How to search inside files on Windows 7?

Question

In Windows XP we can search for files that contain a defined keyword (inside all files types).

Windows 7 can look inside files for a keyword, but only for text files. (*.doc, *.txt, *.inf, ...), not (*.conf, *.dat, *.*, ...).

Microsoft search filters don't contain any filter I can use for this.

How is this possible?

Answer 1

To get to the Indexing Options:

Start --> Control Panel --> Indexing Options

See Change advanced indexing options for more information.

If you click on the Advanced button in Indexing Options and go to the File Types tab, you will get a list of file types and the way they are indexed. For the file types you want, you can specify that you want the file contents indexed, and not just the file properties.

Or you can just do a normal search, and after the search is finished you can click on the "File Contents" button under the "Search again in" field (which is located after the end of the search results list, if you scroll to the bottom).

Based on this page, the "File Contents" option won't always show up - only when the folder being searched is not marked for file content indexing; in that case, file contents are supposedly searched automatically, without having to specify this option explicitly.

Answer 2

I've always gotten better performance when searching inside files by using a GREP tool. I'm a fan of AstroGrep.

Answer 3

I believe you can also just enter "content:blahblah" in the search filter box in upper right corner of Windows Explorer. This works at least for Text files and Office documents. It also works for source files.

Answer 4

You can play with findstr.

findstr /s /m searchstring *.*

Options description:

/S         Searches for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories.
/M         Prints only the filename if a file contains a match.

Answer 5

Notepad++ can do this and is free. Find in files is CTRL-SHIFT-F.

Answer 6

Agent Ransack is always worth a look. It's free, fast, good reputation, and doesn't use indexing.

Answer 7

In Windows Explorer, menu Tools -> Folder Options:

Press on the search tab and here, the first option: what to search, choose to search for non-indexed files inside the file.

Answer 8

Windows 7 still has the ability to search for strings inside files everywhere (and not in indexed locations).

In Windows Explorer, go to menu Tools/Folder options and select "Always search file names and contents".

Probably the file types still have to be set up correctly in Advanced Options of Indexing Options".

Answer 9

The answer by Sean Sexton gave me what I was looking for (putting "content:" in the search text box). But I think the following graphical explanation might be of help to others.

The equivalent of this search in XP Search Companion (dog):

is this in Windows 7:

Answer 10

In Windows XP you could add further (text) file types to be searched via the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dita\PersistentHandler]
@="{5e941d80-bf96-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}"

I'm not sure whether this works with Windows 7 as well.

Answer 11

Have you tried search the internet for the correct iFilter (for instance - http://www.ifilter.org/)?

If you have the right iFilter, Windows should be able to search and index its content.

Answer 12

You could try using Cygwin or grep version for Windows and searching *nix commands and search using the grep utility.

From Manual:

grep options pattern input_file_names

Using the Google gnuwin32 package, there is a grep version for Windows.

Answer 13

Windows 7 SP1 ignores content: and contents: for me now, and it looks like the mechanism has changed: Now you type in what you want, and as soon as the search starts, a row at the bottom shows up with "Search again in:" Libraries, Computer, Custom, Firefox, and most importantly, File Contents. Click that and it restarts the search within files, even if the folder is unindexed.