Search Windows files using command prompt

Searching files on Windows using the command prompt.

Searching at command prompt is much faster rather than using the Graphical User Interface or the GUI.

To invoke searching using the GUI follow steps below:

Press Windows Key + D (press together) to minimize all open windows.

And Pressing F3 will invoke the windows search window.

Using this GUI  method you will be able to search files on your computer.

Using command prompt will speed up searching for files.

Press Windows Key + R (press together) will invoke the Run Window type "cmd" (don't include the quotes) on the run window.

Click on "OK" or press "enter" on the keyboard.

Command prompt window will open.

Default settings will be c:\users\username (for Windows 7); for Windows XP will be c:\Documents and Settings\username\

Type "cd\" (don't include quotes), you will be redirected to the c:\ directory.

Now we can search the whole c: directory, for example if you want to check all your document files on your c drive.

You can type:  dir *.doc* /s /w

* - is a wildcard character

This command will be interpreted as, search for any file name with ".doc" or ".docx" in the file name extension.

/s  means search in all directories and /w will display the result in wide format.

If search option only uses *.doc it will only find document files that has .doc extension, will not be able to find files for the newer version of document which has a filename extension of .docx

Try it yourself, it won't harm your computer and try to search using the GUI method and try also searching using the command prompt and check which one gets the results quickly.



Hope you find this helpful.. :)