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Fix the broken search feature in Windows XP & 2003

by Steve Wiseman on April 11, 2006 · 3 comments

in Windows


.

Quietly, Microsoft changed the way its search feature within windows works. In windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000 you could search for text within any file on the system. Without notice XP, and 2003 now only search ‘registered’ file types. There are only a handful of these types.

Microsoft does not make it clear they are only searching certain file extensions. It can really throw you off the track when you are looking for a certain string within a file.

For example. If I was looking for the string ‘purchase’ within all files that matched *.* windows would skip all file extensions that it does not recognize.

A simple registry change can be made to bring XP, and 2003 search back the way it was:

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:

SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions

Set the above value to 1

It will treat unknown extensions as text files. After a reboot the change will take effect.

Now when you search for a string within the files that match the wildcard of *.* it will actually search all files it finds – Imagine that!

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 chris cormier December 7, 2010 at 2:31 pm

I very much miss the features that were available in the early 2000s. It was almost getting logical and usable, the way you could search files without having Microsoft’s “bright ideas” getting in the way. Now I have to use 3rd party tools to do what the operating system used to provide.

2 Jennfier Cerequas April 1, 2011 at 4:33 pm

Thanks so much for the tip on getting Windows 2003 to search all files.

I am programming in PHP and it wasn’t searching my .php files.

But your tip did the trick.
Thanks!

3 erne z February 16, 2012 at 6:39 pm

Hello
Did not work for me 🙁

SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions
“FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions”
set value to 1

tnx tho…

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