How to search files by content data
Content-searching can allow you to search files by what is contained within the file rather than the file-name. By default, Windows only search file names for locations that are unindexed, which can often bring frustration upon users who have Search Indexing disabled. By enabling content-searching, those who often forget filenames but remember the contents within a file can make their searching much more efficient.
Re-enabling content-searching is very simple. First, you want to access your folder options from the Tools menu. If you don’t have the top navigation bar enabled by default, just press Alt.
Click on the Search tab above to access your Search Functions. Below is a picture of the default search settings. Simply check the second button, “Always search file names and contents” to re-enable content searching. If you’re working with system files, you might also want to check the Include System Directories box below.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Your suggestion does not work.
Having a white form with white boxes is pretty dumb.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Sorry what do you mean?
March 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I still cannot find a file by file contents on a network drive.
I am searching txt files. I can open up Windows98 in virtualPc
and the search works perfectly, it will find files by content easily.
Microsoft broke the search in my opinion. Now I have to have XP or 98 in vittualPc to have same functionality as before.
Unbelievable!!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I completely agree. There was a simple syntax which allowed one to locate files by name, by content, or both. Now that is imposssible. For example, I cannot find a syntax which allows me to find text files containing the word “badger”. This kind of search was *the most common* search that everyone used in Windows XP and prior, other than the filename only search. It is an example of how Vista implements interesting concepts to the detriment of usability. “Cute but dumb” is my characterization of the OS.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:40 am
You didn’t help me, in fact, its not working… Should test yourself before publish…
April 8th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
When updating my VISTA to SP1, the SEARCH mode within the column near RECENT ITEMS will supposedly now be taking away from all Customers. And when doing a common search mode within DOCUMENTS folder, nothing can be found!!! Why??? I have over 600 MSWord .doc folders still existing, but the SEARCH cannot find any, and when also resetting the SEARCH mode in generaly. I know over many websites that it still effects many others, so Why did they do a stupid mistake and damaging their customers instead???
(I guess just give me William Gates address, and I’ll try to resolve this better)
April 18th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Would any one know how to get Vista search tool to search for text inside of a script tag in a .aspx file?
April 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Ok I found a way to get the search tool to work right.
1.Click on Start, Control Panel.
2.Click on Programs.
3.Under Programs and features, click on “Turn Windows features on or off”.
4.Check the box next to “Indexing Service” and click OK.
This will install the Indexing Service that “shipped in versions prior to to Windows Vista”.
It will take around fifteen seconds, after this the search should work.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
I agree with Morris, which is how I found this entry, trying to find out how to search only specific filenames for specific content (like Morris’ example, all *.txt with word badger).
XP did this nicely…
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 am
I found a really good Microsoft description of how Search works in VISTA, and it is very good.
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/help/73106209-6df0-432a-8cb7-df5d8ce02ec61033.mspx
To answer my own question (and Morris’) in the windows explorer search box simply enter
name:*.txt badger
There are many more advanced options included at the URL above.
April 26th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Hey,
Thanks for posting this. It confirms that I’m NOT crazy, VISTA SUCKS.
Bring back XTree.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 am
There is hope you know, to have an operating system that allows a user to do a simple search for files (i.e., all *.txt, badger). I recommend GNU/Linux (look up Ubuntu), but if you’re not interested in that perhaps reconsider. At the very least you could register your frustration by installing it. Imagine if half the people dual booted GNU/Linux as well as Windows? That’d send a message to Microsoft’s developers not to get fancy with basic functions.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
See Control Panel, Indexing options
And look at the advanced tab..
It has anoying settings per file type.
So vista does different things with different types !!!
you have to add your filetype and settings ??? I gues.
greetz, Leo
May 7th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
NONE of the suggested solutions is working for me. Aparently Windows Vista totally ruined the “search by content” function (that used to work perfectly fine on previous versions).
May 18th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
It’s strange that it doesn’t work for you guys but it works for me. Perhaps you have checked Indexed Locations and not everywhere.
May 19th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
OK, in the good old days we didn’t depend on the operating system to supply this targeted search functionality. We bought XTree or some Norton thing and went to town. What is avaiable for Vista that’s reliable and flexible?
May 29th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Jesus, I cannot believe that Vista is this bad. I am trying to find a specific string within a set of files in a directory. I KNOW this string exists because there is one file that I put this string in myself. Even with all the indexing options set to the suggestions in this page, Vista finds NOTHING - not even the file that I put the string in. And how is this an improvement from past versions of Windows? If Microsoft is trying to “compete” with Google’s Desktop search, they just took a step backwards.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Why on earth did Microsoft replace something that worked with something that looks pretty but so annoying that the first thing I did was install WinGrep? Are they trying to drive their customers away?
June 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
thanks everyone for making me feel better. I agree. This answer should be printed out, rolled up, and flushed down the toilet (wait that wouldn’t be environmentally responsible). I checked 3 3rd party programs, and finally found one that does what i have to do: searching for misplaced files based on containing words. Its the free Commander http://www.freecommander.com/fc_downl_en.htm
Good luck, everyone
June 14th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I am searching in Windows Vista for a specific word in a PowerPoint file that I know is there and none of the afore mentioned methods have worked for me. I even tried *.ppt text. Does anyone else have any ideas?
June 21st, 2008 at 7:46 am
By default Vista is only indexing file names and properties.
Try this:
Open Indexing options,
Click Advanced,
Click File Types tab,
Select Index Properties and File Contents
Click OK to rebuild index
Enjoy
July 11th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
No, it does not work. In theory it should, but it doesn’t. I look for files by content and tried all options from “Folder” => “search” tab and Vista did not find a simple *.txt file, which I had looked at just seconds before.
