Thanks to everyone that responded. It seems that what should be simple in Windows Explorer search isn’t so I have done what I needed the other easy way – with R:Base.
(Directory listing to file | import to temp database table | remove spurious rows included in listing | browse rows where (SLEN(Column)) <> 12) Regards, Alastair. From: Mike Byerley Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2013 3:24 AM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: OFF Subject - MS Search problem No matter what you choose, you are accessing FindFirstFile and FindNextFile API. FindFirstFile: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364418(v=vs.85).aspx FindNextFile: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364428(v=vs.85).aspx as you can see, the wildcard combinations have the same net effect no matter what you use because these functions are what are under the covers. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kramer, Jason J" <[email protected]> To: "RBASE-L Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2013 9:27 PM Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: OFF Subject - MS Search problem Dear Alastair, How do you feel about VBScript? I don't know about making the results clickable, but it would not be hard to search a given directory for files that meet your criteria and then dump to the a CSV file. Jason Jason Kramer University Archives and Records Management 002 Pearson Hall (302) 831 - 3127 (voice) (302) 831 - 6903 (fax) From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alastair Burr Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2013 12:02 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - OFF Subject - MS Search problem Apologies but maybe someone on this list can help me: I need to search regularly in Windows 7 Explorer for files where the file name is not 6 characters (actually numerics) followed by an underscore then a "B" and the extension and exclude all sub-folder names. If I paste: FILENAME NOT ??????_B.JPG NOT kind:folders into the search box I get the results I want. I then click on the [Save search] button and give the search a name: CheckFileNames. However every time I click on the filename in the Searches folders under my login I get: No items match your search. The files I want to find usually have an additional character after the B but I would also like to find files where there are not precisely 6 digits preceding the underscore. (I have discovered in trying to solve this that the 6 question marks don't seem to actually do anything and can be omitted.) I have tried various attempts at escaping the 6 question marks to no avail. I know that I can use R:Base to do this but that seems like using an exquisite sledgehammer to crack an ugly nut and it was the fact that the saved search didn't work that got me trying to find out why that failed rather than not getting the results. If anybody has any knowledge I'd be very grateful, Regards, Alastair.
