Searching for files in Vista?

Question

How do you search for files that include "@" in the filename from the search window?

Answer 1

In Vista:

• press Win+F to show search window
• open Advanced search
• select Location (for example Local Hard Drives)
• type * @ * in Name field (without spaces between * and @)
• to narrow search to files select Document in Show only:
• press Search

Alternatively you can just type following into search box in Windows explorer:

name:*@* kind:docs

Answer 2

my guess would be to escape it like you would at a command prompt with a caret. e.g. dir *^@.txt

i don't have a machine to try this on right now.

-don

Answer 3

Best app for file searches I've found is "Everything" - and it's lightning fast. Available at http://www.voidtools.com/ Makes the Windows search look like steam driven.

Answer 4

Much like with most search engines, you can use " " [quotation marks].
Not perfect, it will still will find other things (not sure why).
Moreover wildcards will be a bit of a problem.

You can narrow it down to files by using "kind:" (docs, music etc'), you can find some syntax help here.

By the way, this is in Windows 7.