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On Windows 7, the following query used in folder search boxes fails to filter the files in a folder that have a "!" exclamation mark in them.

filename:!

Is there any way of doing this search please? Thanks.

AJP
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1 Answers1

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In your specific example filename:"*!*" seems to work in Win7 (Not sure about Vista)

Win7 search

I'd still recommend using 3rd-party tools like Agent Ransack, BareGrep or Everything if you need to search for files with weird names or the content of files not indexed by Windows. (On Win9x/NT5 you can type Win+F *.dll Tab CreateThread Enter and you will find all DLLs on all local drives that contain the string "CreateThread", doing the same on NT6 is impossible AFAIK!)

Anders
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  • That's all I need at the moment, so that's perfect, thank you! Out of interest, how did you find that out? I looked on the Advanced Query Syntax for ages, but couldn't find anything. Such as: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711(v=vs.85).aspx and: http://www.howtogeek.com/73065/learn-the-advanced-search-operators-in-windows-7/ – AJP Jul 28 '12 at 21:14
  • I remember bits and pieces of AQS but it was more of a guess than anything else (Which is why I said it seems to work) There should be more/other information about AQS on MSDN in the parts related to Windows Desktop Search for WinXP IIRC – Anders Jul 28 '12 at 21:19
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    Thank you. Been looking for this for months. In the meantime, I also switched to Agent Ransack because the inability to search for files with a ! was driving me nuts. Highly recommend it. The Win7 syntax is still awkward: you MUST specify "filename:" and the quotes and asterisks are more trouble than it's worth (considering this always used to work and is now a workaround for something "broken"). –  Sep 27 '12 at 16:13
  • Be aware of escaping exclamation marks in Search Everything: http://superuser.com/questions/698125/search-everything-does-not-always-find-file-with-exclamation-marks – Thomas Weller Jan 07 '14 at 14:34