Profoundly confused by Windows search. After Windows XP|2003 it doesn’t seem to find anything even if you know the file is there.

Indexing doesn’t seem to find the files either. Selecting it to find system and hidden and still no joy.

So here is my work around for finding files:

dir /s /b | findstr "YOUR FILE NAME"

Example:

rem Change to the top level folder you want to search
cd /d D:\I5_Backup

rem find any file that has the characters as listed between quotes
dir /s /b | findstr "1081."

rem we have some winners
D:\I5_Backup\DATAC100_20111019\DATAC100\SESR\S0245570241401001081.TOT
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110404\DATAC100\MSGF\M02455643310810000735.MS5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110404\DATAC100\MSGP\M02455643310810000735.PF5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110428\DATAC100\MSGF\M02455643310810000735.MS5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110428\DATAC100\MSGP\M02455643310810000735.PF5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110803\DATAC100\MSGF\M02455813234240001081.MS5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110803\DATAC100\MSGP\M02455813234240001081.PF5
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110803\DATAC100\MSGQ\Q02455763504280001081.QST
D:\I5_Backup\DATC100_20110803\DATAC100\SESR\S0245570241401001081.ACK