Vista Indexing and Search  

 

The following steps are some ideas for how to change what folders are included with Indexing and to use the Search Functions.

1. When you search for files, the default setting for Vista is to search only in the User’s Documents folder. To add to the locations that will then be included in Vista’s Indexing and Searching
2. Open the Control Panel
3. Go to System and Maintenance
4. Go to Indexing Options
5. Click on the Modify button
6. Click on the Show all locations button
6. Click on the Show all locations button
7. Click Continue if prompted
8. Check the Drives or Folders in Drives that you want to include
9. The follow shows the addition of the entire C: drive and just the Data directory from the D: drive
10. Now those additions will be included in the locations where Vista will index files.

Using the Search

1. From the Start Menu, click on Search
2 Type in the word for either the File Name or Contents of a file. Both will now be included in the search.
3. In the following example, there is a text file called mickey mouse.txt on the D: drive with the word “wonderdog” in the contents.
4. The search was just for the word wonderdog
5. Vista immediately showed the correct file and location
6. You can also click on Advanced Search
7. This will let you refine your search to specify the Location, Date, Size and whether you want to search for non-indexed, hidden and system files.

 


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