Searching for Files and Folders
Even if you organize your files and folders logically, sooner or later you'll need to find somethingnewly installed software, a download, or a file whose location you forgot, for example. Often, you'll also want to find all files that meet certain criteriaall or part of a filename, approximate size, modification date, type, and so on.
Search Companion
Windows' built-in Search Companion can find printers, people, and other computers on your network. In this section, I describe how to find files and folders.To open Search Companion: On the desktop, choose Start > Search, press F3, or press Windows logo key+F (Figure 5.45 ).
Figure 5.45. The Search Companion occupies the left pane of Windows Explorer, where it replaces the taskbar or Folders bar when visible.

Tips

1. In Search Companion, click All Files and Folders (Figure 5.46 ).
Figure 5.46. The initial Search Companion screen offers specialized searches for digital media (MP3s, JPEGs, WMAs, and so on) or documents (no folders and no program, hidden, help, or system files). Each search entails its own default settings and screens. All Files and Folders is the broadest, most versatile search.

Figure 5.47. Each option that you specify narrows the search.

Figure 5.48. You can specify a range of dates when the file was modified, search for files of a specified size, or choose among advanced options. Subfolders and system folders (but not hidden folders) are searched by default.

Figure 5.49. The Search Results list contains files and folders that match the criteria. If Search Companion returns the wrong matches (or no matches or too many matches), use the Refine This Search links to try again with more or less restrictive criteria. (Refine This Search does the
entire search again; it doesn't look in only the current results.)[View full size image]

Tips

Indexing
As described in step 2 of "To search for a file or folder," Search Companion lets you search for text inside files whose contents you remember but whose names you forget. Fortunately, Windows' indexing service accelerates exhaustive string searches (typically by orders of magnitude). Indexing Service, turned off by default, silently and automatically collects information from the documents on your hard drive and compiles a database, or catalog, of file contents. The tradeoff for slashing search time is that Windows must maintain a catalog file that's about 25 percent of the size of the indexed files.To turn on Indexing Service:
- Open Search Companion; then choose Change Preferences > With Indexing Service (for Faster Local Searches), click Yes, Enable Indexing Service, and then click OK (Figure 5.50 ).
Figure 5.50. Indexing Service updates and maintains its indexes automatically, without your intervention. If the service is busy updating itself, Search Companion performs an ordinary, unindexed search. Updates take lots of time and power but occur only when your PC has been idle for a while. (The initial index may take a few hours.)
Tips

1. Choose Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Services and Applications > Indexing Service.or 1. Choose Start > Run; type ciadv.msc and then press Enter.A list of catalogs appears, showing information such as catalog size in megabytes. Each catalog is a different index; most of the time the list contains only one catalog.2. Right-click the catalog to delete, choose Delete, and then click Yes in the confirmation message.
Other search tools
Exploring Your Computer" earlier in this chapter all have enhanced search features. Some dedicated index-based file finders are blinkx (free; www.blinkx.com), X1 Search ($75 U.S.; www.x1.com), and dtSearch Desktop ($199; www.dtsearch.com).Google Desktop Search (free; http://desktop.google.com) uses Google's internet search technology to provide a full text search over your email, Office documents, chats, text files, and the web pages that you've viewed. After downloading GDS, you can use Google to search your personal items the way you search the internet (Figure 5.51 ). Microsoft's competing tool, MSN Toolbar Suite (free; http://toolbar.msn.com), places individual search boxes within Outlook, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and the taskbar. Yahoo! offers a free desktop search tool at http://desktop.yahoo.com.
Figure 5.51. Google Desktop Search stores the index that it creates on your own computer.

Google Desktop Search Risks
Google Desktop Search doesn't make your home computer's content accessible to Google or anyone else, but if you use a public, workplace, or other shared computer for email, instant messaging, or web searches, the people who follow you on the PC can see your information (such as online purchases) in the files that GDS indexed. A multicolored swirl (
