Windows Search

Windows Instant search is a very useful feature that comes with windows and also with some applications such as Outlook and OneNote. it really saves alot of time when searching. Those days when we want to search for a while it takes awhile and the results come up with nothing. then we narrow down the search criteria and search again. but now with the instant search, we don’t have to wait any more. while we type indexing service will search and show the results. that’s why its called “Instant Search”. i use the instant search feature frequently on outlook to locate my emails. sometimes i use the instant search which is now embedded to Widows explorer to find files. yesterday i did a search on my Windows 7 to find a document, and i was amazed it was able to read the contents inside the files as well. but this is not a unique feature of Windows 7. it’s just that i haven’t noticed that something is possible on Windows Vista. Vista also has the same capability but the indexing service has to be turned on. so finally i learned that it’s possible to search within the files through Windows Search. my next question was, why can’t i search within PDF and OneNote. Most of the articles that i have are on OneNote and PDF. but searching within those two file formats are not enabled by default. to enable it, you need to download something called an “ifilter” in other words indexing filter. ifilter works as a plugging for Windows Search and Windows Desktop Search to index content within a document.

initially i thought it’s not possible to index content within PDF and OneNote documents. but then i did a research and found that there are pluggings that we can use to enhance the capabilities of Windows Search.

so i downloaded the Microsoft Ifilter which supports indexing contents for the following file formats

.docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx.

you can download it from the link below

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=60c92a37-719c-4077-b5c6-cac34f4227cc&DisplayLang=en

and also its possible to download the ifilter plugging from Adobe as well for FREE to index PDF documents

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2611