The Name & Location Tab

• Click on the New Search button. This clears any past searches.
• Click in the field called Named and type the name of the file you want to find. We will look for our Windows Explorer file again, so type explorer.
• The field called Look In lets you specify where to start looking for this file. If the file were stored on a floppy disk, we would want this field to show 31/2 Floppy A. We want to search all of the hard disk, so the field should show disk C.
• Click on the black down arrow next to the field.
• Click on the name of your hard disk (for example, Boot Disk (C)). This will appear in the Look In field.

The Browse button is for when you want to start looking in a specific folder. Click on the button to show the screen below.

Open and close the disks (using the plus and minus signs as you do in Windows Explorer) until the folder you want to start looking in is displayed. Click on the folder once (to select it) and then on OK. The name of the folder will appear in the Look In field.

• Click on the C drive and then on OK.
• The Include Subfolders option should be on when you want to look at all the folders that are inside other folders for your files. Click in the box next to it to select it (a tick will appear).
• To deselect this option, click in the box that is ticked. The tick will disappear and the option will not be selected.
• We want to select this option, so make sure there is a tick next to it (if not click in the box)

The Options menu allows you to make your search case sensitive, i.e. all capital and lower case letters in the file name must be exactly the same as the capital and lower case letters in the name of the file you are looking for. Unless you know exactly how you spelt the file name with capital and lower case letters, it is best to leave this option deselected.

• We will make sure the case sensitive option is not selected. Click on the Options menu and look at the Case Sensitive option. There should not be a tick next to it.
• If there is a tick next to this option, click on the option. The menu will vanish. When you look at the menu again, there will be no tick against the Case Sensitive option.
• If there is no tick against the option, click anywhere on the desktop to close the menu without selecting the option.

The search is now set up to run.

• Click on the Find Now button to run the search. The computer will search through all the files on the hard disk. A list of files called explorer will appear at the bottom of the search window, as shown below.

You can change the way these files appear by using the View menu, exactly as you did in My Computer and in Windows Explorer.

• Select View/Details. This lets you see where the file is stored on your computer. The location is given in the In Foldercolumn. You can widen this column the same way as you widen any column in Details view (click on the dividing line and drag).

You can now open one of the files by double clicking on it, or use the location path to find it in My Computer or Windows Explorer.

• Clear the search by clicking on the New Search button.

In the field for Containing text, type the word Microsoft.

• Click on Find Now. All files containing the word 'Microsoft" will be found and displayed in the bottom window.
  

• The text in these files will contain the word "Microsoft" somewhere. Open a couple of the files and see if you can find this text. Return to the Find window.

Searching By Name

There are a few things to be aware of when you are searching for a file by name.

• If your file name has a space in it, the file name must be encloses in inverted commas. Typing in "Jenny's letter.doc" will find all document files called Jenny's letter. Typing in Jenny's letter without the inverted commas around the words will find all files with letter in their name and all files with Jenny's in their name i.e. it will find Anna's letter, Jenny's budget, Mum's letter etc.
• Perform a search on Carved Stone and see the results. Clear the search and compare it to the results of a search on "Carved Stone.bmp".
• If you can't remember the exact name of a file, you can use special symbols called wildcards to fill out the bits you don't remember. The wildcard symbols are * and ?.
• * replaces any number of letters. A search for files called R* will find all files starting with R. A search for files named *.exe will find all your executable (program) files.
• Search for all the bitmap files on your computer by finding files called *.bmp.
• ? replaces any single letter. A search for files called ?all will find all file names with one letter before the ending all - e.g. Tall, Ball, Fall, Call, but not Small as the ? replaces one letter only.
• Perform a search for all files called *.do? to find all the Word documents, templates, wizards etc.