Finding non mp3 files using XP Search

[jilgiljongiljing]

Hey I want to find all non mp3 files on my 300gb hdd using the search function on Windows XP.

Is there anyway I can use a NOT operator like NOT *.mp3 or something equivalent. I would l like to be able to club it with NOT Flac as well and give me basically all the non audio files on my hard disk.

Thanks

 

[Quaddy]

not sure there is a way to use exclude operators (-) in the GUI xp search, there are numerous long winded ways of doing it, but nothing instant.
you can via command line....

try this;

find your root (top) mp3 and/or flac folder, right click choose to make hidden, apply to all files and subfolders, then when searching, under advanced option make sure search hidden files and folders is UNTICKED

that will then omit hidden files from the search results.

HTH

 

[infinitesymphony]

Good question, and it looks like there's no way to use the "NOT" operator with Windows XP Search. Vista has Windows Desktop Search (WDS), which allows for comprehensive database-like search commands that would let you exclude filetypes (for example, "is:music:false"). Quaddy's hack is probably an easier way, though.

 

[Bizzel]

Hmm...few replies so far. I'm more of a Linux geek and I'd use a command like this:

find /home/Yourname | grep -v mp3

That'll find all files in the folder and subfolders and pipe the results through grep, which will only return files which aren't of type: mp3.

If you want a listing of the files you can do: find /home/Yourname | grep -v mp3 > ./MyNonMP3Files.txt

You can do that from a bootable linux CD with a few minor changes and you won't damage your windows system at all. I'm pretty sure you can do something similar with Microsoft's Powershell addon for Windows but the standard shell isn't powerful enough (I guess that's why the replacement is called powershell after all). You can find powershell here or if you're still stuck I can write you a quick program that'll do what you need.

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Yeah after a lot of searching around I gave up and downloaded "Effective File Search" which gave me the results in a couple of minutes. Its quite ridiculous that you cannot use an exclude operator in file search, quite dumb IMO.

Quaddy thanks for the suggestion but the files I am looking for are in the same folders along with the mp3 and flac files, so those will be hidden as well and hence it wont work.

I wanted to find all non mp3 and flac files in my music folder on my HDD

Oh and thanks Bizzel, EFS worked just fine for me.