Hard to believe it has come to this but Windows GUI searcher interfaces miss files frequently. I noticed this so many times that now I do command line searching...kind of sounds like a giant step backward? Now I'm confident of never missing any files. Windows command line searching is very good in these cases:
a. you really need to find a keyword inside a file because you're troubleshooting, debugging
b. you're coding and must locate a term inside a source file (.java, .vb, etc.)
To prove this point.... here is a case (Fig. 1) in which the search criteria included a search location of "hard drive and all directories and subdirectories". Files were not found even though there were two copies of the file present: one deep within an Eclipse directory and a copy on the desktop. Fig. 2 shows the results... the target files clearly contained the search term and is of type .java but files weren't found. Computer OS: XP Professional, Version 2002, SP 2.
One Solution:
How does command line search work? Let's take a simple case - you just want to locate a file. Use the "dir" command with the "/s" switch.
For example...command below searches in all subdirectories, beginning from current directory. So, if you're at the "root" of the "c" drive it will search for all documents containing SAX in the name for file type of ".java". Pretty straightforward and covered years ago.
dir /s *SAX*.java
What if you want to search for a string inside a file? Also very easy, using the venerable "findstr" command. The variation below uses switch "/s" to search inside subdirectories, plus uses the "/m" switch to only show file names. If you don't use the "/m" switch it will show text of result file and location of the string in that file (which could be useful but I don't want in this particular search). See here for lots of details.
findstr /s /m "SAXBuilder" *.java
Results from this search found about 40 .java source files including the 2 target files I was looking for.
This technique also works well for locating a string inside a log file (text file, MS Word, etc.) or similar task. There may be a logical reason why Windows GUI search for OS cited above doesn't work properly. Personally, I don't really care because command line searching is not only totally reliable but is as fast, if not faster and one doesn't have all the annoying dogs to "help" you search! In addition, in Vista OS you have a different search GUI. If you use command line search you will always find targets regardless of Windows OS.
Two items worth knowing: 1) usually you will not want to search all file types at the "c" root level because findstr command will attempt to open files that cannot be opened like Windows systems files; an error will be thrown plus the process may be really slowed down by attempting to open certain systems files. Secondly, if you decide to abort a search (dir or findstr) at the command line, press Ctrl C twice.
Figure 1. Search criteria through GUI:
Figure 2. Results of search
