Windows 10: How do I do a Windows file search by file contents with an asterisk wildcard in the first...

Dear "Support", I have the same question as it already was discussed in 2023 - but there with no real solution.I have 4 files in a directory:1 Steuerbescheinigungen_2023_name1.pdf2 Anfrage_Steuer_Kauf_Einstand.pdf3 Jahressteuerbescheinigung_20240306.pdf4 Jahressteuerbescheinigung_20240307.pdfSo the string "steuer" is in every of the 4 filenames. In the first 2 with a capital "S" and in the other files somewhere in the middle as part of a word.When I now search for *steuer* in Windows Explorer, only the files 1 and 2 are found. When I search for "Jahressteuer", then the files 3 and 4 are fo

:)

 

How do I do a Windows file search by file contents with an asterisk (wildcard) in the first character?

Hello,

I am struggling to use wildcards for searching for files in Windows by content, in the specific case where the wildcard replaces the first character. So, for example, if I am searching for files with the word foobar in them then:

• Searching for foobar will find them.
  
• Searching for foob*r will find them.
  
• Searching for fooba* will find them.
  
• Searching for *foobar will find them.
  
• Searching for *oobar with not find them.
  

Wrapping the word is quotation marks, or using the prefix content: does not appear to change this behaviour.

Can anyone explain to me why this is? How would I then search for all documents containing the word: foobar, noobar or oobar? I assume this behaviour is replicable on other PCs, but to be clear, I have only tried it on mine (Windows 10) for now.

Many thanks in advance for any insights offered!

Best,

Eddie

 

How do I do a Windows file search by file contents with an asterisk (wildcard) in the first character?

Hi Hanem,

Thank you very much for the fast reply. The hyperlink you provided to the page "Examples of wildcard characters" was very interesting. However, unfortunately it didn't solve my problem.

In the following zip file I have created 4 Microsoft Word documents. Each document contains one of the following 4 words:

1. foobar
   
2. noobar
   
3. oobar
   
4. barfoo
   

OneDrive

If I extract the files into a folder, and run a search for ?oobar, or *oobar, then based on my understanding of how wildcard characters work, I would expect to see 1, 2 and 3 served up as results. But this is not what happens. I can replicate this on other PCs. Do you know why this doesn't work?

Best,

Eddie

 

Wildcard File Search Broken

There is
another thread on this subject, but it is locked.

Some of the information in the above thread is correct, but some is not and the bottom line is that file search is both broken and sorely undocumented.

The most notable problem is that in some circumstances, wildcard searches for filenames will not show any results when the last letter of the extension is typed... for example;

*.pd finds all files where the extension _begins_ with "pd" such as "myfile.pdf"

but

*.pdf returns zero results even if there are hundreds of files with the extension ".pdf"

The problem get's serious when searching for something like python scripts... i.e. "myfile.py" since searching for "myfile.p" using "*.p" will find every file who's extension begins with ".p" but using "*.py" will not find any files that have the extension
".py"

The scenario gets complicated and confusing using qualifiers such as "name:" in order to return only filename and not file content results.

Other options suggested options such as adding ~" to a wildcard string return mixed results and, as far as I can determine these qualifiers are totally undocumented.

Discussion and options requested.

Thanks in advance,

Beverly Howard