Windows Search: Searchable File Types

Related Links

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• Windows Vista
• Windows Search 4.0
• Technical FAQ
• Indexing
• IFilter information

Windows Search, including the search functionality in Windows Vista, indexes more than 200 of the most common file types as soon as the software is installed. However, new and proprietary file types are regularly created that Windows Search cannot natively index. To include these file types in the search index, IT professionals can employ IFilters.

IFilters are a component of the indexing service included with Microsoft Windows 2000 and subsequent versions of Windows. If a file type you want to search for is not listed in the following tables, you may be able to download an add-in for Windows Search that allows the software to index that file type. If an IFilter is not available you can write and deploy your own using the Search APIs. For more information, see the MSDN documentation for Adding Data to the Index.

Windows Search indexes the file name and metadata for every file type and also indexes the entire contents of many file types. The following table provides a detailed look at the files indexed.

	Type	File Name and Metadata	Entire Contents	Notes
	E-mail		eml, msg	If a .msg file contains another .msg file as an attachment, only the name of the attached .msg file is indexed.
	Contacts	vcard	vcf
	Appointments	ics, vcs
	Documents	ade, adp, mpd, mde, mpc, mpp, mpv, vdx, mpx, vsl, vst, vsw, vsx, vtx
	Text Documents	dvi, eps, jnt, latex, pm, pm5, ps, pt5, rtx, tex, xml, pdf	doc, dot, htm, html, mht, one, rtf, txt, xml	To search the full contents of the pdf file type, refer to the Windows Search add-ins page for the Adobe IFilter.
	Spreadsheets	csv, tsv, wks, xlb, xlc, xll, xlm	xls, xlw
	Presentations	ppz	pot, pps, ppt, xls, xlw
	Music	aac,aif,aiff,amf,au,cda,dfs,dss,far, m3u, mid, midi, mp3, mus, okt, p16, psm, ra, ram, rmi, s3m, snd, sng, stm, ult, uw, voc, wav, wma, xm, xmi
	Pictures	3ds, a11, ai, ani, anm, art, b_w, b&w, b1n, b8, bga, bit, bld, bm, cdf, cdr, cmp, cps, cvs, dib, dip, dcx, dkb, dw2, dwg, fh3, fh4, fit, flc, fli, gcd, gif, gl, gsd, hrf, hs2, hsi, iax, ica, jas, jff, jpc, icb, jpe, jpeg, jpg, jtf, lbm, mpt, msp, nc, neo, pct, pcx, pda, pdd, pgm, pix, png, ppm, psd, pse, qdv, rgb, rif, rip, rix, rl4, rl8, sg1, tif, tiff, van, vda, vdr, wmf, xif, xpm
	Video	asf, asx, avi, awm, cmv, m1v, mmm, mov, mp2, mpa, mpe, mpeg, mpg, mpv2, mwf, qt, vue, wmv, wvx
	Folders		folder
	Other	acf, aifc, ascx, asm, asp, aspx, bmp, cab, Com, cpl, cs, css, cur, def, dic, emf, gz, hhc, ico, idq, ivf, ivf, jfif, lnk, mapiipm.Note, mda, mp2v, odc, pl, rle, scd, tar, tgz, tsp, wax, wbk, sch, wiz, wm, wmp, wmx, wmz, wri, wsz, wtx, xlk, z, zip	bat, c, cmd, cpp, cxx, Dif, disco, h, hpp, hxx, idl, inc, inf, inx, js, nws, pl, ppa, pwz, rc, reg, resx, slk, url, vbs, xla, xld, xlt, xlv, xsl