Home : Tutorials
: Finding Important Files &
Folders : Change XP to Windows 98/2000 style search
Change XP search to Windows 98/2000 style search.
Windows XP search default settings have much
to be desired. I perfer the old method of searching so I change
it back so it's more like Windows 2000.

- Open My Computer from either your desktop or Start
menu.

- Press the F3 key to search.

- Left-click on Change preferences.

- Left-click on Without an animated screen character.
(optional)
- OR just Left-click on Change files and folders search behavior
instead. (& skip past the next two steps.)

- Left-click on Change preferences.

- Left-click on Change files and folders search behavior.
(Continue from here if you kept the dog around.)

- Change to Advanced search behavior & left-click
OK.

- Left-click on the down triangle next to My Computer
under Look in: You will see a dropdown menu
similar to this. Select Local Hard Drives to
search all local drive letters. Search My Computer
to search everything including any network drives. (My (M:)
drive is networked. In the right pane of My Computer
you can see the picture in front of g$, an
indication a drive is networked.)
Searching networked drvies can be quite slow using this method.