June 17th, 2008
10 top Vista tweaks, part 2
6. Save your favorite searches
As I’ve argued previously, Vista’s built-in search tools are its killer feature. And although Windows Search works well out of the box, a handful of minor tweaks can improve its performance and usability and make it more likely you’ll find the file or e-mail message you’re looking for when you need it the most.
One of the simplest tweaks is also one of the most powerful: After using Windows Search, save the criteria so you can reuse that search. When you do so, your search criteria, including the location, search terms, file types, and Windows Explorer sorting/grouping options, are saved as an XML file in %userprofile%\Searches. With a library of saved searches, you can make short work of repetitive tasks. My collection of saved searches, for example, includes shortcuts to display all the Word documents I’ve created this year, grouped by date; all the e-mail messages I’ve received this month; all the blog post drafts I’ve started; all digital pictures I’ve taken this year; and so on. If I open any of these saved searches, I can further refine it by entering additional search terms in the Search box or filtering with the lists available from Windows Explorer column headings.
Here’s how it works:
1. Start by choosing the search scope – the location (or locations) where you want to search.
- To search the entire index, press Windows logo key+F to open the Search window
- To search within a single folder and its subfolders, open that folder in Windows Explorer.
- To search multiple locations, open the Search window, click Advanced Search, click the drop-down list to the right of the Location box, and then click Choose search locations from the bottom of the list. You can combine locations from local storage and network shares.
2. Next, enter your search criteria. You can do this by entering a simple search term in the Search box in the upper right-hand corner of the Explorer window, or use the advanced search syntax, or display the Advanced Search pane and choose criteria from the boxes there.
3. Select the type of data to be displayed in the search results, using one of the six choices in the Search pane. The default option is All, which does not filter the results at all. You can choose E-mail, Documents, Picture, or Music to restrict the results to those types of files (adjusting the available column headings ot match). Or click Other to display folders and files that don’t match any of those four groups.
4. Sort, group, and filter the search results using column headings.
5. Click Save Search and supply a descriptive name. The search criteria are saved as an XML file.
To reopen a saved search, go to the Searches folder in your user profile and double-click the icon you saved. Because these are simple XML files, you can copy them to other computers and use them as well. You can also create shortcuts to any saved search and use them wherever you prefer, including the Favorite Links bar, the Start menu, the desktop, or the Quick Launch toolbar.
Tweak #7: Fine-tune search settings –>
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 06/17/08
