DAWN Canada: DisAbled Women's Network Canada
Expanding our Horizons: Tech 3 Project

Search & Find

Finding Files - Windows

Here’s a helpful little feature for those of us who can’t remember the complete names of files, or where we left them on the computer.

It’s also handy for finding all files of a specific format.

First you’ll need to get into the <Find> feature on your Desktop’s <Start> menu. Single-click the <Start> button with your left mouse button, and then select <Find>.

A side-menu will open. In it, single-click on <Files and Folders>. The <Find: All Files> window opens.

If using keyboard, press CTRL+ESC to open up Start menu and use the ARROW keys to select Find and then Files and Folders ...

You type in the file name as far as you can remember it, and then add an asterix * to the end of the filename. Example: dawn*.*

This tells the computer to find all types of files that match the letters you typed in before the asterix.

Now single-click on <Find Now>.

The computer will display any files that match your search term.

You can also use an asterix at the beginning of a filename--<*awn.doc>, for instance.

You can also use the asterix to find all files with a specific file extension (the file extension is the set of three letters after the “.” in a filename. Example: *.exe to find executable files; *.txt to find text files; *.doc to find Word documents; *.wpd to find WordPerfect files; *.rtf to find Rich Text Format files; *.html to find HTML files etc.

kathy.jpg for instance, indicates that the file is a Jpeg (picture image). If you type <*.jpg> into <Find: All Files>, the computer will search for every file that has the <.jpg> extension.

This is handy for quickly determining what files you have on hand.

back to Technology Content Index