Print file search results

[BigJimbo]

Basically i have found a ton of files on my network that shouldnt be there..

I need to create a printout of all these files for management. Are there any freeware tools that do this?

Or is there a way i can print directly from the windows search?

 

[Fardringle]

I'm not aware of any way to print directly from the Windows Search window, but there is another way to do what you are asking.

1: Open up a Command Prompt (Start>Run>CMD, or Start>Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt).
2: Type cd \ and press Enter
3: Type dir *.doc /s /b > filelist.txt (replace *.doc with the search parameter you want to use like *.dll or *.mp3, or joe.*, etc. and replace filelist.txt with a different file name if you want to use something else) and press Enter

This will give you a file named filelist.txt in the root directory of your C: drive with the file name and full path to the file of all files on the C: drive that meet the search parameters you use. (Use the same search parameters you used in the Windows Search window to obtain the same results).

You can then open the .TXT file in Notepad or any other document editor and print the list from there.


edit: I just noticed that you mentioned these files are scattered on your network. It will take a little more work since you'll need to do this for each of the network drives (or PCs) that have unwanted files, but if you want to put all of the information into the same file for easy management, just use the above command and change the search parameters as appropriate for each network resource and replace the ">" with ">>". This will cause each additional list to be added to the bottom of the information already in the text file.

 

[Fardringle]

Another way to do this that would be more automated, if your users log in to a domain with established login scripts is to put something like this in their login script file:

echo off
print %computername% >> F:\filelist.txt
dir c:\*.doc /s /b >> F:\filelist.txt

As above, replace *.doc with whatever parameters are appropriate for your search. This will cause each individual PC to do the search on its own the next time the user logs in to the computer and place the results into a centralized text file on the F: drive (change the drive letter to something appropriate for your network) and placing the NETBIOS name of the PC at the top of the entries for the specific PC so you can determine where they are located on the network. Make sure you use ">>" and not ">" in both lines so that the information is added to the existing file and doesn't write over the top of any information already stored there. If you don't want to rely on (or wait for) the users to actually log out and back in again to get this info, you can just put the commands in the login script for a single user account and log that account into each of the PCs to obtain the desired information.

Note: "printing" the %computername% parameter to the file will result in a line reading "Can't find the file xxxxxxx" where xxxxxxx is the computer name, but just ignore the first part of the line and pay attention to the actual computer name.

I know there is a way to have it just put the computer name and nothing else in the file but I can't remember exactly how to do it right now.

 

[BigJimbo]

Thanks for the input, i was trying to stay away from the dos command as there were mulitple file extensions i was looking for.

I used SysExporter which worked really good.

one nice thing about this util is that only the exe is needed and nothing is "installed"

Here is the util:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/searchresults.htm


enjoy!

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Karen's Directory Printer. It's free. Prints a directory or saves it to a text file:
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp