Windows 7 Search Sucks!

Some things have been fixed with the Release Candidate of Windows 7 but it is still horrible. If you add any custom directories to it they end up slowing down all searches regardless of where you are in the file system. When it comes to Windows 7 search Microsoft really screwed up and somehow left Vista the winner. XP still has it’s issues with searching but at least it is not so confined as to REQUIRE a third-party search engine.

If you are looking for a good search utility the best one I have found for Windows is called “Everything”. http://www.voidtools.com/ It is incredibly fast and beats XP/Vista/7 when it comes to searching.

Joker,

Did you ever use the search feature in Windows Vista? It was awesome and always worked! I thought that by build 7100 of Windows 7 they would have fixed it but so far I am still finding that third-party tools do a much better job with a lot less hassle. Microsoft really screwed up on this one. One of the coolest features with Vista was that if you changed a text file or document it would almost instantly index the change and you could find it in the search results. Windows 7 is completely crippled compared to Vista’s search capabilities.

I have found that if I manually rebuild the search indexes it works ok for a while but it slows down very quickly.

I agree completely. What’s needed is the speed of the Windows 7 search with the function and the UI of the old Advanced search in XP.

Windows 7 search turns up all sorts of rubbish that has nothing to do with the filename and you can’t search within files. Two steps backwards and none forwards.

Hi Paul. You might be right, but Microsoft is not known for opening doors to other development houses, but hopefully their vapor-ware days are over.

I just got an email from MS asking for input on Windows 7. I’m sure most of you received it, but if not… go to (not sure if links are allow here, sorry) and let them know exactly what you think. Is it ready to ship on Oct. 20th? HELL NO!

Have a good one guys and thanks for the feedback.

Looks like the functionality is still there to do advanced searches but there’s no GUI for it. You have to be familiar with Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) in order to get more granular searches. Here’s some info about it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266512%28VS.85%29.aspx

Thanks MS for taking something that was simple and used to work just fine and making it more of a pain in the @$$ for everyone. MS seems to ignore input from the community these days. They thank everyone for their input for Windows 7 and then just do whatever they think is right. Take multi-monitor taskbar support…oh, wait, Windows 7 still doesn’t have that. OK, done griping for now. ;-)

Correction: another review.

Awww – it;s not that bad. Try this:

Open explorer and Click in the search field – note that a number of options appear at the bottom – like Kind: date modified: Type: Name:

WoooooAAAAhhhh – if you start clicking on thsoe you will find there are a gazillion different ways to search. It’s just DIFFERENT. We need to get used to the DIFFERENCES.

I think it’s pretty cool. There is only one thing I would change though – I would add contextual help back when you right click on an explorer pane.

That’s my three cents !

Oh, and BTW, I turned around and searched the EXACT same folder with Windows XP and it returned the .ZIP and .EXE files I was looking for. That’s how I know Windows 7′s search failed me.

Is there a specific option somewhere (like WinXP’s indexing option I mentioned above) in order to enable Windows 7 to search within ANY filetype? It seems like it only returned text files with my string in them, nothing else. I confirmed this by created a test file called “searchtest.test” opened it with Notepad, typed a string, then tried the above method to search for that file with the string I put inside it. It didn’t return it.

@Farfle – “Specifically, it did not return any ZIP files or EXE files that had those strings in them, which was exactly what I was looking for.”

To get Windows 7 to search .zip files you need to go into the Search Tab under Folder Options and check the box next to Include compressed files.

I agree that the search feature in Win7 doesn’t appear to be as friendly as the previous versions.

“If you are looking for a good search utility the best one I have found for Windows is called “Everything”. http://www.voidtools.com/ It is incredibly fast and beats XP/Vista/7 when it comes to searching.”
I completely agree with Paul Foty. Try it and you’ll love it. In Windows7 Search I was trying to search for files just with “~” in the name, it was a nightmare-without result! In “Everything” just hit Enter and you’ll see instantly…everything with “~”.

Yes, it’s unbelievable that they screwed up one of the most important features a PC can have. Like some others here, I also installed and used Windows 7 for a few days. I thought it was OK until I tried to locate a file that I had misplaced using a text string that I knew was in the file. It took me several times the effort and time that it would have in XP. It pissed me off so bad that I switched back to XP. (also switched back because Windows 7 does not include Netware drivers, which caused me all kinds of problems with other PCs on the network).

I don’t know if anyone here remembers the file search in Windows 98, but in my opinion, it was better and faster than any of the search functionality in subsequent versions of Windows .

