The built-in search feature in Windows 7 is significantly better than the horrible search options in Windows XP. Instead of installing a third-party program like Google Desktop to search for files on inside files on your computer, you can now do it with easily from Windows 7.

For example, let’s say your a programmer or web developer and you want to be able to search your code files like .aspx, .html, .java, .php, etc. With Windows 7, you can configure the search indexer to not only index any file you want, but also to index the file contents.

By default, the Search Indexer in Windows 7 indexes the most common locations where your files would be stored, i.e. all libraries, everything in your User folder, and e-mail. If this is not enough, you can add or remove index location really easily.

That means you can tell Windows 7 to index and return results from files and folder on network drives or external hard drives. To get started , click on Start, then type in search into the search box.

indexing options windows 7

This will bring up the Indexing Options dialog. At the top, you’ll see the total number of items that have currently been indexed on your computer. Below that, you will see a list of all the locations that have been included for indexing.

windows 7 search indexer

To add a new location to the index, click on the Modify button. Any network drive or external hard drive will show up in the list of possible locations. You can check off any drive or folder that you would like to include in the index.

windows 7 search inside files

Depending on how man