Boost Search in Windows 7 with AQS and Natural Language
If you liked the Search feature in Windows Vista, chances
are you hate it in Windows 7. Windows Vista had a decent
search interface that supported searching by date, name,
tag, and author easily.
You can get some of these options from the Explorer Search
box when you search in one of your Libraries folders (My
Documents, My Pictures, etc.), but not all of them. And the
interface isn’t as user friendly as it was in Vista.
The good news is that the advanced search functionality
is there – you just need to know how to access it.
Windows Search supports a rich set of search commands called
the Advanced Query Syntax. AQS, which is fully documented on
Microsoft’s TechNet site, supports restricting your search
result to different kinds of files, including videos,
Favorites, photos, meeting notices, emails and Outlook
contacts, among many others.
Windows 7 will even assist you in filling out AQS queries.
Put your mouse in a search box in Windows 7, and type
“kind:”. Windows will supply a drop-down list of the
different types of files you can search.
Besides AQS, Windows Search sports a little-known feature
called Natural Language Search. Click the Organize button on
your folder, and select Folder and Search Options.
Then select the Search tab.
After checking Use natural language search and
clicking OK, go back to the search box in the upper
right hand corner of your folder. Type in “documents
modified today.” Presto! You’ll see every document you
touched throughout the calendar day.
This functionality is also available for searching e-mail,
if you use Microsoft Outlook. Let’s say you received emails
from your friend Ted yesterday. Click the Start button, and
write “email from ted sent yesterday.” Ted’s emails from the
previous day will be returned in the Start window search
results.
Natural Language Search for email is a fast way to combine a
name and a date in order to narrow down the exact email you
need. Be warned that it can be a little finicky. It doesn’t
do well with relative dates; “email from ted sent on monday”
won’t yield any fruit. It doesn’t handle long dates, either:
“email from ted sent on july 24th 2010″ is a dud, but “email
from ted sent on 07/24/2010″ brings it home.
Once you learn what works and what doesn’t, you’ll be able
to find messages and files in record time.