Did you know you can make Windows search for text in .cfg files?

A tip to make it possible to search for text within .cfg files, while doing a Windows Explorer search.

It is a setting in indexing options.

Searching for text within config files can be very useful.

Examples:

-Making a trafficplan you are looking for a specific title= line, you can just search in the "Airplanes" folder for that name.

-With a search in the "Airplanes" folder you could look what planes you installed a certain gauge in, with a search for the gauge= line.

-You could look for all planes that are using a certain lighteffect.

-Etc, etc.

I was always a bit afraid to touch settings in indexing options. When changed, often the index was rebuilt. THat meant a pc slowdown for a while.

Glad I took a closer look.

I had already found out how to make Explorer Search look not only at filenames, but also for text within textfiles like .txt and .doc files and such.

I sort of stumbled on how to change it to make it look inside .cfg fiels as well.

To make it look inside .cfg files:

-click on the "Start" button on the desktop,

-type: indexing

in the search box

-click on "Indexing Options" to open that menu,

-click "Advanced"

-in the little window that opens, click on the "File Types" tab,

-scroll down the list to Extension: .cfg

-put a check mark in the box in front of that,

Then also:

-below the list of file types, in "how should this file be indexed?",

put a check-mark in the box: "Index Properties And File Contents".

That's it. Works on many versions of Windows.

This guide explains it with images.

Be aware that at the bottom of this guide is also a part about how to search withinin all filetypes in a certain folder.

(so not just textfiles and config files but also things like models, gauges and even jpegs perhaps.)

https://www.howtogeek.com/99406/how-to-search-for-text-inside-of-any-file-using-windows-search/

Happy flights,

il88pp.

Try this, I have it and it finds things hidden in folders you didn't know existed, great for rooting out stuff:

https://www.voidtools.com/downloads/

I don't think that's a good alternative for searching within .cfg files.

In the "Everything" FAQ I see:

----Quote:-----

Does Everything search file contents?

Yes, "Everything" can search file content with the content: search function.

File content is not indexed, searching content is slow.

------End Quote.--------

So it's slow, also, of course, for each search you would need to start "Everything" as well. (Even select a sppecific search method before searching.)

And, though it may be light on resources, it is a program that needs to run.

--

With the Windows Search, and Windows Indexing, no extra programs to run.

You can just search using the Explorer Window you had open already.

File Contents are indexed. Searching for text in files is very fast.

BTW, rebuilding the index to include text in .cfg files is fast actually. I hardly noticed the rebuilding.

It does not take days to rebuild the index, like it does when you rebuild the whole index.

I use Everything.exe. It's a very good replacement for Windows search and I have turned off indexing because I just use Everything.exe. But, Everything.exe just finds files, it does not search for text in files like CFG's or DLL's. To do that I highly recommend the utility called Fileseek. https://www.fileseek.ca/

There is a free version and a pro version.

Another great tool is Notepad ++. Once installed you can immediately right click, open a CFG file and edit that file on the fly without renaming to a text file. I use it all the time for the Sim.