Windows 10 Explorer Search A Disaster

Windows 10 Explorer Search A Disaster

I was hoping to pile all my daily life and files, even install files into a dated archive using file tags and date structure within the filename itself, while using "Saved Searches" as dynamic category management. I can't find things again if I use Videos for videos, Music or music, documents for pdfs and text files, and so forth. Classifying documents for their "type" is a technique that changes over time. With Video and Music folders where does someone put audio books? I find the typical user media layout rather limited, and lacking any long term storage organization. When I want to find something, I shouldn't have to search multiple times in different spots: Is it in the closet? Is it in the kitchen? Is it in the bathroom? Maybe it's under the bed. I don't have time for this. One box, one search, to keep my sanity: Just click a field and be done! Computers are supposed to be our friend and save us time, right? I had assumed that the File Explorer search function was reliable enough to find these items as I dump more and more day after day, but to my surprise, the search function is either broken half the time, or some particular function doesn't work as expected. In the end I can't find the file, and have considered using other File Explorer alternatives, because the OS maker dropped the ball with it's basic filesystem utilities. To find a file inside Microsoft Windows 10 is a hair pulling experience. I totally miss the Apple+space search in Apple Computers for this very simple search experience, which should be just as easy on Windows 10.

Finding things inside of files

I write notes and documents using Markdown, which is a fast way to write a structured document with headings without specifying fonts, sizes, weights, etc. It saves a ton of time over typical office programs like Word or OpenOffice / Libre Office Writer. 

So I want to find something inside a file at a later time. Say I put my customer's information inside a Markdown file like file.md, and want to find it later. In File Explorer search, if I want to search for md files and three words within the content, this is what I found works as of today, March 6th, 2020:

name:*.md contents:bacong+central+school

Maybe I don't know the order of the contents search terms, but each word connected with another word by a plus sign character tells the search that the order is not important; just return the file ending in .md and has the three words anywhere in the document.

The following line essentially is the same:

name:*.md contents:school+central+bacong

Notice the order is backwards; it still works.

Now if I want to search exactly for "Bacong Central School", then using quotes without plus signs will search for the exact string although the capital letters seem to have no difference:

name:*.md contents:"Bacong Central School" 

I read someplace, I believe, on a Microsoft site that you need to use "OR" or "AND" in between the words to describe what is required or optional to the search. It seems I was able to use "OR" before the windows update, but it seems changed after the update, and the plus sign is needed. If Microsoft is going to keep changing the rules, which is counterproductive on it's own, why not update their howto manuals too? Or perhaps give some example searches in the actual search box, or quick tips to show the user how the search is evolving, if they keep changing it.

If I search for "2020 02" an AND argument by the use of the space between the words without quotes, the search should show up with any filename containing the term "2020" AND "02" in any order within the filename. However, if we change the search type to "contents:2020 02" without quotes, I don't get the same behavior. If I search for:

name:*.md contents:2020 02
Unfortunately what will happen is the contents "2020" will be searched from inside the contents of the *.md files, but then the "02" will be applied to the filename search rather than the second word in the content search. It's disappointing and illogical. One must then add a plus sign "+" between 2020 and 02 like "2020+20" to get the 02 to be part of the content search.



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