I had index switched off at the time, but according to “Folder” “search” option it should all work! and it didn’t.
It looks like definite bug!
Does any one one know non-Vista program, which will search content of all files?
July 18th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Derek,
I checked 3 3rd party programs, and finally found one that will search contents of all files. Its free and called Commander http://www.freecommander.com/fc_downl_en.htm
July 31st, 2008 at 6:03 am
Thanks Sy,
I am installing it right now. Many thanks.
It seems that Vista ignores files suffixed in a way Vista does not like it. I managed to make vista search contents, but it will search file *.htm and will not search exact copy of the same file but suffixed *.bak. I have proven this for sure.
I also feel that files created by competing programs like Open Office are not searched, while files created by Microsoft Office are!!! - but I didn’t have time to pinpoint it. It’s 80-90% that it is so.
The settings I used to make Vista search properly are below.
tick - “always search file name and content”
tick - all in heading “how to search”
tick - all in heading “when searching non-indexed locations”
July 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
You can change what extensions are searched with the script below.
Save the text as phandler.vbs. Then double-click on it.
‘Add files to Search for files containing text
‘© Doug Knox - 11/04/2001
Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim WshShell, N, P, P1, P2, ItemType, MyBox, FileType, Title, Prompt, RegKey, X
Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject(”WScript.Shell”)
P = “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.”
P1 = “\PersistentHandler\”
N = “{5e941d80-bf96-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}”
Prompt = “Enter the file extension for the file you wish to add.” & vbCR
Prompt = Prompt & “Examples: txt, adm, inf”
Title = “Enter File Type”
FileType = InputBox(Prompt, Title, “”)
If FileType = “” Then
MyBox = MsgBox(”You left the box blank.”,4096,”Error.”)
Set WshShell = Nothing
WScript.Quit
Else
‘Check to see if there is already a PersistentHandler default value
RegKey = P & FileType & P1
X = WshShell.RegRead(RegKey)
End If
‘MyBox = MsgBox(”The PersistentHandler value for .” & FileType & ” is: ” & X,4096,”Results”)
‘Set WshShell = Nothing
If X = N Then
MyBox = MsgBox(”This value already exists, and is correct.” & vbCR & “No Changes were made.”, 4096, “No Changes”)
Set WshShell = Nothing
WScript.Quit
End If
If X N AND X “” Then
MyBox = MsgBox(”The Persistent Handler value already exists and is different.” & vbCR & “No changes were made.”, 4096, “No Changes”)
Set WshShell = Nothing
WScript.Quit
End If
If Err.Number 0 Then
WshShell.RegWrite RegKey, N
MyBox = MsgBox(”The Registry has been updated.” & vbCR & “Restart your computer.”, 4096, “Done”)
Set WshShell = Nothing
End If
August 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
FYI - I agree that Vista’s indexed search sucks, but I think I’ve found a work-around that should get you by. Through various testing, I’ve determined that the INDEX is the problem here - for example, when I go to Advanced Search and select “Include non-indexed…” the search finds files based on content just fine. Perhaps rebuilding the index? (how often should you have to do THAT!?!) Or, better yet, turn off indexing - that’s how we USED to do it, in XP (indexes would be great if they worked, but they’ve just caused too many problems, including this one).
August 19th, 2008 at 9:35 am
^^ the INDEX is the problem ^^
Nah. The problem is the willful elimination of the old boolean algorithm where you could stipulate a content search string, a title mask, date, size, and location all simultaneously and actually get a useful search result.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I always liked vista but this problem really annoys me, so this is what i tried.
1. created a restore point because changing the registry scares me like going to the dentist.
2. then in Start, regedit i created a key like mentioned by Morris above. (usually when you search you are only interested in certain document types eg. csharp .cs)
the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT branch in the registry now has something that looks like
[].cs
>-[]PersistentHandler
and the right side screen looks like
Default) REG_SZ {5e941d80-bf96-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}
Then i tried to search on something in a bunch of .cs files and to my amazement it didnt work. hmmm. but did I start whining, no way.
3. I Opened Windows Help and Support and somehow i found
“How do I remove a location I rarely use from the index?”
it shows that my directory was being indexed.
and 1.->Click to open Indexing Options.
Clicked Modify and noticed that it Included
..\Users //exactly where i put my stuff
I removed it from the list and seached on something i knew was in alot of files and it worked,at least on my my computer. Id much rather find what im looking for slow than find nothing fast. but slow only means a few seconds.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Why did you go edit your registry?
September 8th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
why did i edit my registry? because i read the comment from morris about 2 entries above this and thats what he did. also on my machine the search was working with .txt files and i noticed that .txt files had this entry in the registry. Hey since nothing else seemed to work, i thought id give it a shot.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Well that worked okay, although it did not work directly (for me)
Thanks for the help
Users like RETO who think that they: -
are always smarter than anyone else
that somebody owes them a free fix
that they think it is okay to suggest others check their work without giving consideration to their own inadequacies and errors.
..should refrain from posting. Comments like that are simply a waste of space.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Do you guys still have problems with the search? I have been using this feature for a year and I have no problem with it whatsoever!
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Oh sorry I did not read Morris’ post properly. I have tried it however, and receive a VBscript error.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I agree, they totally ruined the search function. It’s simply a pain - searching for files with special words or for files created/changed between two dates is practically impossible. If they even would allow to step back …
October 10th, 2008 at 12:37 am
None of the complicated work-arounds discussed here address the loss of the simple boolean search that XP had: limit search to a size range, date range, folder, filename mask, file-content match. It’s gone.
