Related link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20214
From the Reg:
“To actually use Indexing Services as it was originally intended, you need to utter a few magic words, which Microsoft has chosen to keep secret from the common user.
First, turn on Indexing Service, and leave it alone for a few hours so it can index all your drives. Then open the Windows file search box as you would normally.- for example, by choosing it on the Start menu.
Here’s where the magic starts. First of all, type only in the space labelled ‘A word or phrase in the file’ (or in Windows 2000, ‘Containing Text’).
Now, to find a word inside a file, simply preface it with ‘!’. And, to find a filename, preface it with ‘@filename’.”
It’s invisible - arg! I can’t believe I never knew this. I’ve even written ADO queries against the Indexing Service, so at one time I knew the query syntax … but somehow it never occurred to me that it made no sense for ’search’ to bypass the index and scan the filesystem every time I used it.
Of course, this search engine isn’t quite the same as the new MSN tool — it doesn’t have the filter for Outlook mail, for example. But for all the machines (real and virtual) I use where installing the MSN (or Google) desktop search is not an option, this will be a huge time saver.
Is there any other ‘hidden’ search queries you find especially helpful?
