Passing this along. Getting Win 7 to search in Zip Files.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This had been bugging the crap out of me for quite awhile. XP automatically searched Zip files when it search folders. Win 7 Nope. Worthless POS.

Finally, learned under folder options there’s some Search settings. A check mark box to search Zip files.

Easiest Way to get to it. Start Menu, Computer, click the alt key to get the menu (more Win 7 bullshit), Tools, Folder Options, Search Tab, click search compressed files

Yeah, you can tell why I didn’t exactly stumble on this right away. It’s buried way deep. To think XP did this by default.

Life is much better now at my house. :stuck_out_tongue:

Just passing this along to others going through the same Win 7 hell.

2

Well, sounds like a PITA to find that option if you don’t already know where it is.

But still, it’s a good thing for that option to exist so you can set it to your liking. (We needn’t argue over what the default should be, since that’s very much a matter of preference.)

Once upon a time, in the distant past, ZIP files didn’t get searched (and there wasn’t even an option to do so). It was one of the ways, in various situations, to prevent files from being found automatically when you didn’t want that to happen: Hide it in a ZIP file.

When Windows (and perhaps other OS’s or apps) began looking into ZIP files without the user actually running WinZip or PKUNZIP, that sometimes caused problems too. Windows had this nasty habit of actually executing EXE files whenever it found one (well, in some cases or whatever), like when opening e-mails that had attached EXE’s sometimes, and we used to hide them in ZIP files to prevent that. Then it started happening even with EXE’s in ZIP files. (Not sure if it was just EXE’s, but maybe some kinds of scripts too.?)

This is a problem with Google Gmail, by the way, for which reason I still haven’t totally abandoned Yahoo e-mail, awful as it’s gotten. Google scans all attachments for viruses and furthermore refuses to allow ANY executable files to be attached, to protect their users from viruses. AND furthermore, it looks into attached ZIP files and similarly searches everything it finds there. AND furthermore, it gets a lot of false positives.

In my work, I send a lot of ZIP files full of plain-fucking-text files (actually, scripts written in an obscure language, with file extensions of .EXP and .PRT) and way too often, my ZIP files are rejected because it thinks those are executables and/or it thinks there are viruses in them.

Conclusion: Auto-searching of ZIP files can be a curse too.

3

Win 7 search took away a lot of options from XP. Like not searching sub folders. There were several search options XP had that I miss. You could search by size, modified date etc. But not in Win 7.

I’d forgotten the early windows like 95/88 didn’t search zip files. XP treats zips like another folder. Searches them by default. I think you can turn that off by not searching sub folders in XP.

4

If you’re in Windows Explorer, there’s a button that lets you add some of the more common of these options just to the right of where you enter your search terms. I think it’s a down arrow. A full listing of the modifiers can be found in the help files, I’m sure but I’ve personally used datemodified:, type:, added:, size:, etc.

The only real complaint I have with Win7’s search is the navigation of results. If you click on a found folder the navigation bar doesn’t show it’s parent folder, for example. You have to right click and Open Containing Folder, or copy and paste from the file/folder’s Properties.

5

I think you’ve got other problems. That setting allows you to search inside ZIP files in non-indexed locations, like network drives. Your instructions are also incomplete: on that tab you also need to click ‘Always search file names and contents…’

If you’re searching on your local PC, it should be indexed, in which case you should go to Control Panel, Indexing Options, Advanced Options, File Types, scroll to the bottom, click on zip and check that zip is set to ‘Index Properties and File Contents’.

6

Thanks Quartz. I’m setting that indexing up now. Thats another setting I’ve never stumbled across before and I’ve used Win 7 for 2 years.

Win 7 really messed up the defaults for zip files. I use them a lot to organize my photos and other small files.

7

Thanks for the heads up. That’s really helpful.

Personally I’ve always loved Windows 7 and I’d take it over XP. I’ve been using it since the release candidate versions.

8

Try creating the zip with a password. That should encrypt the contents and may fool the zip scanner.

9

Idea! Hadn’t thought of that.

I’ve pretty much gotten set in my ways, for the moment. My situation has to do with e-mailing ZIP files. I’ve used Yahoo for years, and that works, although Yahoo e-mail is getting steadily uglier with each upgrade. Problem is, Gmail is getting steadily uglier with each upgrade too, so I don’t have strong incentive to try your plan there. But I’m-a gonna keep this in mind!