Windows 10 Search
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@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
If you're talking about a Windows search that is the generic search tool, that searches for applications, web apps etc etc, well, why would you use that to search for files in a specific directory. You wouldn't. You'd use File Explorer.
The idea behind the Windows interface has been, for a long time that you hit the Windows Key and start searching. If I need to open another app to look for things that I want in the menu, Windows has crashed and burned for me.
What? Are you talking about using the Search box on the taskbar? File Explorer is an "app" to manage files. That's the idea behind it. If you want to find a file in a specific directory, File Explorer is designed to do that.
Yes, I'm talking about the search functionality as it was sold to us when Windows 8 pushed for the "you should always be doing it this way" paradigm... which worked back then but now seems to do something totally different.
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@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
I never use it to search for files in a directory though.
Why not?
In XP (and prehaps even in 9x) the normal way to search for files was click on the Start Button, click search, then type in what you were searching for (which back then was solely files - and me personally was never an application).
Not only that, but Microsoft made a huge deal that this was how you were "supposed" to do things and that the graphical menu was just a kludge. Like it or not, it's Microsoft's promoted mechanism and process.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
I never use it to search for files in a directory though.
Why not?
In XP (and prehaps even in 9x) the normal way to search for files was click on the Start Button, click search, then type in what you were searching for (which back then was solely files - and me personally was never an application).
Not only that, but Microsoft made a huge deal that this was how you were "supposed" to do things and that the graphical menu was just a kludge. Like it or not, it's Microsoft's promoted mechanism and process.
I agree - the search box in the Star Bar (the Cortana Box) is how MS wants all searches down now. No matter what you are looking for, that is what they expect you, the normal user, to use. More advanced users can do whatever they like... but normals are expected to use Cortana.
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@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
I never use it to search for files in a directory though.
Why not?
In XP (and prehaps even in 9x) the normal way to search for files was click on the Start Button, click search, then type in what you were searching for (which back then was solely files - and me personally was never an application).
Not only that, but Microsoft made a huge deal that this was how you were "supposed" to do things and that the graphical menu was just a kludge. Like it or not, it's Microsoft's promoted mechanism and process.
I agree - the search box in the Star Bar (the Cortana Box) is how MS wants all searches down now. No matter what you are looking for, that is what they expect you, the normal user, to use. More advanced users can do whatever they like... but normals are expected to use Cortana.
I'm so glad that most Linux desktops retain the full working "Windows interface" even if Windows has broken it
My Ubuntu desktop works exactly as Microsoft said it should. -
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
which worked back then but now seems to do something totally different.
Different how? If you don't want web results, you can turn that off permanently in settings. And I turn it off, because why would you ever want to use Bing for anything?
If you only want to search for files, you can click the File icon at the top. I'm not sure how that is different from the file search in previous Windows versions?
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Huh, @scottalanmiller and @Dashrender's experiences are completely different from mine. Windows search, for me, works at least 90% of the time maybe more. I've become so used to the vastly improved search in Windows 8 and 10 that going back to a Windows 7 machine is painful and slow.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
which worked back then but now seems to do something totally different.
Different how? If you don't want web results, you can turn that off permanently in settings. And I turn it off, because why would you ever want to use Bing for anything?
If you only want to search for files, you can click the File icon at the top. I'm not sure how that is different from the file search in previous Windows versions?
Well it used to, by default, do one thing that MS promoted hard. Now it does something else (and that thing is nearly useless) but nothing useful came along to replace it from what I can tell.
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@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Huh, @scottalanmiller and @Dashrender's experiences are completely different from mine. Windows search, for me, works at least 90% of the time maybe more. I've become so used to the vastly improved search in Windows 8 and 10 that going back to a Windows 7 machine is painful and slow.
Weird, what issues did you have with search on 7? For, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 always found installed applications. But Windows 10 consistently does not.
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Even finding apps has been painful. Both before and after 1607, Typing Internet into Cortana should yield Internet Explorer at the top of the list, until the last cumulative update, I would only get Internet Explorer in the list about 70% of the time.
Users who would unpin the shortcut from their task bar would be frustrated at not being able to find it since MS removed it from the Start Menu as well.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Huh, @scottalanmiller and @Dashrender's experiences are completely different from mine. Windows search, for me, works at least 90% of the time maybe more. I've become so used to the vastly improved search in Windows 8 and 10 that going back to a Windows 7 machine is painful and slow.
