Using Windows file search
This will be a quick lesson. If you have a file you can’t find on your Windows PC take the following steps to try and find it -
- Start-Search->”For Files and Folders”
- Under “What do you want to search for” choose the kind of object that most closely matches the one you are missing. If you’re not sure use “All files and folders”
- In the space provided type in all or part of a file name. If you only know part of the file use a wildcard. For example if you know you are looking for a text file, but not sure the name of it type in *.txt (the asterisk) is a wildcard. Or if you know just the first few letters of the file name do bl* and that will search for every file/folder that starts with “bl” if you were to use *bl* it would search for any file containing the letters “bl”. There are other wildcard options available, but that will get you started.
- A good idea is to also search in the hidden and system files. There is an option for doing that under “More advanced options”
If you find that a file search does not locate what you are looking for then you might need to recover deleted items. If you’re in the Greater Boston or Southern New Hampshire area we would be glad to help you out. Just let us know and we will be in touch.