive I have a file for work called “Publish on the site.” Knowing that the file is located on the “C:” drive, I need to open Windows Explorer, and then this local drive in it. In the search, I type the beginning of the file name “published” (1) and the system finds the file I need (2), indicating below its location on the computer.

Tip for finding files. When searching for files in Windows, you can search by file extensions. For example, if you want to find all files with the extension .txt, then type *.txt in the search. Where * will mean that files with any names will be searched, but with the extension .txt.

Conclusion

Use Windows Search to quickly open programs and files that you have located somewhere deep in Explorer. This way you will save time. And of course, you shouldn’t try to search for the required file or folder manually all over your computer for a long time, since first of all you should use a regular search.

Have a nice day and good mood! ;)

After understanding the extension of the lost file, for example, “.zip”, all that remains is to enter it in the “Search” field and press Enter. A search on your computer will immediately display a list of files with this extension. From them we already select the one we need.

Rules for searching files on a computer by size

Many users may object - video files can have many extensions, what should you do to search in this case? One of our clients once lost a missing film and asked for advice on this issue.

We noticed that on the user’s computer all films were in the “.avi” format. It would seem that you just need to enter the extension into the search, and everything will work out right away. But not everything turned out to be not so simple; finding the file on the computer was not so easy. Therefore, it was decided to search for the required file by size.

The client's total video files were approximately 1.45 GB in size. Therefore, it was quite reasonable to assume that the lost file had a similar size. Consequently, it was enough to perform a simple procedure System.Size:>1000MB to search the computer memory for files larger than 1 GB.

Based on the search results, a list of 20 video files appeared, including a file without an extension at all. But just by the title itself one could guess that this was exactly the missing film. All that remained was to add the “.avi” extension to the file – and again you could enjoy watching the video. Later we managed to understand that our client’s acquaintances were just making a joke and removed the extension.

How to find hidden files in Windows OS

Sometimes Windows assigns the “Hidden” attribute to some files as a result of virus attacks or a system failure. Because of this, files cannot be seen or found even through “Search”, if opposite the item “Show hidden files and folders" is not checked. Although nothing will happen to the files themselves.

To make hidden files visible, open the “Control Panel”, then go to “Folder Options” - “View”. Next to the “Show hidden files and folders” item, check the box and click OK. After this, sometimes the lost file is immediately found on the desktop. Or you can find it by searching by extension or name, as we discussed earlier.

Search files by their content

For example, if you lose text documents from Microsoft Office Word, Notepad, OpenOffice or other programs. When working with text, some of the content is still stored in the user’s memory. Therefore, in the search, enter part of the text, press Enter and find the desired document.

Although you should keep in mind that on an old and slow computer, the search process may take a long time. Upgrading your PC is something you can think about while you wait for the results.

Total Commander for easy search of necessary files

Popular and convenient file manager, with which you can quickly search for files on your computer using several parameters simultaneously - extension, name, content. To do this, you need to set the search location in the program (for example, C:), then go to “Commands” and “Search files” (or press the hotkey combination Alt+F7).

Yesterday, some residents of our country suddenly discovered that... He was temporarily blocked TTK providers, Akado, Avax and Sumtel at the direction of Roskomnadzor. But a significant proportion of subscribers of these providers did not notice the blocking, as they use a domestic search engine.

IN April 2017 searched for something in Yandex 43 million people. If you are one of them, then this short article is for you.

P.S. For those who prefer Google and DuckDuckGo, there are links in the last section.

1. How to search among sites of a specific city, region, federal district or country?

This is how you can find information on the request “graduate ball” among the websites of the city of Bratsk:

alumni ball cat:11000976

To find out the number that must be dialed after the operator cat:, you need to add to 1100000 region code in Yandex.Catalogue. For example:

• Moscow - 1100001;
• Chernigov - 1100966;
• Voronezh - 1100193;
• Volga region - 1100040;
• Kyrgyzstan - 1100207;
• CIS countries - 166.

There are already more than 117 thousand sites in Yandex.Catalogue. Similarly, you can search for something only among resources dedicated to a specific topic. To do this, instead of region codes, you need to use theme codes and add 9,000,000 to them, instead of 1,100,000.

2. How to deceive Yandex about your location?

Using the Chrome extension Manual Geolocation you can mark any point on the map and search system will think that you are exactly there and adjust the search results in accordance with this data. For example, you can search for objects located near your home in St. Petersburg, but it is located in Moscow. Convenient when planning trips.

This point is relevant for all sites that use your location data.

3. How to search for pages in a specific domain zone and in a specific language?

This is how you can find what Ukrainian websites (in the ua domain zone) write about zebras in Ukrainian:

zebra domain:ua lang:uk

In a similar way, you can find out the opinions of websites of other countries on various issues. Language codes for Yandex:

• Russian (ru);
• Ukrainian (uk);
• Belarusian (be);
• English (en);
• French (fr);
• German (de);
• Kazakh (kk);
• Tatar (tt);
• Turkish (tr).

4. How to search for pages on a specific site?

This is how you can search for pages only on the website:

zebras site:site

This is how you can search only among articles of certain categories. For example, among the questions in Rescue service website:

messages url:site/iNotes/q/*

And here’s how to get a list of all tags that are used on the site:

5. How to search for pages created on a specific date?

This is how you can find pages created on a specific day:

steve jobs date:20170617

And like this in the interval between two dates:

steve jobs date:20170610..20170617

And with the help of the operator date: You can search for pages by last indexing date.

6. How to search for files of a specific type?

Search for a book in PDF format to upload to iBooks:

flowers for algernon mime:pdf

And this is how you can find all MS Word documents mentioning the word “declaration” on the Federal Tax Service website:

declaration mime:docx site:nalog.ru

Types of documents that Yandex indexes:

• html;
• docx;
• xlsx;
• pptx;

7. How to search only in page titles?

With this operator:

It is very convenient when you need to find an article by its exact title.

8. How to search by image file name?

Have you saved a picture to your computer and want to use it with the source indicated, but don’t remember where it came from? The search operator using the exact name of the image will help:

Operators for searching by HTML tag attribute values:

applet:– applet tag code;
script:- src of the script tag;
object:– all attributes of object;
action:– action of the form tag;
profile:– profile of the head tag.

9. How to find links to a specific page?

Yandex has an operator for searching for mentions within links. This way you can find links to a specific page.

inlink:”www.site/iNotes/533552″

10. How to use widgets and tips?

If you type one of the four words below in the search, mini-applications will appear under the search bar:

• "Calculator";
• "Currency Converter";
• "Value Converter";
• "Translation".

And for some requests, answers are displayed directly in search bar. Examples.