Windows 10: Searching for special characters

Hi all! I just purchased a new Dell with Windows 10. I had a Dell with Windows XP SP3 for ages, and when I made the mistake of updating one of my drivers... Well, it was getting to be time to update... I've a few more grey hairs now.

Anyway, in my old machine, when I modified a file, I would just append a "-2" or "-3" to the file name, ie. File005-02.html. This made searches very easy, as I could just search for -2 and it would list all the files I'd changed. I have my old drive slaved into my new pc, but I can't seem to figure out what Win10 wants to search for just "-2". Win10 gives me all the files with a 2 in the name or inside the file, completely ignoring the dash, which returns a huge number of files.

Is there a quick way to do a simple search for files with a dash, underscore, or other special character in the filename?

Can I turn off the "search inside the file" function, so that it just searches filenames?

Thanks!

:)

 

Alt + num. pad. NNNN special characters: Does it work in W-10?

Hi Brian,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

You can use Character map app to have a special characters in the Windows 10.

1) Search for Character map in the search box and then try to set it up the special characters.

Let us know the status of the issue.

Thanks.

 

Cannot synchronize Contacts

Hi,



As you mentioned its very tough to check in 1000 contacts of yours. My clue for you would be, kindly check if any of your contact's First/Last name has got special characters (!@$^$@#&(L: #@&)%)__+_(&). You can
search the same in nokia communication centre - contact's search option. In Vista pcs, if any of your phone's contact names contains any special characters(accidently - knowingly or unknowingly), remove the special character from your contact's name and then
check

 

To find any file containing -2 search for filename:*-2:



(Click to enlarge.)

Search parameter filename:* followed by any special character searches for that character in file names. For example searching for filename:*& finds all files with an ampersand (&) in filename, search filename:*_ finds all files with an underscore in file name, search filename:*, finds all files with a comma in file name.

 

Terrific, that works. I thought the * was just a wildcard; that's what all the help faqs said. If you leave off the filename: it pulls everything with a 2 in it. It's a bit odd that MS would make a simple search that cumbersome.

Thank you so much!

 

You are welcome *Smile