Can I search a folder for phrases contained within files (from the Windows command line)?

Question

Background: I have programming experience, but have not programmed in years.

My place of employment (a State prison) does not allow me to download programming tools/environments (internet access is severely curtailed).

I need to search the contents of a folder for phrases contained within files contained within that folder. For example, in a given (network) folder, I want to search all the MS Word docs in the folder for a phrase such as "knee brace."

Is there a way to do this -- at the command line, for example (assuming such is still available in Windows 10)? All I would need is the name of which file[s] contained the phrase provided.

Answer 1

Yes the command prompt is certainly still a viable solution in Windows 10. Either run cmd or right click the start menu to find it.

this guide appears like it may be able to help you.

Answer 2

Use the findstr command. For example:

C:\...> findstr /S /C:"knee brace" * | more

The /S option will search the current directory and all sub-directories. If you want to save the results to a file, you can use command redirection:

C:\...> findstr /S /C:"/knee brace" * > results.txt

Answer 3

To search Word documents, I think you'll need some scripting. PowerShell is Windows built-in command/scripting environment. A great example is here.

Keith