09 October 2008

Search all files in WINDOWS XP

When you perform a search for a file in Windows XP. The default setting is for XP to ONLY return files in the "Search Results" pane - when they are registered file types to a program on your PC.In other words if you are looking for a file that is NOT registered with an application on your PC, it will not be found using the default search settings.
However, you can turn off the default by a quick Tweak of the registry.

Open the Registry editor (type regedit from the Run command) and navigate to:
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ContentIndex

Double-Click the value named:
FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions and change the value from 0 to 1
Exit the registry editor and reboot!

In this way you are able to see all the files that are not visible in normal search operation.

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