In XP it was simple with the intuitive Advanced Search Options.Even if you enable "Don't show Hidden Files and Folders" in Windows 7, they still show up in the search menu. A similar post included a suggestion by a support dude to post a question here. I've searched for every possible solution and yet something so simple appears to be non existent. Has Microsoft just lost its mind with omitting this feature? Is this something that will never be solved? Indexed or not, hidden files and folders still appear in Search.Thanks

what have you setup in Explorer->Organize->Folder & Search Options?if you have at some stage indexed all those system folders, and subsquently removed those from the index scope, then you may need to rebuild the index so those results are not presented by searches?i've assumed that you are getting things like \windows included, and this seems to be typical. perhaps because some common tools like notepad, wordpad etc reside in those folders.have you checked out the Indexing Options?from memory, "don't show hidden & system" really only obscures the stuff when you're browsing in explorer. the indexing engine doesn't respect that kind of setting. you'll need to get your indexing scope worked out to affect the search results presented.

what have you setup in Explorer->Organize->Folder & Search Options?Don't show hidden and Hide: Empty, Protected, etc. all tickedif you have at some stage indexed all those system folders, and subsquently removed those from the index scope, then you may need to rebuild the index so those results are not presented by searches?i've assumed that you are getting things like \windows included, and this seems to be typical. perhaps because some common tools like notepad, wordpad etc reside in those folders.have you checked out the Indexing Options?from memory, "don't show hidden & system" really only obscures the stuff when you're browsing in explorer. the indexing engine doesn't respect that kind of setting. you'll need to get your indexing scope worked out to affect the search results presented.I'm not concerned much with indexing, it's just amazing that there is no option to stop "Search" from searching hidden files and folders when "Don't show hidden" is checked - the way it was with XP, etc. As I understand it whether folder is indexed or not, will not stop "SEARCH" from searching them. It was quite simple in XP but in Windows 7 it seems it is impossible.

This should not happen. Do you install any other search tools? If so that may be the problem.Arthur Xie - MSFT

This should not happen. Do you install any other search tools? If so that may be the problem.Arthur Xie - MSFTI have not installed any other search tools - as I understand it other users consider this a 7 bug.

Unfortunatly there's a problem with windows 7 which so called micorosft engineers dont know about or dont like to know about.- Windows seven does not search hidden folders with hidden files, right.- But Widnows seven *WILL* search *non hidden* files in hidden folders. You can simply search in hidden folders which their files have not hidden attributes.This is the problem with windows seven which didnt exist in ealier releases of Windows operating system.Hope somebody out there fix this problem in a patch.Cheers.

This should not happen. Do you install any other search tools? If so that may be the problem.Arthur Xie - MSFTI have not installed any other search tools - as I understand it other users consider this a 7 bug.Unfortunatly there's a problem with windows 7 which so called micorosft engineers dont know about or dont like to know about.- Windows seven does not search hidden folders with hidden files, right.- But Widnows seven *WILL* search *non hidden* files in hidden folders. You can simply search in hidden folders which their files have not hidden attributes.This is the problem with windows seven which didnt exist in ealier releases of Windows operating system.Hope somebody out there fix this problem in a patch.Cheers.

We will report this feedback to proper department. Thanks you for your feedbacks Arthur Xie - MSFT

Hi, looks like this page made it to the top on google search results for 'windows 7 search hidden', not being able to search in peoples hidden folders is pretty important LOL!

I have the same problem. The Windows 7 search functionality is not as good as XP.