Useless "Search" in Windows 11

[Gylenthal]

When I do a search on "Directory" for a "Keyword", Windows gives me all the file which contain the "Keyword" in that "Directory".
But I can not do anything on the files.
"Move", "Copy", a.o. are not possible.
Why?

 

[RogerOver]

Hi,
I have a very recent install (3 days ago) and I cannot reproduce your problem.
But I remembered I had a problem in an older version of Windows 11 and found back the link on my computer.

Redirecting

There are also proposals for remedy in that link.
Good luck !

 

[davehc]

When I do a search on "Directory" for a "Keyword", Windows gives me all the file which contain the "Keyword" in that "Directory".
But I can not do anything on the files.
"Move", "Copy", a.o. are not possible.
Why?

What directory (Folder?) are you trying to access? It may be a system folder, which is not normally accesible.

 

[Gylenthal]

I have a very recent install (3 days ago) and I cannot reproduce your problem.

Good for you.
But I still have that problem (and many others as well as it seems) and I am not pleased with the half-baked "Reboot" solutions.

 

[Gylenthal]

What directory (Folder?) are you trying to access? It may be a system folder, which is not normally accesible.

A normal folder.
No system folder.
I will try to make a movie of it and post here the link.

 

[RogerOver]

But I still have that problem (and many others as well as it seems) and I am not pleased with the half-baked "Reboot" solutions

Ok, but did you try the "repair"-solutions (sfc /scannow, DISM online) proposed in the link I posted above ?

 

[The Shadow 2023]

I can only sympathize.... Years ago, I found "Search" to be a worthless POS.
So I just stopped even trying to use it.
On the rare occasion that I want to search for the location of a file, I use DOS. Or what serves for DOS today.
I just open a command prompt and type in:
dir /a/s C:\filename.ext [ENTER]
and the answer will print out on the screen. That readout is READ ONLY, but I can always take a screen print of it and send that to my Printer. Or, even redirect the output of the command to a file somewhere on the HD.
I just did that recently, when I was looking for a particular file(s) on my PC.

 

[kittensinurface]

Everything - Search Tool

voidtools

www.voidtools.com

Faster and more powerful search tool than Windows Search. Please use caution, you can find your files, but it also gives you the option of moving or deleting them.

 

[davehc]

Everything - Search Tool

voidtools

www.voidtools.com

Faster and more powerful search tool than Windows Search. Please use caution, you can find your files, but it also gives you the option of moving or deleting them.

I endorse that! I have used “everything “ for some years. No complaints. Multi search is als useful for cleaning out - search for *.log, or tmp, and youcan erase the whole lot in seconds

 

[The Shadow 2023]

Many years ago, I made it a rule, to NEVER install another program on my PC, to do something that I could do with what was already on the PC to start with.

Put these three commands into a text file, then rename it Cleanup.bat and one click does the job and you've never installed anything new on your PC.

del /f /s /q C:\*.tmp
del /f /s /q C:\*.bac
del /f /s /q C:\*.old

I would be reluctant to mass delete all the .log files, but only the .log.bac files.

Add just two more lines, to the above mentioned batch file, one to delete all the Edge temp files and another to delete all the Firefox temp files,and you've just done a massive cleanup, unlike any professional program on the market.

To clean out the Edge temp files:
del /F /S /Q "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Cache\*.*"

To clean out all the Firefox temp files:
del /F /S /Q "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.*"

Deleting the contents of the Prefetch folder was a little more complicated. First I had to take ownership of the folder, then I could delete its contents.

TAKEOWN /F "C:\Windows\Prefetch"
del /F /S /Q "C:\Windows\Prefetch\*.*"

If anyone puts all the 'blue lines' in this post, into one batch file, they will have a pretty good little Cleanup program.

Happy Easter, Y'all!
Shadow