I took my Vista machine to Best Buy today and for $129 they assure me they’ll get it properly upgraded to XP. I wish I had time to do it myself.
-Ron
November 5th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
$129?!? Probably the best 129 bucks you’ll ever spend! ;-p
November 7th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
In Vista, to search the contents of a file, use:
contents:[whatever you are looking for]
For example, if you are looking for a file containing the exact string “My Home”, use:
contents:”My Home”
If you are looking for a file that contains both the words “My” and “Home”, but not necessarily together, use () around it:
contents:(My Home)
Hope that helps
November 10th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I can’t believe VISTA complete hobbled an awesome search feature. Gone are the days when one could right click a folder, choose search and specify all *.txt, *.doc that contain “cat” which were modified and/or created within a specific time frame.
The Vista search is useless as are the suggestions on this page for fixing it. I simply cannot beleue that a SP or fix has not been pushed to us giving us the option of the wonderful searches in XP and 2000.
Whata waste is an extremely useful function that I used practically every day.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
PLEASE everyone, settle down.
Truely, searching in Vista is far more powerful than XP and more easy.
go to the folder you want to search or just start typing in the search box in upper right of ALL folders. As soon as you start typing search options appear above the file listings and you can then open the pane and advanced is right there on the right, you ahve all the choices.
EASIEST. When in a vista folder, hit F3 and the search box comes up with advanced options.
BEST….Learn to use Search folders. there are many predefined folders, but you can save yours after you create one.
In any vista folder you should see Searches on the left tree, if not click <> and then searches. You will need to Google this feature to learn more about it, but it’s GREAT once you are used to it.
For the good ole search by date range or contents do the F3 or start typing and search pane option will come up.
The pane allows you to narrow to all, email, and many other types of files. select advanced just like you have to wtih the right click on XP and you’ll get a great search box.
ALSO windows key + F brings up the search box too.
Again, learn how to use search folders for maximum use. You may have to turn on indexing in system components, like you would any other extra components like IIS 7.0.
You may ahve to go to control panel, Indexing options to tell it to search file contents. You can use advanced button here to set all file types you want to search, they are all set by default, so if you know of a bunch of extensions you don’t want cluttering your searches, turn them off here.
Be sure to add all locations you want indexed.
But in the folder options or the search pane advanced, you can still tell it to search non-indexed files so indexing is not required. Like XP on more powerful with serach folders.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Vista is a steaming heap of shit.
I’m having the same problem and it should NOT require jumping through all of the these #@$%! hoops.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:29 am
It’s quite unbelievable that Vista doesn’t support search by file content.
I have run many tests and I can confirm too that also the “search non-indexed files” option does NOT work, despite what some people say. I suppose that certain file types are not searched for content. Why? is the question.
And I am sure that Vista advanced search has some really serious bugs (not-consistent behavior).
I used to complain about Windows XP Search (the interface with the dog was terrible, the search slow, and the lack of more advanced search options really silly). But Windows Vista Search is much worst!
Please Microsoft do something!
December 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
You can look for “agent ransack” on the web. This is a very useful program for searching files on your PC (also if you are looking for the content of the file!).
I can’t understand why Microsoft didn’t create something similar. So logical and simple…
December 1st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
@Tim Young
I’ve tried the syntax contents:[whatever you are looking for]
It simply doesn’t work.
The only thing vista does is look for filenames. It will not search the filecontents.
Maybe this is the time to get an apple. In xp it’s one click and you get your filecontent search. In vista after an hour trying it still doesn’t work. That’s proof enough vista sucks.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:01 am
All the comments in this thread do contain the information needed to search the contents of files in vista. Let me try to compile them.
First, the contents search relies on the “Windows Search” service (also known as the indexing service). Many people disable this service and then complain that they cannot search the contents of their files. If you shoot your dog, please do not complain when it can no longer fetch. Turn on the Indexing service and searching the contents will work. Remember, the Indexing service can be enabled/disabled on a directory by directory basis. Searching the contents of a directory that is not indexed will also not work.
In Vista, to search the contents of a file, use:
contents:[whatever you are looking for]
For example, if you are looking for a file containing the exact string “My Home”, use:
contents:”My Home”
If you are looking for a file that contains both the words “My” and “Home”, but not necessarily together, use () around it:
contents:(My Home)
In that search box, you can also do:
name:
author:
modified:
tag:
And, use (less-than, greater-than) for comparisons:
modified: > 5/15/2008
For more information about searching, see:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/help/73106209-6df0-432a-8cb7-df5d8ce02ec61033.mspx
* To enable/disable indexing on your system, enable/disable the “Windows Search” service.
* To enable/disable indexing on a hard-drive, right-click the drive and go to “properties” then check/uncheck the “index this drive for faster searching”
* To enable/disable indexing on a directory, right-click the directory, go to “Properties”, “Advanced”, and check/uncheck “Index folder for faster searching”
December 14th, 2008 at 12:15 am
As After you have updated your extension of choice to “Index Properties and File Contents” in the Indexing Options/Advanced Options/File Types, do this:
(in my case, i was wanting to search .php file contents)
1. Open a directory
2. Type your word to search for in the search field
3. Under the search results, click Advanced Search
4. In the Advanced Search area, check the box that says “Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)”
5. Under the search results click on “Search in File Contents”
This will now show files containing your searched word.
This worked for me. I was ready to go back to XP also, but now I have one less reason to flush Vista down the toilet.
Let this thread know if this works for you. Thanks!
December 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I appreciate all the frustrations, but this solution works fine for me.
Download and install Google desktop search, from
http://desktop.google.com/
Once it is installed, set your Desktop Preferences, let it do the indexing, and then have a play with the Advanced Search options.