I can see how these things happen, though. I used to work as a software engineer in a large corporation where moronic decisions regarding software design was the norm. Change for the sake of change and redesigning and “breaking” software that once worked happened all the time. Oh yeah, and the outsourcing of software programming jobs to India really lowered the quality of the software. Microsoft also does this on a very large scale to save money on labor. They employ thousands of programmers in India and China. They have also applied for over 20,000 H1-B visas since 2001 to bring in cheap labor from other countries to write software for them. And the excuse for the need to import people….Bill Gates says there aren’t enough qualified Americans to do the job. Bull***t. It’s all about the cheap labor and making old Bill a little richer.

i absolutely hate the search option….. i wish there was a way to bring back the search companion they used through to windows xp. yes it could be a little slow some times, but i ALWAYS found what i was looking for. it was simple and user friendly. in general i like win 7 but things like this make me miss xp in a big way. just another case of improving something that didn’t really need improvement and mucking it up in the process….

I will add to it. XP search was good. 7 is completely RIDICULOUS! I consider myself somewhat of a power user, and I need to read 20 pages of a thick manual to make heads or tails of this. Even then, the box is so little and so stupid and clumsy, beyond belief. Like the STUPID PERSON who thinks the show desktop icon should be almost hidden way off to the right away from the main desktop area, and there isn’t even an option to put Show Desktop on the quick launch, these people are MORONS!

Every single time I try to use the Windows 7 search feature I get more and more pissed off. Today I tried to use it to find some videos by a specified date and guess what? IT DIDN’T WORK!!!!! Big freaking surprise.

Those Microsoft employees that read this blog I really hope you bring this back to your day jobs. Please fix this by reverting it back to the way it was in Vista.

If Windows 7 won’t search the file contents of a particular file extension, you can do the following:

Start
type search and select “Change how Windows searches”
Click the advanced button
click the files types tab
Select the file extension you’re having an issue with and change “How should this file be indexed?” to “Index properties and file contents”
Research the directory

Seems like you have to do this whether the directory is in an indexed location or not.. Windows 7 will simply not search file contents of an extension unless you make the changes above.. it’s ridiculous, I know.

i found a program called “Search My Files” and it works great. Its Freeware and it has the feel and options of the old search companion and it seems to work very quickly. fairly user friendly. search for it and give it a try……i’ve given up on using win 7 search entirely now.

terrivo, thank you for mentioning Search My Files. I downloaded it and it is all I will ever need when searching Windows 7.

Awful. I come back time and again. Awful.

Just because a string is contained within one directory in the file path does not mean that every file and folder under that path is a valid result.

When I search for “bean” I want my search to default to finding FILES with the string BEAN in their FILENAME.

If that’s not how it starts, it’s wrong.

That’s not how it starts.

I can now recommend a replacement… Go to the website locate32.net. It’s some kind of freeware / shareware / open source project. If you want to play around with the settings, you can use it as a portable application. It finds everything you want.

It indexes your files, but the interface is FAR, FAR superior to what Microsoft is doing… And because you have an explicit destination for your indexes, you need not worry that Microsoft is poking around in your personal stuff. It would be nice if it had a few more fields, and all of them on one tab, and maybe a “find within results” feature… But it’s both easy to use and professionally effective, and the native Windows 7 solution is neither.

Let me gripe about this some more. EVEN, EVEN if you want to concede that the OS has to have an indexed search function, the clumsiness of the Windows 7 search interface is inexcusably bad. They seem to think that anyone who wants to find something is going to want to sit down and make a seven-minute typing chore out of it, rather than a ten-second distraction. They want us to have to learn how it works, and struggle through query options, as if it would be good for is.

Understand: The biggest story in the industry in the last decade was Google, and their empty, white, simple SEARCH page. This would have been a great opportunity for Microsoft to show that they’ve got some insight about how normal people want to relate to complicated collections of data; and they’ve blown it, badly.

omg, how stupid are you people? i use a mac and i just tried windows7 and i myself know how to use the search function.. i think i read someone looking for a folder.. i clicked the search bar clicked some search filters, came up with kind:=folder name: ‘the string’ found all entries in a blink.. can you guys even read? im no windows power user but i think some people just ignored the fact that computers need skills of thinking from users too

@iusemac

“i think i read someone looking for a folder.. i clicked the search bar clicked some search filters, came up with kind:=folder name: ‘the string’ found all entries in a blink..”

