Find things with the use of "Wild Cards"

You can go to the Find window from your "Start" menu or from "windows explorer". When you are in any program you should have access to the Start menu. Select, Start/find/Files or folders. This will bring up the "Find: All files" window. There are three tabs labled; "Name & Location", "Date" and "Advanced". It should default to the "Name & Location" tab. This window will have three bar size windows labled; "Name", "Containing text" and "Look in". Put a check mark in the box labled; "Include Subfolders" if it is not checked.

"Look in" is where you want to search for the file. On a CD, a floppy or on your hard drive. If you are partitioned or have more than one hard drive they will be listed also. Use the small arrow to the right to scroll to and select the disk or drive that you want to search. In this case we will select C: drive. Skip the "containing text" window for now and place or select the top window labled; "Name". This puts a blinking cursor in the window. It is now ready to accept a name. Type in the word "Bubbles.BMP". (without the quotation marks) Hit the button labled; "Find Now". Note that the magnifying glass turns into an animation. As soon as it stops it has found all that it can. If it could not find anything it will state so at the bottom of the window. However, in this case we should see a second window appear just below the find window. Under "Name" should be our "Bubbles" and under "in folder" will be the path to where it was found. (C:/Windows). Under "size" is the size in KB of the file. Under "type" is what kind of file it is or what will view it. Under "Modified" is the date and time it was last modified. At the bottom of the window is stated how many files were found.

You do not need to type in the file extension. However, If there are many files with the same name and different file extensions, it will find and display all of them.

The first wild card we will work with is (?) the question mark. This is a single digit wild card. If a letter is wrong or missing from a file that you type in, it may or maynot find it. To show this; Hit the button "New Search". This will bring a pop up window telling you it will clear your current search. OK it. Type in "Bubbes" without the "l". then hit "find now". It then can not find it. Hit "New search"/ "OK". Now, type in "bubb?es" and hit "Find Now". It now finds the exact file. You can let it find all files with just the last few letters of a file name. Type in the last 3 letters only this time. "les" Note that it found your file and a bunch more ending in "les". So the more specific you can be in a search the better.

The other wild card is (*). This star can be used with letters and or numbers and before or after the dot. The star means "all" so you must be careful how you use it.

Never! type in: (*.*) You will regret it.

If you entered "*.bmp". That would find all files with a file extension of ".bmp".

Confirm that C: drive is in the "Look in" window. Type "*.wav" in the name window. Then hit "Find now". A .wav file is a sound file. Note how many there are in your C: drive. The lower window is small and you can only see a few of the files found. Place your cursor on the very bottom edge of the bottom window. When you get your cursor to turn into a double headed arrow, hold down the left mouse button and drag the bottom of the window down to enlarge the window. Or, you can use the "full screen" button in the box between the (-) and the (x) in the upper right corner of the window. You can work with a file in the lower window just as you can in "windows explorer". You have all the wav files showing so just double click on one of them. Your wav player should pop up and play that wav file. When it is finished, it should automatically close returning you back the Find window. Note at the bottom of the find window how many wav files it found.

The "Date" & "Advanced" tabs give you a wide range of methods to find a file that you are searching for. For example: If you put a file in yesterday and forgot to write down the name or even where you put it. It can be found by using the date tab and filling in what you do remember. This enables you to find a file by when it was installed without knowing anything about the file. Or you can search for a file by type and size in the "Advanced" tab.

The "Find files and folders" is not restricted to looking on your hard drive. You can search floppies or CDs.

When a file is found, you can work directly with the file in the lower window by using the pull down menus of "File - Edit - View - Options - Help". Or you still can right click a file for a pop-up menu and double click to view or open a file.

Practice using the find files and folders to get comfortable using this tool.