Vista “sucks”? No. It is only human, like its creators.
“A friend should bear a friend’s infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are…” (Shakespeare).
December 29th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Vista search for files with ~
I could not get this character in the search box, and I had to delete a lot of double email messages (renamed to *~1.msg).
So I first did a search on *1.msg and then modified the saved search (1.msg.search-ms) as follows:
or the complete file:
Joop
December 29th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I can’t believe how much whining goes on here. The reason searching is not working for some is definately PEBKAC.
You have to setup indexing if you want indexing. Don’t cry about it, just set it up correctly, life is sooo hard isn’t it. sheesh.
I only index email and a few directories where i store most of my data. Even searching file contents in NON INDEXED folders, it will find files with a given “string” super fast. I have an average HP laptop. It does have a 2.5Ghz core 2 duo and 4 GB of RAM but that is what 500.00 machines come with now.
If you have thousands of folders in your user “documents” folder, then goto that folder, start typing what you want to find, either file name or contents. If it doesn’t find file contents, there will be TWO links below where it says search criteria not found.
The first one is a link “search file contents” click this and it will find every file in your users folder that contains that string in a second or less. Some very heavily populated folders or drives might take longer but will be as fast as any other OS doing the same thing with the same criteria.
Please, enough Vista bashing and “steaming pile of crap” comments from those who are obviously incapable of using a modern OS that delivers far more than XP or Leopard for that matter. Linux, forget it, it’s not nearly up to par with the functionality in Vista.
I am a long time professional that has worked in Unix, Novell and Windows shops and you simply have tradeoffs with ALL of these OSes. Windows, hands down, gives the most functionality, ease of programming and power at the cost of security. Well, that was till Vista and now the security industry is giving Vista the nod as much more technologically secure.
The whining just makes you look more like someone without a clue than anything else, so if that is the image you are going for, please be our guest.
Also, learn to use search folders. Don’t push away change, embrace it. That is what technology is all about. CHAnGE. If you don’t have the brass to deal with change, find a new profession, area of interest or whatever reason you use a computer or go back to doing everything manually cause Leopard is not going to solve anything. It’s very limited on what you are able to do. If you are happy with what Master Jobs gives you access to and like something made for people over 50 (the vast majority of Mac owners are 50+, that is a fact) then blow 2 or 3 grand on a shiny Mac. You’ll feel like you got locked out of your machine for being a bad boy or something, it’s so locked down. And if email and writing letters to Granny are all you want to do, get a Linux netbook for 250.00. Why would anyone spend more than that to just do the simplest of things?
If you want an OS that has free dev tools, databases and that rocks, if you can get yourself past the changes from XP, God forbid, then get and use Vista and stop whining. It’s tremendously powerful if you just let your brain stop thinking XP and start thinking new, better and far more powerful.
Sorry for the outburst but i’ve tested every situation above in which people claim this or that doesn’t work (such as search file contents) and it works for me very well. And even with more options than XP….can your heart take it?
I am a consultant and would not roll out a product as full of holes as being eluded to here and in other blogs and the fact is, my users number in the thousands and they love Vista and I have found that 99.99% of problems being spouted on the web are from ABMers and don’t really exist or the problem was they simply did not understand how to do it with Vista, so they gave up. Unbelievable.
We are getting almost 40% more ROI out of Vista than we did XP at this stage of deployment. I could not be happier and am very excited about win 7. MS is simply going further into the de-coupling of the old NT dependencies so that each component is isolated and has almost no dependencies on other components. You’ll be able to write micro kernel apps with win7 shortly, which will show how far the de-coupling of the old monolithic Windows has come and what it’s capable of with MinWin kernel. Vista and Server 2008 are first generation of MinWin “like” kernel and are far more advanced than people are giving MS credit. people like to dwell on the problems and the ABM crowd has nitpicked Vista to death. Steve Jobs has gone on a full out offensive against it, which he started in 2006 at WWDC by spending an hour then to bash Vista. He was and is scared of Vista adoption and has done everything to stop it. That along with the thousands of FSF style “stop Vista” web sites.
Both Apple and OSS folks realized if Vista was a huge success, that Windows would retain the 90+% marketshare for another generation. They were DESPERATE to stop it and started campaigns to villify it at every turn. There is a huge army of OSS folks that do nothing but setup accounts on every IT forum on the web and attack Windows at every turn, usually with half truths and twisted information.
The ABM crowd really got lucky when Vista shipped and 3rd party vendors had not yet written new drivers for the new SDL driver model which is far more robust and secure….but that is long over and there are drivers for virtually everything, both 64 bit and 32 bit included.
To do vista right, and this was another thing MS could not push, but everyone should be going with Vista x64.
But don’t let Apple fool you. Leopard STILL has a 32 bit kernel, which is XNU and is getting old and the MACH component is at end of life. It’s not supported by BSD any longer so Apple has to do something to make their kernel fully ready for the future.
But my point is they advertise it as a full 64 bit OS, right on their website, and it’s cool that you can use 32 or 64 bit drivers with the same OS but it’s at the expense of using a 32 bit kernel which means it can’t do any kernel level operations at 64 bit speed. Vista is faster than Leopard on comparable hardware. Those XP vs. Vista speed tests are bogus. They were testing on 1 GB machines for starters. Vista has now surpassed XP in terms of speed in the most recent benchmarking and it was always vastly more powerful and feature rich. A far better client on server 2008 domains with SMB 2.0 and many other enhancements over XP, it can be up to 75% faster on a server 2008 domain doing network operations over XP. It’s 20% faster to start with and it goes up from there depending on the operation being performed.
