Windows 10: Why is Windows Explorer Seach so Wretched?

I'll skip the excruciating details for now and, perhaps, amend those painful details later. However, I'm not really sure there is any point with taking the time to point exactly to those flaws that Explorer has when it comes to searching for files. Even if there is an alleged solution or workaround - being a Windows operating system the so-called solution is likely a crazy long list of things to try, guess at, or just randomly messing with the registry - followed by a string of reboots. You just know it'll be some nonsense such as that. Then it won't work anyway - or kind of work - or wor

:)

 

Windows Explorer Replacement?

are you running IE7? if not that wouold be my first suggestion,upgrade to ie7 that can fix some stability issues with windows explorer

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Why is Windows Explorer Seach so Wretched?

I'll skip the excruciating details for now and, perhaps, amend those painful details later. However, I'm not really sure there is any point with taking the time to point exactly to those flaws that Explorer has when it comes to searching for files. Even if there is an alleged solution or workaround - being a Windows operating system the so-called solution is likely a crazy long list of things to try, guess at, or just randomly messing with the registry - followed by a string of reboots. You just know it'll be some nonsense such as that. Then it won't work anyway - or kind of work - or work for a period of time before reverting back to the normal dysfunctional default that Windows is famous for.

I'm just searching for a file - this isn't hard (for other operating systems anyway).

What strikes me is absolutely bizarre about Explorer's search mechanism is that when you search for something - the VERY item you need is essentially not available for you - namely THE PATH of that item you searched for. Why is this? How would preventing the path from being available to the user be useful in any way whatsoever when searching your folders? Oh, right, this is a Windows operating system - and, Windows is a lot like trying to have a conversation with someone with a head injury.

So here's what grates me.

You search for something in Explorer and the path contains a bunch of unusable gibberish that look like escape characters and variables. Even more bizarre is that Explore causes Edge to pop up every now and again when I plop items into the wrong text field. Like, what the flip? I'm searching for stuff ON MY COMPUTER when I have Explorer open. I'm not looking for something on the WEB.

But, the big issue is that Explore doesn't provide a path that is 1) readable by a human or 2) useable by a machine. I end up doing back-flips to extract a simple path of where the file is located. This is something that ought to be trivial. But, never is that the case for Microsoft Windows.

The only real solution is to NOT use Explorer for searching. I use the command line. You can install a linux one as well.

But, there are those moments where I'm on another company's machine without those useful tools installed and I have to decipher stuff that looks like this while holding back primal screams:

search-ms:displayname=Search%20Results%20in%20step_files&crumb=System.Generic.String%3Amic41%20(path%3A%3D"C%3A%5CUsers%5COwner%5COneDrive%20-%20Straight%20RF,%20LLC%5CDocuments%5Caltium%5Cstep_files%5Cgate_driver_MIC4120YME%5C"%20OR%20System.Generic.String%3A"C%3A%5CUsers%5COwner%5COneDrive%20-%20Straight%20RF,%20LLC%5CDocuments%5Caltium%5Cstep_files%5Cgate_driver_MIC4120YME%5C")&crumb=location:C%3A%5CUsers%5COwner%5COneDrive%20-%20Straight%20RF,%20LLC%5CDocuments%5Caltium%5Cstep_files