Windows 8.1 moves away from the Windows 8 organisation. In Windows 8, the Charms bar's Search command was integrated throughout Windows. If yous wanted to search for something within an app, yous'd fetch the Charms bar, click the Search icon, and type in your keyword.

Instead, in Windows 8.i more than apps come with a Search box built in to their upper-right corner. The Charms bar's Search control, by contrast, now looks for items on your reckoner and the Internet — and not necessarily in your currently viewed app.

The Windows 8 Search feature limited its search to matching apps unless specifically told otherwise. Windows 8.one, by contrast, searches everywhere for any you're seeking. When you blazon a keyword, the Search feature scours your entire computer likewise as the Internet, and so lists matches.

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To search for missing things, follow these steps:

  1. From the Commencement screen, begin typing what y'all'd similar to find.

    As you brainstorm typing, the Search pane appears, and Windows begins searching for what it calls "everything " — matching items on your computer, as well as the Internet. Matches found on your calculator appear atop the listing; Internet matches announced beneath them, and a line separates the two groups.

    If you're on a tablet and can't start typing, slide your finger inward from the screen'south correct edge; when the Charms bar appears, tap the Search icon. When the Search pane appears, outset typing in the Search box.

    If you spot your missing item, click to fetch information technology, or printing Enter to see more detailed information about your search. Then jump ahead to Step 4.

    If you don't see your sought-after item on the Search listing, movement on to Pace ii and narrow your search to a specific category.

  2. Click the category you'd similar to search.

    Sometimes the Search box comes up with so many matches that they don't all fit on the screen. In that case, click the word Everywhere and route your search to ane of these categories from the drop-downwardly box:

    • Everywhere: The default option, this searches for a match both on your estimator and on the Cyberspace. When you begin typing directly onto the Start screen, Windows chooses this pick automatically and begins list matches found on your PC and the Internet.

    • Settings: This lets y'all search through the zillions of settings in both the desktop'south Control Panel and the Start screen's PC Settings pane. It'due south a handy way to find settings dealing with just, for example, fonts, keyboards, backups, a mouse, or other technical tidbits.

    • Files: When you're tired of seeing Internet results, choose this to search for files only on your own reckoner.

    • Web images: This sends your search to the Internet and pulls up matching images, a quick way to see what a Buff-collared Nightjar really looks like.

    • Spider web videos: Another targeted Internet search, this pulls up a list of videos matching your search term.

  3. Press Enter after typing your word or phrase, and Windows shows all matches.

    Windows lists more detailed information about all the matching items.

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  4. Choose a matching particular to open it, bringing it to the screen.

    Click a song, for case, and information technology begins playing. Click a setting, and the Control Panel or PC Settings window appears, open to your setting's contents. Click a letter, and it opens in your word processor.

These tips can help you wring the virtually out of the Search feature:

  • If Windows finds more than matches than it tin stuff onto the screen, it hides some. For example, the figure displays all three Lester Young pictures and videos in its first cavalcade simply shows only the offset half dozen Lester Immature songs in the second column. To meet the other songs, click the words Run into All 25 Songs below the 2d column. To run across Internet results, go on scrolling to the correct.

  • The Windows search scours every file in your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders, which makes storing your files in those folders more important than ever. (Windows doesn't let you search through private files stored in accounts of other people who may be using your PC.)

  • Windows doesn't search for files stored in removable devices, such equally flash drives, CDs, DVDs, or portable hard drives.

  • If y'all're searching for a mutual word and Windows turns up too many files, limit your search by typing a brusque phrase from your sought-after file: Soon after the cat nibbled the bamboo, for example. The more than words you blazon, the meliorate your chances of pinpointing a particular file.

  • The Search box ignores capital letters. Information technology considers Bee and bee to be the same insect.

  • The Windows 8.1 Search pane routes your searches through Bing, the Microsoft search engine, and there's no manner to change it.

About This Article

This commodity is from the book:

  • Windows viii.1 For Dummies ,

About the book author:

Andy Rathbone is a Windows guru whose expertise has been helping Windows users for more than 25 years. He is the author of all editions of Windows For Dummies, the bestselling computer how-to book of all time. Andy answers Windows questions and shares insights at andyrathbone.com.

This article tin be found in the category:

  • Windows 10 ,