Search has become an integral part of Windows, particularly in later versions. While the major search improvements began with Windows Vista and were backported to Windows XP, it's really only with Windows 7 that the larger majority of users are discovering the search bar all over in the operating system. Search is built into every aspect of Windows 7 to help users cope with the increasingly rapidly growing number of files, be they work documents and e-mails, personal photos and videos, or music collections.

Many users perform searches without thinking nowadays: it's an ingrained habit of using the operating system. Like many habits, this one is worth breaking in order to to develop an even better one. Here we take a quick look at a few basic search techniques and a few more advanced ones. Force yourself to use them and you'll soon become a master of Windows Search. A bit of extra time now will save you loads of effort in the long run.

Basic Search Tools

There are five main places you can perform a search in the latest versions of Windows: the search box in any Windows Explorer window (to bring up just search, use Windows Key + F), the search box at the bottom of the Start menu, the search box in the Control Panel, a common file dialog box, and in Windows-only applications. The first one is the broadest: it includes the entire search index and excludes all non-indexed locations (it's the same as entering a term in the search box on the Start menu and then clicking the See More Results link). The remaining ones are slightly more particular, in that they are tailored to their specific areas of Windows. Windows Search works in a contextual way depending on where you're searching from. For instance, search in the Start Menu will prioritize Start Menu items and programs, search in Windows Explorer will prioritize personal documents, and search in Internet Explorer will prioritize Favorites and History.

There are three rules to remember about searching in Windows, all of which you probably have learned over time from previous versions of the operating system or while using search engines on the Web. First, search terms are not case-sensitive and they return results related to the beginning of the word (searching for Emi will give you results will results related to Emil and Emily as well as emit and emigrate). To search for an exact phrase, use quotation marks ("Emil Protalinski" will give back files that contain my first and last name together, while Emil Protalinski will give me those results along with those that contain just Emil or just Protalinski). Last but not least, searches ignore diacritics such as accents and umlauts by default. To turn this feature off, open up Indexing Options (search for it in the Start menu or the Control Panel), click on Advanced, and under File Settings check off "Treat similar words with diacritics as different words."

A basic query typically begins with a few characters typed into a search box. The list of search results includes any item in the location you searched for, and you can then narrow the search by using additional parameters. These can be used in any search box you find in Windows: it's incorrect to assume that the only search filters you can use are the ones suggested for that folder type (in fact, Windows Explorer will turn the text to blue when you enter a recognized parameter followed by a colon). These additional filters are explained further in the next section.

Advanced Query Syntax

Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) is the official set of rules that Windows Search follows when interpreting what you type in the search box. In addition to keywords, AQS supports three main types of search parameters: file properties (size, date, tags, and so on), kinds of items (folders, documents, music, images, videos, e-mails, and so on), as well as data stores (databases and locations containing indexed items). Each of these parameter names is followed by a colon (loose), or a colon and equals sign (strict), and then a value for that operator that the user wants to specify. Below are some of the most common forms of AQS. We use the loose method in all of our examples as it brings up more results and is typically the more popular choice.

File properties

You can always further narrow down your search if you know a certain property of a file. When looking for a file at first, you may not think you know much about it, but after you read the list below you'll realize that you actually know a lot more than you'd think. Here are a few properties that certain types of files can have. We will look at some more closely a bit later.