i'm trying to search my readme files for 'hair'

i can't find anything for an advanced search to say search within files.

the win7 help files say search assistant is gone.

Thanks

win7 searches in SOME types of documents automatically

when i put a search string in, it will pull up filenames that have nothing to do with the search string, but have a 'preview' of a snippet of text within the document that has that search string.

works for:

docx
rtf
hmt/html
etc

it also seems to do it for .txt files, but doesnt show the paragraph preview - the files just appear in the search.

AFAIK this is default windows 7 behavior, you may have disabled it somehow?

im using win7 ultimate x64

isnt there a deep search when you add the text in the right hand corner box in windows explorer, I'm sure that searches within readme files. 

^i should have mentioned that thats where im entering the search terms.

i don't see a deep search.  i have the home version.

the custom search shows me check boxes for folders.  it's not in the filters.   this is like the ms twilight zone

In the Start button there is a field wich says "Search program and files"

Fill in your search term and then click "See more results" and a new window will open with the term in its name or in their content.

Notepad++ has a "Find in Files" 

You might want to take a look at this search tool it is amazingly fast.

http://www.voidtools.com/

Not pathetic at all. I've found Win7 search very undependable, i.e., quite inferior to previous versions of Windows ... just my opinion I guess ...

mine is home premium so should be the same, open windows explorer and the field is shown in the pic

if after you search if you right click on the list of items its found you can sort into certain orders, ie date, type of file

May be fast, but it doesn't search file contents.

Quote - You might want to take a look at this search tool it is amazingly fast.

http://www.voidtools.com/

 

Quote - May be fast, but it doesn't search file contents.

That depends on your indexing options. If you have it at default, Windows Search searches the content of many different filetypes amongs others .txt

It even works across your own local network.; So if you have a share to another windows 7 machine, a query on your own machine onto that share will use the index of the other machine to get the result.

I find it very dependable and fast and use it all the time.

Head over to Ralf Sessler's site (Dimension3D of Morphing Clothes fame): he has a really good Windows search tool (for free).

Notepad++ is also free, and a really good text editor as well!  :)

@wimvdb, are you saying that "Everything" by Void Tools does search contents?  Can you explain how?  I use it all the time, but it has never done this.

Sorry, confusion in my part. Windows search does search content.

I have not experience with Void Tools, never had any need to use something different as the standard search in windows

Oh, OK, no probl, was thinking I was missing out on a cool feature.  Everything uses the Windows change record's to find/index, so it is lightning fast...but it finds files only, I believe.  Not really on topic for the question, but a good tool, nonetheless!

I tend to use this all the time and nearly always find it, other times its because ive not put the search term in right :blushing:

turns out the indexing was the problem.  i had to go to advanced properties for my readmes folder and changed the indexing setting to include content, then had to give win7 time to finish the indexing.

thank you everyone for the help    hugs{{

I learned a few things from this thread, so thank you for asking MLP.

Copernic desktop search - google it.

Yeah indexing is the key with Win7 and Server 2008 / R2...

It should search files with text type content by default... i.e. the non-binary Poser file formats etc?

Not sure about Win7, but certainly for server it's necessary... or was... to install additional content filters for MS Office docs:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17062

Or OCR'd tiffs...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd755985%28v=ws.10%29

...its also possible to write these using the Search service SDK, e.g. for .DWG:

http://www.ifiltershop.com/downloads/dwgfilter/readme.html

...and others:

http://www.ifiltershop.com

cheers