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  #1  
Old December 8th, 2020, 08:52 PM
rjh213 rjh213 is offline
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Windows 10 Search

I have an external drive connected to my Windows 10 PC and I want to do a search for any files with specific characters in the name. Not search for contents in the files but search for file names.

This used to be so easy in older versions. I would do a Windows key F or S (I don't remember if it was S for search or F for find) and then enter either the exact name or part of the name with an asterisk as a wild character. There were filters that could be used such as size, date, etc. And for a 2 TB external drive, yes, sometimes it took awhile. But it did the job completely. (A little dog would wag its tail while searching.)

I'm trying to find the Windows 10 option to do this search. I can't get anything to work. It takes a split second to say "No items match your search" even though I did a test case and knew the file name was there. It's a 2 TB drive. No way it's searching that so quickly. As a test I did a search on a file I knew was there and it still came back with "No items".

Anyone have any ideas? I can't believe there's no such thing as a simple search in Windows 10.
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  #2  
Old December 8th, 2020, 09:11 PM
rjh213 rjh213 is offline
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Well, I would still like an answer if anyone has one, but I just did a work around. I was looking for files on a 2 TB hard drive. I fired up my old Windows XP (which I don't use anymore for other reasons), I connected the hard drive, did a search on a partial name for a vacation folder of pictures I was looking for, and found it in less than a minute. I would think any Windows software support people would be embarrassed by that.
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  #3  
Old December 9th, 2020, 12:11 AM
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renegade600 renegade600 is offline
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not sure exactly what you are doing and your post is a bit confusing but if I got it right, you should be able to do a search using partial file names. you may need to put the wildcard on both sides of the partial name you are search for in win10, for example *fil*

also did you index your external drive? Indexing will help speed up searches.
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Old December 9th, 2020, 03:51 AM
rjh213 rjh213 is offline
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Windows 10 Search

I will try and explain my problem again.

On Windows 10:

I bring up File Explorer.

In the very first column, I click on my external drive, so now near the top of the File Explorer window, on the left, it shows:

This PC > Pictures Backup (F: )

and on the far right there is a box that shows:

Search Pictures Backup

In that search box I put Europe, click the right arrow to start a search, and I get a message that says:

“No items match your search”.

I get that with Europe, Europe*, or *Europe*.

On Windows XP:

I click Start - Search

On the lower left I click “Click here to start search companion”. I select

“Pictures, music or video” and enter

Europe

Then I click on advanced features and select the external drive, click search, and it finds multiple files with the word Europe in the title, which is what I was looking for.

For example, it found a folder called "2007 Vacation Europe".

On a side note, I received a message on XP that the drive was not indexed, but that didn’t stop it from doing what I asked it to do, which was search the drive for files. I’ve never had to index a drive. I don’t know how to do it.
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  #5  
Old December 9th, 2020, 04:56 PM
Digerati Digerati is offline
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I am not sure the problem. I just played around with Search and didn't have problem finding files in File Explorer or via the command prompt.

As for Indexing, unless disabled, Indexing is done automatically. And all Indexing really does is make searches faster. Indexing is not a requirement to find anything.

Have you tried different external drives or maybe try that external drive on another computer?
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  #6  
Old December 9th, 2020, 07:49 PM
rjh213 rjh213 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Digerati View Post
I am not sure the problem. I just played around with Search and didn't have problem finding files in File Explorer or via the command prompt.

As for Indexing, unless disabled, Indexing is done automatically. And all Indexing really does is make searches faster. Indexing is not a requirement to find anything.

Have you tried different external drives or maybe try that external drive on another computer?
Good idea to look at another external drive. I tried it and the search worked as expected. It still fails with the first drive I used. The only difference I can see is that the one drive having the problem has a longer name. The one working is labeled My Book 1 TB A (G: ) and the one that fails is My Book 1 TB C Pictures Backup (F: ). The one that fails on Windows 10 doesn't have the problem on my XP PC.

I tried changing the longer name to My Book 1 TB C but it still failed. Must be something unique to that drive. Curiously, both are Western Digital drives. In File Explorer there is a little WD logo before the name for the drive that can be searched but the drive that fails just has a generic disc icon. May not mean anything.

At any rate, I got the info I wanted, and I have done searches successfully with other drives so I guess I hit a fluke thing based on my external drive.

Thanks to all for your input.
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