PowerShell/Windows Search help

Question

I need the ability to search for a list of key words in multiple user files, primarily doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, txt and pdf. I have written a PowerShell script that does exactly that, searches files for a list of key words and if found saves the file name to a text document. This works perfectly well with the txt documents; however, because Office files are stored more with code then with text the search procedure doesn't work very well against shorter key words. The Windows Search feature in Windows 10 does allow search for any text within Office documents and you can even make it a long list using the OR command, but it is difficult to gauge progress and output the results to a storable format. Scanning through the entire list of file types and keywords against a large data repository is not feasible, in Windows Search mostly because it would take a long time and doesn't show progress.

Is there a way to automate a multiple text search on a directory and all sub-directories for the text contents of Office documents the way it works in Windows Search?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I understand your query related to searching for files with different formats using PowerShell script.

We do have a dedicated forum where you should find support. I would suggest you to post your query on Windows on Q&A, where we have support professionals with expertise to assist you with your query.

Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator