When I first installed Windows Vista I was annoyed with the changes to the search ability of Windows, this experience did not improve under Windows 7 quite to the opposite actually..  The thing is, if you allow indexing of your drives searching is bearable – however if you like me have several terrabytes of data then Windows will never stop indexing, and the constant ‘ticking’ of the harddrive was driving me insane. For a long time I decided to just live the very basic search ability in Windows 7/vista, it is quite possible to search for filenames and extentions – however the other day I really needed the ability to search for files containing a special text string – something that is impossible if you have turned indexing off (as far as I have been able to figure out).  So after googling the subject I found several different utilities that could remedy this, however most at a price of around $25, now normally I don’t mind paying for something useful however as I use this quite seldom I decided to keep googling 🙂 And I am pleased to announce that not only did I find something free it is awesome 😀 Your search ends here;  http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/search_my_files.html This utility is just brilliant and offers you tons of different search options.. tags; Windows, Search, Within, Text, Content Curse Microsoft for their stupid changes to the basic Windows Search.