With the search in Windows 7 and Windows 10 you can search not only the names of the files, but also the contents of the same . However, this is only possible for indexed files, while for others it will be possible to search only the name. To optimize the Windows search function and to avoid indexing files too heavily on resources, you need to specify which folders should be indexed. In fact, the file index in Windows is a useful service if configured correctly, but it causes system slowdowns if you decide to index too many files.
The configuration of the file search in Windows is done from the utility in the Control Panel where the Indexing Options are located. By default, the index includes the users folder, excluding the Appdata subfolder, the start menu and all offline files. This is quite logical because the User folder is the one with all the documents, images, photos, music and files that you generally want to find on your computer. However, you can include new folders in the index by pressing the Edit button.
READ ALSO: Customize the File Search in Windows 10 on the whole PC
The important thing to know is that the index can be configured for file types .
By clicking on Advanced and then on File types, you will find an alphabetical list of all known file formats and their indexing status. By clicking on the various file extensions you can see, below, which option is active between: index only properties and index properties and content that tells Windows to also search within files of that type. It therefore becomes easy to search for which Word document contains a word or phrase if the doc and docx files are configured to index the content. You may also notice that Windows is also capable of searching for the contents of compressed files such as Zip archive.
As mentioned above, it is absolutely not convenient to add too many folders to the index otherwise the Windows service that governs the search will consume too many resources, slowing down overall performance. However, if you want to search for certain content in files that are not indexed, you can include that folder in the index. Open the folder, click on Organize> Folder and search options, go to the Search tab and mark the option " always search for file names and contents ". It is also possible to include compressed files in the search in the non-indexed paths they are searched for.
If you do not like this search mode included in Windows, you can disable the indexing service.
Then go to the Start Menu, type in the search box services.msc and press Enter. Find the Windows Search service, double click and disable it.
You will then be able to use a very powerful, lightweight alternative program, which is used to search within files and documents in Windows .
Agent Ransack is clearly the best in the category for its system compatibility, the list of features and the fact that it is free. With Agent Ransack you can search the entire disk for a text or some words and know which file it is in. It features an incredibly simple to use interface, full of options, to know exactly which line the search term appears in a file (and how many times).
Other good programs to search for words and text within a group of documents and files are:
- SearchMyFiles, perhaps the simplest and most updated of these programs, free and light, which allows you to search for a word in different Word or Powerpoint documents, even placed in different folders, without having to open them.
- inFile Seeker which works on txt, php, html, xml, js, css, asp and others files.
- Ultrasearch supports regular expressions and can include / exclude certain types of files from search results.
As external programs for doing normal searches, in other articles we have also seen Everything, the best program for searching files quickly on Windows .
