In This Chapter

Finding currently running apps and programs

Finding lost desktop windows and files

Finding lost programs, e-mails, songs, photos, and documents

Finding other computers on a network

Sooner or later, Windows gives you that head-scratching feeling. “Golly,” you say as you drum nervous fingers, “that stuff was right there a second ago. Where did it go?”

When Windows starts playing hide-and-seek, this chapter tells you where to search and how to make it stop playing foolish games.

Finding Currently Running Apps and Programs

Apps usually hog the entire screen on Windows 10 tablets. Switch to another app, and it fills the screen, covering up the previous app. Sure, your current app is easy to read, but at a cost: Your other running apps remain constantly hidden beneath an invisibility cloak.

The Windows desktop lets you run apps and programs in separate windows. But even then, those windows tend to overlap, hiding the ones beneath.

How do you find and return to an app or program you just used? How do you jump between them, perhaps glancing at a report while creating a spreadsheet?

Windows offers a quick solution to the problem: It can clear the screen, shrink all your running apps and programs into miniature windows, and show you the lineup, as displayed in Figure 7-1. Click the app or program you want, and it returns to active duty at its normal size.

• Mouse: Click the taskbar’s Task View button, just to the right of the taskbar’s search box. To switch to an app, click it. To close an app, right-click its thumbnail and choose Close. (You can also click the X in the thumbnail’s upper-right corner.)
• Keyboard: Press +Tab to see the list of your most recently used apps, as shown in Figure 7-1. Press the Left or Right arrows to select different miniature windows. When you’ve selected your desired window, press Enter, and the app fills the screen.

• Touchscreen: When running in Tablet mode, slide your finger gently inward from the screen’s left edge. Your open apps and programs align themselves as miniatures, as shown earlier in Figure 7-1. Tap any app on the strip to make it fill the screen. To close an unwanted app, tap the X in its upper-right corner.

The Windows 10 Task View button shows your currently running apps and desktop programs. (Windows 8 and 8.1, by contrast, simply show the desktop as a single miniature window. They don’t show any of the desktop’s open programs.)

Clicking the Task View button also lets you create a virtual desktop, an odd new Windows 10 concept that I cover in Chapter 3.

Finding Lost Windows on the Desktop

The Windows desktop works much like a spike memo holder. Every time you open a new window or program, you toss another piece of information onto the spike. The window on top is easy to spot, but how do you reach the windows lying beneath it?

If you can see any part of a buried window’s edge or corner, a well-placed click fetches it, bringing it to the top.

When your window is completely buried, look at the desktop’s taskbar — that strip along your screen’s bottom edge. Spot your missing window’s name on the taskbar? Click it to dredge it back to the top. (See Chapter 3 for details about the taskbar.)

Still can’t get at that missing window? Hold down the Alt key and press Tab. Shown in Figure 7-2, Windows shows thumbnails of all your open windows, programs, and apps in a strip across the screen’s center. While holding down the Alt key, repeatedly press Tab (or roll your mouse’s scroll wheel), and the highlighted app or window fills your screen with each press of the Tab key. Spot your window? Let go of the Alt key, and that window appears atop your desktop.

If you’re convinced a window is open but you still can’t find it, spread all your windows across the desktop by right-clicking a blank spot on the taskbar along the desktop’s bottom and choosing Show Windows Side By Side from the pop-up menu. It’s a last resort, but perhaps you’ll spot your missing window in the lineup.

Locating a Missing App, Program, Setting, or File

The preceding two sections explain how to find currently running apps and programs. But what about things that you haven’t looked at for a while?

That’s the job of the Windows Search box, which lives next to the Start button. To help you find wandering files, hidden settings, or even things stashed on websites you’ve never visited, the Search box searches for everything.

To search for missing things, follow these steps:

1. Type what you’d like to find into the Search box next to the Start button.

   As you begin typing, Windows immediately begins searching for matches. (You can also verbally tell your computer what to search for, as described in this chapter’s “Searching with Cortana” section.)

   For example, here’s what happens when searching for trumpeter Lee Morgan: As you begin typing letters, Windows begins listing files with matching names, shown in Figure 7-3. After just typing in Lee, for example, you see a matching MP3 file.

   At this point, the Search box concentrates on speed, so it searches only for matching file names stored on your computer or OneDrive.

