When I open a Windows File Explorer window it has a "search box" at the top
right which works but I can never "recover" from using it.

I have to kill the File Explorer window altogether to get back to a "normal"
Windows File Explorer window GUI.

Is there a way to search for something and recover gracefully without having
to kill the Windows File Explorer window to get back to a normal GUI view?

John wrote:
> When I open a Windows File Explorer window it has a "search box" at the top
> right which works but I can never "recover" from using it.
>
> I have to kill the File Explorer window altogether to get back to a "normal"
> Windows File Explorer window GUI.
>
> Is there a way to search for something and recover gracefully without having
> to kill the Windows File Explorer window to get back to a normal GUI view?
>
The ribbon has a 'Close Search' option on the Ribbon's Search tab.
- is the Ribbon hidden or is the 'Close Search' option missing

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 16:55:57 -0700, ...w�񧱤� wrote:

>> Is there a way to search for something and recover gracefully without having
>> to kill the Windows File Explorer window to get back to a normal GUI view?
>>
> The ribbon has a 'Close Search' option on the Ribbon's Search tab.
> - is the Ribbon hidden or is the 'Close Search' option missing

Thanks! That's it!

I never noticed that "Search Ribbon" on top of the search results is
DIFFERENT from the normal "File Explorer Ribbon" which I always ignore (and
don't know how to get rid of).

I hate the normal File Explorer Ribbon so I just ignored that it wasn't even
there anymore as it was replaced by that Search Ribbon. My mistake.

On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 01:37:51 +0100, John wrote:
> the normal "File Explorer Ribbon" which I always ignore (and
> don't know how to get rid of).
>

Same as in MS Office: Right-click the ribbon and select Minimize.

You can bring it back by clicking the top part of the window and un-
checking Minimize.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On 3/19/2022 8:37 PM, John wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 16:55:57 -0700, ...w�񧱤� wrote:
>
>>> Is there a way to search for something and recover gracefully without having
>>> to kill the Windows File Explorer window to get back to a normal GUI view?
>>>
>> The ribbon has a 'Close Search' option on the Ribbon's Search tab.
>> - is the Ribbon hidden or is the 'Close Search' option missing
>
> Thanks! That's it!
>
> I never noticed that "Search Ribbon" on top of the search results is
> DIFFERENT from the normal "File Explorer Ribbon" which I always ignore (and
> don't know how to get rid of).
>
> I hate the normal File Explorer Ribbon so I just ignored that it wasn't even
> there anymore as it was replaced by that Search Ribbon. My mistake.
>

If you set up the indexing on it (control panel : Indexing Options),
you can get better results. An index with a million files in it,
the search concludes in anywhere from 3 seconds to 60 seconds.
The index rebuilt itself several times over a period of three
days (without me telling it to start over again), before it
finally settled down. This is not normal behavior, because the
index is only supposed to rebuild itself, every three months or so.

Then, the usage of search language and not just "naive" searches, that
helps when the index exists and is healthy.

Examples of searches (File Explorer upper-right search box):

birthday # Naive search which searches "content" as well
# as "filename". This is taxing for the search thing.
# Don't do this. This gives worst-case behavior.

filename:birthday # partial or full match, not including extension field
# This is a high-runner format usage on mine.

ext:txt # list all my text files from the current explorer
# folder downwards.

content:"birthday cake" # Double quotes can help occasionally, when you don't
# want a confused result

What is supposed to happen, is when you enter a commandword, it
is supposed to change color to confirm it is a member of the
command set. On Windows 11, there is no colored text, so I
can't be sure if the command is "content" or "contents".
On W7, the word might turn blue when it matches a commandword
from the command set.

You can try "View : Details" to make the output look
a bit better. The search does not use that by default.

The "Open File Location" should really do this in a new
window, and the fact it opens in the current view (where
you just did a search), is so so wrong from a performance
viewpoint. I tear some of my hair out when I see this.

You can make more complicated queries than my pitiful examples.
Compound searches including size ranges or date ranges
are also allowed.

Just don't do "birthday" the way I did for the first one,
because that brings out the absolute worst behavior.
That's how I first started doing them. Took me a while
to realize, you really need those command words.

And setting up the index, so that all areas are indexed,
will help bound the execution time for you. If you don't
want to set up the index, then just don't use that search
box :-) The Federated Search is an "all-or-nothing" project.
Do it right, or don't do it at all.

Now, you won't need to "close the search".

The search is also script-able, and what we learn from that,
is some of the search time is wasted by File Explorer formatting
the results.

Here, I've set up the indexing options on two partitions.
I cannot remove the "Data" entry shown in the right column,
because down there lives "Windows.edb" and a set of journal files.
These represent the index that the Search Indexer is building,
and if it saw those changing, it would go into an infinite
loop. Really, the code for the gatherer should be hard-coded
to stay away from those files, but what the hell do I know.
It's pretty hard to tell whether the indexer is in a loop, or
files really are being deleted and created while your
hands are off the keyboard.

[Picture] If the frame is blank, right-click and select "Reload"

https://i.postimg.cc/B6hj2jRR/indexing-options.gif

If you don't have a Control Panels, use a right-click of Start

Start : Run : control

If I ask the search to find "Windows.edb" like this, it can't
find it. Because it's not in the index. Finding this puppy
is a forensics project.

Windows.edb <return>

It is in here, and you can see where the word "Data" comes from:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows
Windows.edb 1,342,177,280 bytes

Paul

John wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 16:55:57 -0700, ...w�񧱤� wrote:
>
>>> Is there a way to search for something and recover gracefully without having
>>> to kill the Windows File Explorer window to get back to a normal GUI view?
>>>
>> The ribbon has a 'Close Search' option on the Ribbon's Search tab.
>> - is the Ribbon hidden or is the 'Close Search' option missing
>
> Thanks! That's it!
>
> I never noticed that "Search Ribbon" on top of the search results is
> DIFFERENT from the normal "File Explorer Ribbon" which I always ignore (and
> don't know how to get rid of).
>
> I hate the normal File Explorer Ribbon so I just ignored that it wasn't even
> there anymore as it was replaced by that Search Ribbon. My mistake.
>
You're welcome.

The File Explorer ribbon has File menu and three tabes - Home, Share,
and View by default.

Additional tabs are added when a folder or feature is accessed.
- Use the 'Search' feature, a Search tab is added to the File Explorer
ribbon.
- Click on a file in a folder(e.g. Music or folder containing music) -
a 'Music Tools' tab is added
- click on a file that performs an action(e.g. *.reg, *.exe or other)
a 'Manage' tab is added.

The File Explorer ribbon's specific Tab items go away when
hidden/minimized, but the File Explorer Ribbon and its Tabs remain, not
replaced.

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