Personal Computer Fundamentals

The Find Utility

In this lesson, you will learn:

• The Find Utility

Find Utility to Assist in Copies and Moves

You can use the Find utility to select specific files that are located anywhere on the computer, even if located on different drives. After it finds files, you can pick the files in the 'Find' window and copy, move or delete them (or any other file maintenance operation).

If you've already worked with the Find/Search utility a little, this may refresh your memory with this example:

1. Open Find from the Start Button > Search (or Find)
2. For this example, enter *.txt. This wildcard and filename extension combination will find files of any name ending in .txt .
3. Select 'My Documents' in the look in box by using the drop down arrow.
4. Click on the Search button.

Depending on your operating system it may also look like this:

You can use any selection method to select different groups of files that you want Windows to copy, move or delete. Once you've selected them, you can use click and drag or copy and paste. You can also right click and from the context menu, perform any operations you see there. Clicking on 'Send To' would send the entire selection to the destination you choose. The Find utility is an excellent tool for 'gathering up'files that you've stored in different places.

However, the files must have something in common. This can be:

• Common name element
• Common date range - When created or last changes made to the file
• Common location - Select the location to search
• Common File type - Locate the type of file
• Similar text - contents contained in the file
• Common properties - Select the size of the file

Clicking ‘Avanced’ or ‘Other Search ’ options allows a better search using any of the options listed above. For example, selecting the date modified option shows more choices on how to locate the file, as shown below. This is very handy when something 'disappears' that was there yesterday.

On the Advanced page, you can look for files of a specific type such as animations, faxes, movies, or even electronic mail.

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