And if you’ve not familiarized yourself with the Vista wddm, you can’t know how far ahead it is in terms of graphics processing. Allow some laymen level depth on wddm and 64 bit Vista:
Vista’s WDDM is enough of a generational leap that if most people had half a clue what it entails or does their heads would spin.
The WDDM not only moves the drivers to a hybrid kernel/user mode, but also is a redesign of how the entire video system in Vista works.
Why this is important in regard to hardware is that it opens up a world of extensibility.
Take the NVidia dual GPU Notebooks for example. Flipping from the integrated low power to the high power GPU is something that Vista’s WDDM just does automatically without a second thought. (OS X, has to keep both drivers active, and then have the user log off and restart the GUI to change Video devices.) Vista just does it on the fly because of the WDDM.
The Vista video model is taken from the XBox 360 development team and this is how Vista comes around with GPU RAM Virtualization and GPU scheduling at the OS level.
Think of it this way, instead of a Game using VRAM for textures or data that is NOT speed sensitive, Vista allocates System RAM for these and uses it instead, since there is more of it. This lets games that would normally require a 512mb VRAM video card to run on Vista with a 128mb Video card without much ‘if any’ performance difference.
This is why you can turn up texture quality under Vista on games even with small amounts of VRAM and they will not only still run, but run as well as they did on XP with the lower texture quality settings.
The GPU scheduling is interesting on several angles reguarding hardware. First it gives current users the ability to use multiple 3D applications without the applications themselves needed to yield (or share RAM), and instead the OS scheduler handles this with ease.
This is why you can run 3D games ‘in a window’ on Vista with the AERO interface running that is also using 3D without any ‘hiccups’ or performance hit in the game. - In fact some older games even run faster because of the shared texture mode of the Aero composer and how it writes to the GPU more efficiently with modern video cards than the games themselves would write to the Video card in full screen mode themselves.
So Vista adds basically pre-emptive multi-tasking to the GPU, with RAM virtualization, just like the 32bit processor brought to OSes with its scheduler. Get it?
Next the backside to this is multi-core GPU support and multi-GPU support. From having more than one Video card in a non-SLI fashion, Vista just knows how to handle it and do SMP across the cards.
This also applies to multi-core concepts that are still upcoming that are not SLI/Crossfire based, but you will see this when the products are geared to be Vista ONLY video cards, as XP or OS X couldn’t handling the multiple cores without SLI/Crossfire augmenting the driver application handling.
The multi-GPU and dynamic GPU driver loading the WDDM natively supports in Vista that allows users to flip or the OS to automatically flip between the integrated low power GPU to the faster higher power GPU on demand or by user control on the fly. Which is what we talked about above in the NVidia notebook GPU example above in contrast to OS X or XP.
The last thing of the WDDM is the dynamic loading of the drivers and GPU switching also adds a great level of stability to Vista. So if you rip out the only running Video Card and stick it back in or another one, Vista won’t crash, but instead, pop-up the display stopped respoding, Vista recovered. (See the WDDM lets the GUI be untied even more from the devicdes.)
Vista x64 is as mature as Vista x32, and shows this by having an average 15% increase in performance, even when running 32bit applications.
This is because the kernel uses the 64bit registers, 64bit addressing for managing intenal table lookups and also lets the OS dual-read/write 32bit chunks in a single 64bit read/write. (This is how it even speeds up 32bit applications and wastes less RAM, as it can take break the upper and lower ends of the 64bit space to hold two 32bit chunks of RAM.)
And again, this is just a laymen taste of this stuff, that if you actually read a whitepaper on what Vista is doing to utilize 64bit computing it is quite impressive.
In contrast, OS X is a 32bit OS that only allows applications to use a 64bit address space, with nothing of the other 64bit CPU features offered or used.
Finally, in terms of performance, the video drivers at launch of Vista were bad, 10-20% slower on average. So this is true, but also history.
NVidia and ATI (due to the WDDM) had to literally write the Vista drivers from the ground up and existing game optimizations no longer worked the same way under Vista and had to take some time to mature the gaming differences and optimizations. In addition to just getting the drivers up to the years of work that the XP drivers enjoyed.
So about June of 2007, some games in Vista started catching up with games in Vista. By September of 2007, Vista was on even ground with XP when it came to gaming, with some games like oblivion even running faster.
By late 2007 early 2008, Vista was at ‘least’ even with XP and outpacing XP in gaming in most games by a 5-10% difference.
With Vista and gaming today, it easily is faster than XP when it comes to gaming, and usually on a 10-20% difference.
Not only is the WDDM being a faster model, but the Superfetch in Vista allows textures and contetnt to load faster from the HD, so there is less FPS drops when the games are digging out new textures or content or level loading or zoing like in an MMO. Pick any MMO and you can spot the Vista users, no matter if their computer is the uber or a Walmart get by, as they will load into the instance before XP users.
One mistake users make is to turn off Aero, as this DROPS application performance because the Aero composer of the WDDM in Vista is ‘pretty’, but also speeds up a lot of 2D drawing, font rendering, bitmap processing, and also being a managed Vector/Bitmap composer handles general drawing of applications better.
So people listening, even if you hate Glass, just turn off its transparency, STOP turning off Aero, as it DOES speed up your computer and even on Battery uses the same or less battery because of the optimizations.
Even the fact your programs look the same as they did under XP is a freaking miracle of programming, let alone that the Aero/WDDM also speed up their drawing is extra kudos to the XBox 360 engineers and the Vista Video WDDM designers/engineers.
If you think this is rhetoric, go read some freaking whitepapers or developer blogs on how Vista works and was designed. It was a large jump and is why the UI and user noticeable stuff got cut back, and why people don’t ‘notice’ the things in the background that are just more responsive, load faster, and work a little better.
