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As far as I can remember I've had problems with Windows' Search and I had become used to using old-style dir /s to find my things. However, today was particularly weird on a freshly installed windows 7 32 bits Sony laptop: searching for * in Music\My Music retrieved 251 of 360 files. Searching for *.wma returned 71 of 180 WMA files. After deleting those, searching for *.wma returned nothing, while 109 WMA files remained.

Then I decided to browse to a particular directory which clearly showed 24 files in Windows Explorer (12 wma and 12 mp3) and searched for everything in that directory. It returned all my mp3 files and none of the wma files. I refreshed, opened and checked properties of the "hidden" files, but couldn't find anything different between the wma files and the mp3 files.

Am I missing something utterly obvious here? After 20 years of computer use I feel like a total beginner, not understanding at all what I'm looking at. It's magic...

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    The same happened to me years ago with XP search. I couldn't believe my eyes but we've to get used to it. It's always the same, the dog was half-blind and has got retired and replaced by another half-working solution. Consider using everything or another free tool.
    – maaartinus
    Mar 15, 2011 at 12:58

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Have you tried the "Find and fix problems with Windows Search" troubleshooter?

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  • No, not yet, but I will. Where is it located (I'll find it, I guess)?
    – Abel
    Jun 25, 2010 at 14:42
  • Click the Windows/Start button and start typing "search". It should show up under the Control Panel group.
    – Sean O
    Jun 25, 2010 at 14:51
  • Giving directions via search to the search problems wizard seems a bit circular!
    – Phoshi
    Nov 14, 2010 at 13:59
  • Like searching Google for "recursion"? :)
    – Sean O
    Nov 15, 2010 at 17:01
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Were you in Libraries? Windows 7's libraries are a 'view' of multiple folders all in the same place. For example, Music by default shows files from All Users\Music and <YourUserName>\Music. The files you can't find via search are probably located in All Users.

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If you have a fresh install of Win 7, it's possible that some files/directories aren't yet indexed... Will come with time... When the search ends, try "Searching in not indexed locations" which should be at the bottom.

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  • (missed your update earlier) but the system I was talking of was running for quite some time. Btw, even now, the problem still persists :(
    – Abel
    Sep 13, 2011 at 13:18

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