   If you spot your missing item, jump ahead to Step 4.

   If you finish typing your complete search term but don’t see your sought-after item on the Search list, move on to Step 2. You need to define your search more thoroughly.

2. Limit your search to either your computer or the Internet.

   When launched, the Search box searches only for matching filenames. If it doesn’t find a match, route your search to one of the two categories at the bottom of the Search list:

   • My Stuff: Choose this category to limit the search to items contained only on your own computer. A window appears, as shown in Figure 7-4, listing the results in a scrollable list. If you see too many items, narrow the search by clicking the word Filter atop the list, and choosing one of the drop-down menu’s categories: All, Documents, Folders, Apps, Settings, Photos, Videos, or Music.
   • Web: This category stops searching through your computer and instead routes your search straight to the Internet. Your web browser opens to show web pages matching your request.

   No matter which of the two categories you choose, Windows immediately shows potential matches.

3. Choose a matching item to open it, bringing it to the screen.

   Click a song, for example, and it begins playing. Click a setting, and the Control Panel or Settings app appears, open to your setting’s contents. Click a letter, and it opens in your word processor.

These tips can help you wring the most out of the Search feature:

• In its emphasis on speed, the Search pane lists only files with names that match your search term. While this strategy sometimes helps you find quick matches, it won’t find your shopping list if you search for oranges. When you don’t spot a sure match, finish typing your search term and then click either the My Stuff or Web buttons along the pane’s bottom.
• Don’t press the Enter key after typing in your Search. If you do that, Windows calls up the first match, which may not be what you want. Wait to see what matches turn up and then click the desired match.
• The Windows search scours every file in your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders, which makes storing your files in those folders more important than ever.
• The Windows search also scours every file you store on OneDrive, even if those files aren’t also stored on your PC.
• Windows doesn’t search for files stored in removable devices, such as flash drives, CDs, DVDs, or portable hard drives.
• If you’re searching for a common word and Windows turns up too many files, limit your search by typing a short phrase from your sought-after file: Shortly after the cat nibbled the bamboo, for example. The more words you type, the better your chances of pinpointing a particular file.
• The Search box ignores capital letters. It considers Bee and bee to be the same insect.

Searching with Cortana

Windows 10 includes a friendly personal digital assistant named Cortana. Cortana tries to simplify your life by finding not only missing files but also helpful bits of information about you and your surroundings — for example, local weather updates, traffic information about the drive home, or perhaps a list of popular nearby restaurants. A forward thinker, Cortana can even remind you when your favorite band visits your town.

Actually, you’ve already met Cortana: It’s the brains behind the Start menu’s Search box.

Constantly listening through the microphone on your PC, tablet, or phone, Cortana waits anxiously for the term “Hey Cortana.” When Cortana hears you say those two words, it listens closely for your search term and begins processing your request.

To search the Internet for the singer Lady Gaga, for example, say “Hey Cortana Lady Gaga.” Don’t pause after saying “Hey, Cortana,” or you’ll create confusion. Say the phrase in one fairly quick burst.

Cortana quickly fires up your web browser and Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, and fetches all the information it can find about Lady Gaga.

In Chapter 9, I explain how Cortana teams up with the new Microsoft Edge browser to help with your Internet searches.

Finding a Missing File inside a Folder

The Start menu’s Search pane can be overkill when you’re poking around inside a single desktop folder, looking for a missing file. To solve the “sea of files in a folder” problem, Windows includes a Search box in every desktop folder’s upper-right corner. That Search box limits your search to files within that particular folder.

To find a missing file within a specific folder, click inside that folder’s Search box and begin typing a word or short phrase from your missing file. As you type letters and words, Windows begins filtering out files that are missing your sought-after word or phrase. It keeps narrowing down the candidates until the folder displays only a few files, including, I hope, your runaway file.

When a folder’s Search box locates too many possible matches, bring in some other helping hands: the headers above each column. For best results, select the Details option in the View tab’s Layout group, which lines up your filenames in one column, as shown in Figure 7-5. The first column, Name, lists the name of each file, and the adjacent columns list specific details about each file.