And if you can’t get Vista to run as fast as XP, but some freaking RAM in your computer. (Even OS X 10.5 required the SAME RAM incresae over 10.4 as Vista did over XP to equalize the performance between the versions.)
January 6th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Wow, I’m not sure what WDDM and Aero and 64 bit and all that have to do with Vista’s broken (and it is borked) search.
Change for change’s sake is never good, in spite of the previous poster’s opinion. I have learned the hard way to do what Aaron mentioned above. It *usually* works, but is quite-quite slow on non-indexed directories (over 20 mins now searching for a single word in about 20 GB of data). For the record, I completely disagree with this statement: “Some very heavily populated folders or drives might take longer but will be as fast as any other OS doing the same thing with the same criteria.”
I occasionally try various versions of grep and other utilities and end up not happy.
I did stumble across the “findstr” command today, which I had somehow missed in the past. Grab a cmd prompt and type “help findstr” to get the params. Too early to say, but this may become my text search tool of choice.
Good luck and let’s hope MS gives us better command over search in the Win7
January 7th, 2009 at 12:08 am
@Aaron Sherman
No luck for me, Aaron. I think I have followed all your instructions and those of a few others before yours. Doesn’t work.
I’m trying to search for text in .pdf files in one single directory. I’m running Vista Home Premium 64-bit.
In particular, the “Search in file Contents” option you mentioned in point #5 does not appear. All I get in the results box is “advanced search”.
I’ve also tried entering Contents:”XYZ” in the search box but that seems to look only in filenames. Btw, Contents:(XYZ) also does not work.
I have set Folder Options to “always search file names and contents” already.
The directory/folder has “index this folder for faster searching” set already.
Indexing Options show just about all folders withing Users, including the directory I’m trying to search in, are selected already.
In Indexing Options->Index Location->Current Location is set to “c:\ProgramData\Microsoft”. I suppose this just tells it where to store the index file.
In Indexing Options->File Types, “index properties and file contents” is checked already.
In Indexing Options->File Types, the “pdf” file type is checked already BUT its filter description says “Registered IFilter is not found”. I have not idea what that means.
@all those Vista defenders… Vista may very well be the greatest thing since slice bread but if a user can’t figure out how to use it having gone as far as s/he has done here, you should at least admit it’s not very user friendly. We need help, not preaching.
January 12th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Whatever Vista fanboys might say, Vista Search SUCKS…
Before I could connect any external HD select the drive letter, right clik and seach for *.mp3 files and I will get them all listed, wherever they were in the drive….
Now for every freaking drive I connect I need to add it to the dumb indexing service, so that I might even stand a chance…
There is simply no way to list ALL files in a drive… full stop.
Before with XP you could, now you have to do all sorts of stupid things to do so…
VISTA SUCKS
January 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Simply bizarre. Incomprehensible.
Searched for “sale”, found some files and folders such as For-Sale folder and 2009-01-01-Sale-Volvo.pdf so it appears to find itemes where sale is a sub-string but not the ones I was looking for “ElectronicsForSale” folder and “ForSale” folder and volvo-sale-titlexfer.jpg, so I found them by browsing. Checked the index settings were fine; tried advanced search including non-indexed files; still missing items, tried using the previous version indexing service, still not found; Tried *sale* and found more including the ones I was looking for. But I have zero confidence that Vista found them all.
So always use the wildcards!
February 14th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
… just the fact that i had to get the info from this kind of website really is the stake through the heart of any justification on how nice the searches are.
If i cant do am easy search between 2 dates (duh), how the h ell’s my mum going to do it?!? you need to be an IT expert?
ergonomy for simple users, sorry minus F, fails miserably
February 19th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Thanks to the Vista Sucks crowd I now have a new favorite program… Agent Ransack! I thought I was going crazy, thought I was turning stupid or something - I just could not execute the simple task of finding the word “saitek” in the oem*.inf files. I tried all the recommendations of the Vista Fan Boyz with no success. Crazy that Microsoft has turned to Rube Goldberg to write its code. I think they have too many millionaires trying to figure out where to yacht this weekend.
Agent Ransack works the way Vista Search should have - fast and simple.
Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY !
Cheers.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
To Jerry: Do not be so quick to accuse people of whining. Instead, understand that we are loyal Windows users who have enjoyed previous Windows search functionality, as trivial as it WAS, but are now forced to take many steps to find what we need.
You mentioned several approaches. One I find interesting is where you suggest using Google to understand . That is enough to suggest that Microsoft has lost us in the efficiency and productivity department.
I suggest that YOU google “Vista Search” and then one of the inspiring keywords users have been forced to make in response to this so called ‘easy’ search feature.
Finally, if Microsoft’s response to users is similar to yours they will be phased out of the OS wars sooner than later.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I tried everything here. No dice. I think I’ll go buy some Jet Electro stock instead.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
This is what I found, distributed with Vista, that works great for searching. Open a command window and type FINDSTR -?
Works great. Doesn’t require indexing. Straight forward and understandable. Probably will be gone in Windows 7.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:52 am
I have recently bought a laptop with windows vista. The search engine is annoying me very badly. For example; I have a movie file named, addtonysoufia. if i want to search for this file i type ’soufia’ but it doesn’t appear in my search results. however if i type ‘add’ it finds it no worries. Is there a way to fix this problem?
March 11th, 2009 at 6:49 am
The mistake lies solely with Microsoft in my view and the many complaints are fully justified.
Microsoft replaced a ‘technical’ search feature (like in XP) with a ‘functional’ search feature (like in Vista).
