How to search contents of files in folder?

Question

In Win 7, how can I search for a word in the contents of all files in a specific folder.

In XP this was easy. All you had to do was type the word into the "A word or phrase in file" text box on the search window and it would only include files containing that word in the search results.

Solution 1

Findstr may fit if you are familiar with Windows command line, findstr is some kind of grep for Windows, and it comes with Windows starting version XP. Personally Im using bash for windows, and grep inside of that, but this is third party software, and do not comes with Windows by default. Example of findstr:

\s searches for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories

2>nul is to get rid of errors for files that you cannot open

Solution 2

In the upper-right of Explorer, there's a search box.

Complete that, and press search. After that search completes, there'll be a "Search again in:" at the bottom of the screen. Here you can specify for it to search the File Contents

Comments

[CJ7]

So no way to do it from the outset?

[dakab]

Thanks for the graphic detail.