Finding Specific Information

As far as we are concerned, the awesome new search capabilities of Windows Vista are one of its three best features. (The others are Sleep mode and the amazing graphic capabilitiesfor those people with video cards capable of supporting them.)

With Windows Vista, you can find files, messages, and message attachments on your computer almost instantly. You don't need to know the name of the file or item you want to find; simply type a word or phrase in the Start Search box on the Start menu or the Search box in the upper-right corner of a Windows Explorer window to display a list of matching items. If you want to find information on the Internet, click the Search The Internet link that appears above the Start Search box on the Start menu to open the Windows Live Search site displaying links to sites related to the term you typed.

How does Windows Vista find items so quickly? Behind the scenes, Windows Vista maintains an index of all the key words in and associated with the data files on your computerdocuments, music, videos, graphics, local copies of e-mail messages, Web pages stored in your recent history or Favorites list, and so on. (It does not include the system or program files; such an index would be huge and would slow down the search process.) When you type a search term, Windows looks for it in the index instead of searching your hard disk. You shouldn't ever need to worry about the index, but after you have some experience with searching, you might want to check Windows Help And Support for information about index locations and settings.

If a simple search in the Start Search or Search box doesn't locate the item you are looking for, you can perform more advanced searches in the Search Results folder. Your search criteria can include the date a file was created, its size, part of its name or title, its author, and any tags you might have listed as properties of the file.

In this exercise, you will quickly locate items on your computer and on the Internet. You will then use advanced criteria in the Search Results folder to look for other files and will open the Preview pane to help identify the correct file.

1.	Click the Start button. Start The Start menu opens with the insertion point blinking in the Start Search box at the bottom.
2.	In the Start Search box, type bamboo. As you type, Windows filters the programs, files, folders, and e-mail messages stored on your computer and displays a list of items (only as many as will fit on the Start menu) related to your search term. Tip If your search returns more results than can be shown, you can display the entire list in the Search Results window by clicking See All Results.
3.	Point to each file in the search results in turn to display a ScreenTip with the file's properties. If you get in the habit of entering properties for your files, this handy trick can help you quickly identify the file you want.
4.	At the bottom of the Start menu, click the Search the Internet link. Your Web browser starts, displaying the results of a Windows Live Search for bamboo.
5.	Close your Web browser.
6.	On the Start menu, click Search. The Search Results folder opens in a window.
7.	In the upper-right corner of the window, in the Search box, type bamboo. The Search Results window displays the files that match the search term. You can change the view and sort the files the same way you would with any folder. [View full size image] See Also For information about changing views and sorting files, see "Viewing Folders and Files in Different Ways" earlier in this chapter.
8.	On the Search toolbar, to the right of Show only, click Picture. The Picture filter hides any file in the search results that is not a graphic, and the view switches to Large Icons so that you can see thumbnails of the graphics.
9.	Double-click the word bamboo in the Search box, and type statue. No items match this search term.
10.	At the right end of the Search toolbar, click the Advanced Search arrow. The Search pane opens at the top of the window. When a simple search term fails to find the file you are looking for, you can use the options in this pane to supply more information about the file. [View full size image]
11.	Click the any box to the right of Date taken, and then in the list, click is before. Then click the date box to the right, and use the calendar to set the date to December 31, 2006.
12.	Delete the word statue from the Search box. Then in the Tag box, type statue*, and click Search. You have specified that you want to find a picture created before December 31, 2006 that has some variation of the word statue (perhaps statues or statuette) in the title. The Search Results window displays two files that match these criteria. Tip In searches, the asterisk (*) is a wildcard character that represents any number of characters (including zero). The question mark (?) represents one character. For example, enter *.txt to search for any text file; enter s*.txt to search for any text file with a file name that begins with the letter s; and enter s??.txt to search for any text file that has a three-letter file name beginning with the letter s.
13.	Click the is before box to the right of Date taken, and then in the list, click any. Then click the Advanced Search arrow to close the Search pane. Troubleshooting If you don't reset the date criteria, the date setting will be applied to future searches.
14.	To the right of Show only on the Search toolbar, click All. Then select the contents of the Search box, and type tag. The Search Results window displays any file that has tag in its file name or in its text. In this case, you are looking for a file containing an announcement from Lucerne Publishing about a new book series called The Taguien Cycle.
15.	On the Organize menu, point to Layout, and then click Preview Pane. The Preview pane opens on the right side of the window.
16.	Click the first file in the search results to view its contents in the Preview pane. [View full size image]
17.	Press the key to preview each file in turn.