Do you have a large hard drive? Mine isn’t very big, but I’ve still got over 90,000 files on it.

When I use Windows built in search tool to search for files, it seems to take ages for it to even start looking. It’s almost like the search tool wakes from a deep sleep and decides to start work after a cup of coffee. I can’t blame it, I feel the same way most mornings.

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The solution I’ve come up with works for me and maybe it’ll work for you as well. It doesn’t require any tools that aren’t already on your Windows machine.

I wanted to search a network drive with over 600,000 files on it. Windows searches were taking up to half an hour to produce results. I was prepared to take a lunch break when I initiated a search.

I decided to fall back on my rusty old skills as a DOS batch file guru.

I wrote up a single line of text in Notepad with the following command on it where M: was the network drive I wanted to search.

DIR /B /S M:*.* > C:M_file_list.txt

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Then I saved the file as a .BAT file in a handy location.

Double clicking the BAT file launched it. When I launch a batch file, it helps if I stand and pronounce this chant in a loud voice with both hands raised over the PC.

By the Power of DOS, I command you!

That really works best in a quiet room full of people who have no clue what I’m doing.

Fifteen minutes later, I had a text list that included the full path of all 600,000 files on the M: drive.

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Now whenever I need to find a file, I open up the M_file_list text file and hit F3 or CTRL+F to open up the text search dialog.

Searching the text file is hundreds of times faster than Windows standard search was taking. The search takes around   5 or 10 seconds instead of half an hour. That does cut into my long lunch breaks, but we all have to sacrifice things in these hard times.

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When I find the file I want, I copy the file path and paste it into the Start -> Run menu, to open the folder or the file itself.

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Happy searching!

You can leave out the chanting if you have to.