For some simple searches, it’s that simple.

For others, it is not.

What one wishes to do with the search results is more complicated.

Open in a new window, for to copy the PATH?

Good luck. The path displayed may be something as useful as:
search-ms:displayname=Search%20Results%20in%20HP%20(C%3A)&crumb=location:C%3A%5C\Temp

That’s pretty useless for somebody looking to get to C:\Windows\winsxs

I’m finding it is simple to click on search filters after I have used them once. But, until I have used them the first time, they are not apparent.

It’s entirely counterintuitive.

When I’m using Windows Search, I’m more often looking for stuff I am not even aware of than stuff I misplaced. I know where I keep my personal files. (Libraries be damned. I have never even used My Documents.)

AstroGrep is decent, if I want to use Grep in Windows.

But it doesn’t replace old Windows Search.

Case in point. I’m tooling around my new OS, Windows 7, this morning. I am not quite familiar with all the paths.

This morning, I wish to remove a program shortcut from the main Start Menu and place it into my own Start Menu. (When installing the program, there was no option to install program or shortcut for only current user.)

(I realize there’s likely a more elegant solution available for this task, but I haven’t found it yet.)

I know shortcuts have been placed in this Start Menu:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Now, where is my own start menu?

I am accustomed to being able to search for unique strings in file/folder NAMES to find the files/folders I am looking for.

In Windows 2000 and Windows XP, I could go to
C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\ and then hit F3 to open Search. (If in XP, I’d then elect to search files and folders.) I’d use START as my string, start the search, and soon see my own Start Menu among the search results. Very simple.

Using AstroGrep to search for the string START within C:\Users\MyName\, I get a bajillion results. (They are not counted.) The results seem to include every document within that tree which contains the string START. But not the DIRECTORY I am looking for. Not unexpected. It’s grep, after all. That’s what it does. If you’re looking for a directory in Unix, you use FIND or LOCATE, iirc. Cannot find any option to set AstroGrep to search ONLY file/folder names.

Using Windows 7 Search to search for the string START within C:\Users\MyName\, I get 1409 results. The results seem to include every FILE within that tree which contains the string START. But not the FOLDER I am looking for. (There ARE folders within the results set, as well. Just not the one I am looking for.) Completely unacceptable. Were I not certain the directory was contained within the tree, I might incorrectly assume it is not there, due to its being missing from my results.

I wish to use the shell search to search for FILES and FOLDERS by NAME.

Why is that so alien a concept to the developers?

Searching WITHIN files should be an AVAILABLE OPTION, but not the default.

C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Interesting. Still not working correctly.

Searching for all files modified today.

A search of the following path (no search string, datemodified:‎1/‎28/‎2010) reveals just two results (both files in the root folder of the search), and search has apparently completed searching.
C:\Users\MyName\

Yet, when I search the following path (no search string, datemodified:‎1/‎28/‎2010), I get hundreds of results (files/folders distributed throughout that tree):
C:\Users\MyName\AppData\

What were they thinking!

In the previous versions of windows, I used to right click on a folder to be able to search it. Now it’s gone, wtf!! It’s was so simple and logical.

now its a pain

I was so fed up with Windows 7 search until I hit F1(help) and viewed the article on “Windows Search: Advanced Query Syntax”

All I wanted to do was search for .log files without dropping to a command line and typing “dir *.log /s”
How hard could they have made this for me?!

In the help was a link to the site that finally gave the answers:

So, I used “ext:log” in the search box and finally got what I want….

That there Advanced Query Syntax page is a good link.

Still, it’s a graphical operating system. The search options ought to be presented in the gui, rather than hidden on a web page.

On top of that, MS seems to want to eat my cake and eat theirs, too. By that, I mean that they want to make search this all powerful, intuitive engine, better at finding what you’re looking for.

To that end, they’ve abandoned the notion that the string is what the user is looking for. Okay, I’ll buy that. (I don’t like it, but I can understand.)

So, they have an indexing service. They have indexed and non-indexed locations. They give you the option of turning Windows 7 Search ON or OFF, for cripes sake.

Okay, whatever.

So, if it’s all smarter than the end user, if it’s such a powerful tool, why is the interface nothing more than an obscure text box?

If it’s so great, where’s the on-line (within the OS) documentation to help a user out?

It’s about as user friendly as searching from the command line in UNIX. It’s almost as thought they were going for that, to prove they had something for power users.

But I don’t know how that helps my grandma find her Backstreet Boys mp3s.