How to Find Word Documents on Your Hard Drive
Sometimes it happens that you save a Microsoft Word Document file on your hard drive and forget about the right location of the file, when you try to retrieve it. In such cases, it becomes really frustrating to look for the file in each of the folders present in different drives present on your hard disk. If you are facing the same problem and finding it difficult to locate the file manually, then you can use Microsoft Windows’ search feature, which can help you in finding the exact position of the file where it is saved.
Instructions
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1
If you are using Windows XP, then double click on “My Computer”. The explorer will open, where you will see the “Search” button displayed on the toolbar, with a magnifying glass present against it. Click on it, and you will see a new bar appearing at the left side of the explorer.
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2
Click on “Documents (word documents, spreadsheets, etc)” and write all or part of the document’s name. If you do not remember the name or any part of the name of the document, then you can write “*.docx” for MS Word 2007 or latest files and “*.doc” for older versions of MS Word. Make sure you write the commands without the quotation marks.
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3
The operating system will take some time to search the files with the extension specified. Check the list of the searched items and try to recognise the name of the file that you are looking for. Open the files that you think are the ones you need.
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4
If you find the list too large to point out your file from, then you can define the specific drive or folder where the file is saved. For instance, you always save the files in “D Drive”. In such case, you should only search the file in the specific drive, as it will omit the results from the other drives present on your disk. For that purpose, you will need to click on “All files and folders”, instead of “Documents (word documents, spreadsheets, etc)”.
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5
If you are using Windows 7, then you have to open “My Computer” and click at the upper right corner, where it says “Search”. Type the name or the part of the name of the document and hit Enter. The rest of the process is same as in Windows XP.