Weird, what issues did you have with search on 7? For, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 always found installed applications. But Windows 10 consistently does not.
Windows 7 search worked but it was always slow, especially compared to Windows 10. I have no issues finding installed Apps in Windows 10 via the Win+search function.
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@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Huh, @scottalanmiller and @Dashrender's experiences are completely different from mine. Windows search, for me, works at least 90% of the time maybe more. I've become so used to the vastly improved search in Windows 8 and 10 that going back to a Windows 7 machine is painful and slow.
Weird, what issues did you have with search on 7? For, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 always found installed applications. But Windows 10 consistently does not.
Windows 7 search worked but it was always slow, especially compared to Windows 10. I have no issues finding installed Apps in Windows 10 via the Win+search function.
I'll take "always works" over "fast but useless results" every single time
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If I wanted useless results I'd skip the search altogether and just ask the cat.
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@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Even finding apps has been painful. Both before and after 1607, Typing Internet into Cortana should yield Internet Explorer at the top of the list, until the last cumulative update, I would only get Internet Explorer in the list about 70% of the time.
Users who would unpin the shortcut from their task bar would be frustrated at not being able to find it since MS removed it from the Start Menu as well.
Not my, or my users experience at all. Odd. Not saying you're wrong just interesting that we would have different experiences with this system.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@coliver said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Huh, @scottalanmiller and @Dashrender's experiences are completely different from mine. Windows search, for me, works at least 90% of the time maybe more. I've become so used to the vastly improved search in Windows 8 and 10 that going back to a Windows 7 machine is painful and slow.
Weird, what issues did you have with search on 7? For, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 always found installed applications. But Windows 10 consistently does not.
Windows 7 search worked but it was always slow, especially compared to Windows 10. I have no issues finding installed Apps in Windows 10 via the Win+search function.
I'll take "always works" over "fast but useless results" every single time
Again, Windows 10 "always works" for me. So it's win/win in every instance for me.
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Works fine for me to. But this thread was originally about finding files, not applications. But finding files with Windows 10 Search seems to work fine for me too.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Works fine for me to. But this thread was originally about finding files, not applications. But finding files with Windows 10 Search seems to work fine for me too.
I'll fork it later on, this is a fine discussion, but not at all related to the topic.
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Do you have problems finding files with Windows search?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Do you have problems finding files with Windows search?
yes. As stated above, Windows Cortana search will often not give me the files I'm looking for. Granted I'm normally searching a network drive, not my local computer.
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@Dashrender said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
Windows search has sucked since Windows Vista. I wonder if using this would just be better, though more challenging for users?
Are you kidding? I WISH searching was as good before as it is now in Windows 10.
I keep a lot of my stuff in txt files for reference later. Lets say I forget how to use the command Get-NetAdapter or disabling VMQ command... I'll hit my windows key on my keyboard, and just type Get-Netadapter or VMQ, then click the little "document" icon at the top, and it searches documents and within the documents themselves. I don't' have any documents with that in the title, but it's in the content, and brings them right up so fast.
The above is just one example, but in general it's insanely better now. I'm not just saying that, that has actually been my experience over all. Maybe you keep things in weird places on your PC so when you search, it isn't looking there... search scope issues. Or maybe you aren't searching so it searches within files. I don't know, but my experience has been different.
On network drives, if on your file server you have the new search indexing features enabled (forget what it's called off the top of my head), it searches fast on those too. Very noticeably faster than on legacy file servers and those that don't support it.
Also, on Win10... you can turn off Bing searching. I have it all done via Group Policy and am not bothered with online searching at all. But even on my home PC, if I search for something on my computer, it does find it if I tell it where to look.
Try this...
- Hit the windows key on your keyboard
- Type: "documents: <keyword>"
Does that make a difference?
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
@Carnival-Boy said in Windows: Finding Files with PowerShell:
I've no idea what you're talking about. I've never had an issue with the search in the standard File Explorer. It's always returned exactly what I'm looking for, and I haven't noticed it changing much over the years. I've never had it do a web search.
I'd say for me it fails around 50% of the time. I type in the name of the application I need to run and instead of finding it, it populated Bing information when clearly I can see the thing that I need to run right there on the desktop with the right name!
Then I have to ask, why do you still have that turned on?
