Search For ALL Files
In Windows XP.

When you perform a search for a file in Windows XP. The default setting is for XP to ONLY return files in the "Search Results" pane - when they are registered to a program on your PC.

In other words if you are looking for a file that is NOT registered with an application on your PC, it will not be found using the default search settings.

However, you can turn off the default by a quick Tweak of the registry!

Here's how:

Step One)

Open the Registry editor  (type regedit from the Run command) and navigate to:

HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
ContentIndex

Step Two)

Double-Click the value named:

FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions

Step Three)

Change the value from 0 to 1

Step Four)

Exit the registry editor.

And that is it!

IMPORTANT: This procedure contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article numbers to view the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

I do hope this article helped! Please check out the other  Windows XP Tips ... Why not sign up for our regular XP Update newsletter?

Kind Regards

Marc Liron
marc@updatexp.com

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This page was last updated 5th June 2003

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