Rule number 1: Don’t change existing features (other than bugfixing or extending).
Rule number 2: Do add new features.
Rule number 3: Do maintain backward compatibility.
In the software development and support field amongst others, we need the ‘technical’ search feature. For example, searching for (parts of) strings/text in a complex software product is a common task when trying to locate files that need attention. You NEED a predictable and guaranteed search result for such a task! You need the XP method of specying the search. You need to see CLEARLY what you are searching for.
However, in the business field you can argue that the ‘functional’ search is what users want/need. In this case you may not want to deep-search through the contents of files but rather scan object attributes and types of information when looking for business objects.
The major mistake Microsoft made is to REPLACE the one with the other, rather than to ADD the new search approach. They should have made a clear and visible distinction between the two.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Vista is the worst piece of s… Features that used to work fine, now don’t, like the Search feature. I have tried everything on this forum. Nothing works. There has got to be some software on the Internet that does the job.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:35 am
The main problem that the file content search is buggy.
Just test the following:
- create a test.txt with content abc
- type abc in the search box
- nothing happens, so click advanced search
- check “include non-indexed …”
- test.txt found (it is an other story we need to click the advanced link and the checkbox each time…)
- now rename test.txt -> test (without any extension)
- search no more find “abc” !!!
This is only one bug in file content search, I’m sure there are tons of other
March 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I fixed it!!!!
regardless of whather you are using a network drive or a local hard drive, READ THIS!
WARNING - The Indexing Options control panel app is confusing!!! Follow these instructions carefully.
1) go to Indexing Options in Control Panel.
2) click advanced
3) click file types
4) select the file type extension you are trying to search on
5) Click “Index Properties and File Contents” radio button.
I realize that you are not “Indexing” a network drive, but Vista seems to use this setting to determine the search methods available for the file type regardless of where the file is stored.
Next!!
Go to Tools - Folder Options - Search Tab
6) Open the file folder using explorer.
7) tap the Alt key to display the menu bar
9) Click “Always search file names and contents” radio button, then click OK.
Finally!
10) Enter the text you are searching for in the search field in the upper right corner of the explorer window.
This worked for me, I hope it works for you.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Turn on the Indexing service and searching the contents will work. Remember, the Indexing service can be enabled/disabled on a directory by directory basis. Searching the contents of a directory that is not indexed will also not work.
you will find those settings under control panel indexing options.
also don’t forget to activate indexing:under add/remove windows parts -> activate indexing service
March 16th, 2009 at 8:53 am
NOTE with TOM GRAHAM’s explanation
you forgot one thing:
folders you wnat to search have to be added:
to do this:
go to Indexing Options in Control Panel.
click “change”
and add the locations you want to be able to search in!
March 16th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I like Vista except for it’s search “feature”:
I don’t understand why MS abandoned plain English for searching for programming language searching. It was so easy to search in XP, 2000, NT, etc. Now I have to remember the correct syntax to find a file containing the text: cats and dogs
I used to enter *.doc (or *.*) for the file name, then cats and dogs in the “a word or phrase in the file” box and click Search. SIMPLE!!
Now I have to remember to use :, NOT, AND, “” > < and other symbols to find files I used to find using plain English. Not to mention turning on indexing.
And then Vista still can’t find my files.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I didn’t read through this entire blog and don’t know if anyone already said this, but I was trying to search via content using Vista. I finally found why it was not working. In Control Panel, Indexing Options, Advanced button, File Types tab, select Index Properties and File Contents. Took a while for it to re-index but it worked when it was finished.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Albert, I see that you haven’t been able to duplicate the problem that these others, and now I have had with the Vista search. I had major problems too, but your fix doesn’t fix a lot of our problems. See below on how to duplicate at least some of our problems.
1) Create a folder, make sure it’s not indexed
1a) create a file called searchme.rrr add “” without the quotes and save.
1b) search for Jerry
1c) scream at your monitor
2) Okay, for the Jerry’s of the world, add an index, because indexes solve everything. Right?
2a) search for Jerry, note that you can’t explicitly search by content now.
2b) scream at your monitor
3) For the Jerry’s of the world, add the rrr extension to your search index and add content index as well (cause we really want to do this for every gosh darn extension)
3a) … wait for your indexes to be rebuilt… Whoopee!!
3b) search for string
3c) ask yourself if you want to do this for all your development extensions (remembering index unknown file types with fondness, yesterday a pain, today a missing friend)…
4) Now, for the fun one…
4a) change the rrr extension to an aspx extension.
4b) Search…
4c) I’m retarded, Okay, rebuild the index…
4d) No, Vista is retarded… You can’t search files that are proprietary to them. Of course, that’s in the documentation somewhere!!!
But essentially, if it advertises as a content search, then I need 100% reliable results or it’s completely useless. There’s clearly other stuff going on, maybe a security related thing, but what other text won’t it find? But for me, and my line of work, I can’t afford to possibly miss some files, so I cannot use Vista Explorer to search for content. Bottom line.
If this happened on Linux there would be a civil uprising of untold violent proportions.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The server removed the text that I was instructing to add.
The text (remove the number 5’s and the quotes:
“”
April 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
The server removed script text that I indicated to add to the file. The fourth one won’t work without it specifically as posted.
The text (removing quotes and brackets) was:
“”
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Albert, I see that you haven’t been able to duplicate the problem that these others, and now me have had with the Vista search. I had major problems too, but your fix doesn’t fix a lot of our problems. See below on how to duplicate at least some of our problems.
1) Create a folder, make sure it’s not indexed
1a) create a file called searchme.rrr add “”, remove the quotes and the forward slashes (/)
1b) search for VistaSearch
1c) scream at your monitor
2) Okay, for the Jerry’s of the world, add an index, because indexes solve everything. Right?
