Next uncheck the tiny box in front of Include subfolders.

If it is checked, click in the tiny box to uncheck it. If it is blank, leave it alone.

Finally, click the Find Now button.

Voila! It finds the file Scandisk.log. Why? Because that file contains the text Microsoft ScanDisk for Windows somewhere in it.

Double click the icon in front of Scandisk.log to open the file and you'll see the words "Microsoft ScanDisk for Windows" as the top line. Close the file after you see the words we searched for.

You have just learned some powerful stuff. You can find any file even of you don't know its name, as long as you know some words or a line of text within the file.

Of course there is a catch. Searches take time (even for a computer) and unless you pick some text that is unique, the computer will find hundreds of files that contain the text you are searching for.

One final point about searches. If you only know parts of a file name, you can use an asterisk (*) in place of what you don't know.

For example, let's say we don't know the complete name of the file Scandisk.log but we remember that it starts with the word Scan. We could type the following text in the Named: list box:

Scan*

and then hit the Find Now button. On my PC this search found 25 files, including the Scandisk.log file and I limited it to drive( C:). So be prepared to get long lists of files when you use asterisks.

A practical use for asterisk is when you know the filename but don't know the extension. In this case you would type Scandisk.* and hit the Find Now button. On my PC this search found 12 files.

Clever uses of the asterisk is a whole study all of its own but the information I have given you will be adequate for most of your needs - I hope!

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