17

It seems that Windows Search is having trouble when I specify a question mark character as the content that I'm searching for within my files.

I've tried:

  • content:?
  • content:"?"
  • content:"\?"
  • content:\?
  • content:%3f
  • content:"%3f"
  • content:\3f
  • content:"\3f"
  • content:\00\00\00\3F

but each of these yield no results when I do indeed have files that contain ? within the scope of the search. If I instead search for something like content:happy it will indeed find all files with the phrase "happy" within those same files.

My assumption is that Windows Search is treating some characters such as the question mark as a special character likely for the purpose of wild card expressions. To test this theory I've also searched for files containing an asterisk * and indeed I have the same issue as when searching for content of question mark. What I'm wondering is whether there is any way to get a search to work where I can search for a literal expression without any type of wildcard matching or at least a way to escape the special characters within the expression.

By the way I'm using Windows 7 Enterprise.

Zain Patel
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jpierson
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8 Answers8

13

Try ~=? where ? is the character you are searching for.

Monkerdermatologist
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7

It looks like Microsoft has removed the ability to search just for special characters. In order to search with special characters there must also be a word included with it (Example: Who?). Again, there must be a word, not just a wildcard, with the special character. That is because Windows Search ignores the special characters with the exception of the wildcards?. Per this indows Search Tips and Tricks page, the only wildcards that available within Windows Search are asterisk and question mark. However, it seems that the only one that works is the asterisk. Even when trying its example, s?n, found on the same page page.

Here is quote from a post on Vista64's Forums: (Source)

Actually, the problem is a little different. Search is now word-based, not character based. Brackets are considered punctuation by Search, not wild cards. To get meaningful results, queries that contain punctuation must also contain words, a phrase, or a wild card. For example, If I search on this:[*] or this: {*} I get a bunch of files that have a phrase in their file name within brackets, just as I would expect. So give that a try.

SgtOJ
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5

In Windows 7 I had a similar problem only I was trying to search for keywords surrounded by square brackets ("[" was also ignored similar to "?", "(", "]", etc.) within the filename. What worked for me is the following:

filename:"*[Cumbia]*" OR filename:"*[Reggae]*"

This would find all my songs which I tagged with the text string [Cumbia] or [Reggae] within the filenames. What I would then do is select all the files and then right click on the selection to invoke the Sendto feature to send all the songs to my music player program (Winamp in this case).

soandos
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Scott Cedars
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3

Try content: ~="?" or extension: ~="?" or whatever special character you are looking for in the quotations, etc.

James Mertz
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Chris Lottes
  • 31
2

I do not use Windows Search, but I wonder if it supports escape characters as described in this Microsoft article :

Using the search Protocol

If it does, you might try using %3f for the question mark.

harrymc
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2

Just use powershell to search file contents:

Get-ChildItem -recurse | Select-String -pattern "dummy" | group path | select name

user2257658
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0

I struggled with finding the "?" character in long lists of filenames. Windows 7 Search is a horrible product I don't usually use for numerous reasons but I could not get content: or any of the other suggestions to work either. Then I thought of this, problem solved in one minute flat...

Open a normal or elevated command prompt and navigate to the directory in question. Use the following DOS command to create a text file of the directory contents:

dir > files.txt

This will create a text file called files.txt with the directory listing. If you want to list all subdirectories use dir/s > files.txt. If you do this from the root it will list all files on your HD in one big text file.

Now, open the text file in an editor, I used Notepad. Search for the character in question, in this case "?". Now you can find the names of the offending files.

If there are a lot of files there has to be an easy way to automate this process although I am not thinking of it at the moment.

Finally I used 7-Zip freeware to rename the files. There has to be an automated way to do this too but I haven't found it yet. I have tried some freeware file managers but none so far let you search for "?" in filenames. At least that way they would all be in a list for easier renaming.

Hal
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-1

I've only found a few resources on the search syntax so I'll begin to list them here in hopes of finding one that may provide a solution or at least a workaround for my problem.

Windows Search: Tips and Tricks

Windows Search: Advanced Search Options

jpierson
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