2a) search for VistaSearch, note that you can’t explicitly search by content now.
2b) scream at your monitor
3) For the Jerry’s of the world, add the rrr extension to your search index and add content index as well (cause we really want to do this for every gosh darn extension)
3a) … wait for your indexes to be rebuilt… Whoopee!!
3b) search for string
3c) ask yourself if you want to do this for all your development extensions (remember index unknown file types?)…
4) Now, for the fun one…
4a) change the rrr extension to an aspx extension.
4b) Search…
4c) I’m retarded, Okay, rebuild the index…
4d) No, Vista is retarded… You can’t search files that are proprietary to them. Of course, that’s in the documentation somewhere!!!
But essentially, if it advertises as a content search, then I need 100% reliable results or it’s completely useless. There’s clearly other stuff going on, maybe a security related thing, but what other text won’t it find? But for me, and my line of work, I can’t afford to possibly miss some files, so I cannot use Vista Explorer to search for content. Bottom line.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:49 am
Geez…
The phrase for the file is:
“”
remove the quotes and replace percent with an actual percentage sign.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Albert, I see that you haven’t been able to duplicate the problem that these others, and now me have had with the Vista search. I had major problems too, but your fix doesn’t fix a lot of our problems. See below on how to duplicate at least some of our problems.
1) Create a folder, make sure it’s not indexed
1a) create a file called searchme.rrr add “”, remove the quotes and replace percent with actual percentage sign.
1b) search for VistaSearch
1c) scream at your monitor
2) Okay, for the Jerry’s of the world, add an index, because indexes solve everything. Right?
2a) search for VistaSearch, note that you can’t explicitly search by content now.
2b) scream at your monitor
3) For the Jerry’s of the world, add the rrr extension to your search index and add content index as well (cause we really want to do this for every gosh darn extension)
3a) … wait for your indexes to be rebuilt… Whoopee!!
3b) search for string
3c) ask yourself if you want to do this for all your development extensions (remember index unknown file types?)…
4) Now, for the fun one…
4a) change the rrr extension to an aspx extension.
4b) Search…
4c) I’m retarded, Okay, rebuild the index…
4d) No, Vista is retarded… You can’t search files that are proprietary to them. Of course, that’s in the documentation somewhere!!!
But essentially, if it advertises as a content search, then I need 100% reliable results or it’s completely useless. There’s clearly other stuff going on, maybe a security related thing, but what other text won’t it find? But for me, and my line of work, I can’t afford to possibly miss some files, so I cannot use Vista Explorer to search for content. Bottom line.
The server removed script text that I indicated to add to the file. The fourth one won’t work without it specifically as posted.
“”
remove the quotes and replace percent with an actual percentage sign.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
The server removed the text that I indicated to add to the file. The fourth one won’t work without it specifically as posted.
“greater than percent VistaSearch percent less than”
remove the quotes and replace percent with an actual percentage sign and the greater than/less than with the actual symbols.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:25 pm
What finally worked was from Caleb back on April 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm. Thanks for that, Caleb.
1.Click on Start, Control Panel. 2.Click on Programs. 3.Under Programs and features, click on “Turn Windows features on or off”. 4.Check the box next to “Indexing Service” and click OK.
Now if I can just get MS to pay for the hour of searching and cursing to get this working.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:42 am
I tried just about everything here.
Bottom Line: ssorg provided the best option (agent ransack).
Disable Windows Search.
Stop indexing.
for the few times you need these hogs why have them running (its like leaving the lights on in the attic 24X7)
also, consider this, how much confidence do you have that the search actually found what you needed? All the posts here emphasise more than anything that VISTA search is not usable by any but aliens blessed with MS Voodoo.
Use some other utility. Spend 10 minutes and have what you want. Be happy.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:50 am
comment to those who call us whiners…
The problem isn’t that it can’t find my files. It’s that you can’t limit the scope easily. I search for “string” and it lists every file in a folder with “string” in the folder name, & every file with “string” in the contents. With the THOUSAND of hits, I might as well be searching by hand in the folders I suspect in the first place.
Can’t easily search limited date range with limited file type (& that list across the top is never the list of file types I want at the moment.)
If I have to use line commands I learn by googling…I might as well use DOS. A windows interface shouldn’t back slide into line commands. Especially when there were search standards for line entrees & this isn’t using them anymore. Plus the help doesn’t explain any of it.
I now have a way to open advance search regularly, but why did I have to hunt down a way to? It should be available in every folder same way that little search box is up there. Even after doing a search I couldn’t find a way to it through any menu or listing.
I wound up at this site, because for the upteemth time I couldn’t find what I needed using search without an overwhelming useless response list. That’s not whining. I was looking for a free or low cost alternative. That’s the essense of bad product…when the customer wants to buy an alternative.
As for indexing - including & excluding indexed files is way to vague. Again, not enough options to narrow down the results & what will be looked through. THEN I opened a file result from a search list, then hit the back key & the thing started the whole non-index search again from scratch!
I’m a programmer & usually quick to figure out programs, though a little intuitive in the use is good. How in the world do I explain any of these ideas to my father, who for the last 7 years calls me once a week because he can’t find something, & the XP search wasn’t obvious to him?
I’ve added functionality to programs as new releases came out. This isn’t how you do it. I’m still waiting for genuinely useful folder tree functions. To print a list of what’s in a folder was simple in DOS. To compare folder lists was do-able. Now I found a non-MS shareware program to do this, what should have been added to Windows long before XP or Vista.
Also releasing with major bugs, is just crazy making to the customer. They should be quickly fixed.