See the column headers, such as Name, Date Modified, and Type, atop each column? Click any of those headers to sort your files by that term. Here’s how to sort by some of the column headers you may see in your Documents folder:

• Name: Know the first letter of your file’s name? Then click here to sort your files alphabetically. You can then pluck your file from the list. (Click Name again to reverse the sort order.)
• Date Modified: When you remember the approximate date you last changed a document, click the Date Modified header. That places your newest files atop the list, making them easy to locate. (Clicking Date Modified again reverses the order, a handy way to weed out old files you may no longer need.)
• Type: This header sorts files by their contents. All your photos group together, for example, as do all your Word documents. It’s a handy way to find a few stray photos swimming in a sea of text files.
• Size: Sorting here places your 45-page thesis on one end and your grocery list on the other.
• Authors: Microsoft Word and other programs tack your name onto your work. A click on this label sorts the files alphabetically by their creators’ names.
• Tags: Windows often lets you assign tags to your documents and photos, a task I describe later in this chapter. Adding the tag “Moldy Cheese” to that pungent photo session lets you retrieve those pictures by either typing the tag or sorting a folder’s files by their tags.

Folders usually display about five columns of details, but you can add more columns. In fact, you can sort files by their word count, song length, photo size, creation date, and dozens of other details. To see a list of available detail columns, right-click an existing label along a column’s top. When the drop-down menu appears, select More to see the Choose Details dialog box. Click to put check marks next to the new detail columns you’d like to see and then click OK.

Finding Lost Photos

Windows indexes your e-mail down to the last word, but it can’t tell the difference between photos of your cat and photos of your office party. When it comes to photos, the ID work lies in your hands, and these four tips make the chore as easy as possible:

• Tag your photos. When you connect your camera to your PC, as described in Chapter 17, and choose Import Photos and Videos, Windows graciously offers to copy your photos to your PC. Before copying, Windows asks you to tag those pictures. That’s your big chance to type a few words describing your photo session. Windows indexes those words as a single tag, making the photos easier to retrieve later.
• Store shooting sessions in separate folders. The Windows photo importing program automatically creates a new folder to store each session, named after the current date and the tag you choose. But if you’re using some other program to dump photos, be sure to create a new folder for each session. Then name the folder with a short description of your session: Dog Walk, Kite Surfing, or Truffle Hunt. (Windows indexes the folder names.)
• Sort by date. Have you stumbled onto a massive folder that’s a mishmash of digital photos? Try this quick sorting trick: Click the View tab and choose Large Icons to make the photos morph into identifiable thumbnails. Then, from the View tab menu, choose Sort By and select Date Taken. Windows sorts the photos by the date you snapped them, turning chaos into organization.
• Rename your photos. Instead of leaving your Tunisian vacation photos with their boring camera-given names like DSC_2421, DSC_2422, and so on, give them meaningful names: Select all the files in your Tunisia folder by clicking the Home tab on the Ribbon and clicking the Select All button. Then right-click the first picture, choose Rename, and type Tunisia. Windows names them as Tunisia, Tunisia (2), Tunisia (3), and so on. (If you messed up, press Ctrl+Z to undo the renaming.)

Following those simple rules helps keep your photo collection from becoming a jumble of files.

Be sure to back up your digital photos to a portable hard drive, CDs, DVDs, or another backup method I describe in Chapter 13. If they’re not backed up, you’ll lose your family history when your PC’s hard drive eventually crashes.

Finding Other Computers on a Network

A network is simply a group of connected PCs that can share things, such as your Internet connection, files, or a printer. Most people use a public network every day without knowing it: Every time you check your e-mail, your PC connects to another PC on the Internet to grab your waiting messages.

Much of the time, you needn’t care about the other PCs on your private network. But when you want to find a connected PC, perhaps to grab files from the PC in your family room, Windows is happy to help.

In fact, Windows has something called a Homegroup system that makes it easier than ever to share files with other Windows PCs. Creating a Homegroup is as simple as entering the same password on every connected PC.

To find a PC on your Homegroup or traditional network, open any folder and click the word Network on the Navigation Pane along the folder’s left edge, as shown in Figure 7-6.

Clicking Network lists every PC that’s connected to your own PC in a traditional network. Clicking Homegroup in the Navigation Pane lists Windows PCs in your Homegroup, a simpler way to share files. To browse files on any of those PCs in either category, just double-click their names.

I walk through the steps of creating both your own Homegroup and home network in Chapter 15.