Windows 7 Search – How to Exclude Directories by Wildcard

wildcardswindows 7windows-search

Search Indexing is interfering with our build process, and I would like to exclude all instances of our dev directories from the indexer (we have a trunk and branches setup).
I could exclude the whole parent directory, but that would exclude too many files.

I can do it manually by deselecting each instance in the indexing options, but this is very manual and tedious.

I've found the rules in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\CrawlScopeManager\Windows\SystemIndex\WorkingSetRules, but I don't know if it's kosher to update that on the fly.

Is it possible to exclude directories from Windows Search by wildcard or some other less-manual criteria?

Best Answer

I looked in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\CrawlScopeManager\Windows\SystemIndex\DefaultRules key and found something interesting.

DefaultRules\1 contains:

Default   REG_DWORD    0x00000001
Include   REG_DWORD    0x00000000
Policy    REG_DWORD    0x00000000
Suppress  REG_DWORD    0x00000000
URL       REG_SZ       file:///C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Temp\*

Look at that URL key - two wildcards!

So since Windows Search natively supports wildcards, all we have to do is tweak an existing exception.

Adding wildcard exceptions to Windows Search

Add template exception.
Add an exception for a suitable directory by going to Indexing Options → Modify and deselecting one directory (in my case, C:\Users\MyName\dev\trunk\bin).
Stop the Windows Search service.
Go to Services, select Windows Search, right-click on it, and select Stop.
Find the existing exception.
Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\CrawlScopeManager\Windows\SystemIndex\WorkingSetRules.
Look through each numbered subkey to find yours.
Tweak the exception.
In my case, I have multiple branches checked out, so I will have directories for trunk and for each versioned branch (such as 3.2, 4.0, etc). So I changed the URL key from
```
file:///C:\Users\MyName\dev\ProjectName\trunk\bin
```
to
```
file:///C:\Users\MyName\dev\ProjectName\*\bin
```
Restart the Windows Search service.
Right-click on Windows Search and select Start or Restart.

That's it! The directories are even unchecked/excluded in the Indexing Options.

Robocopy

Just specify the starting directory C:\ and the target file name *File.txt

robocopy C:\ %Temp% *File.txt /S /XD Windows "Program Files" "Program Files (x86)" /XJ /L /NS /NC /NDL /NP /NJH /NJS

Output

C:\Users\Username\Desktop>robocopy C:\ %Temp% *Snapshot.txt /S /XD Windows "Program Files" "Program Files (x86)" /XJ /L /NS /NC /NDL /NP /NJH /NJS

                            C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1408-31_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1523-47_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1534-17_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1535-55_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1537-44_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1552-44_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1553-21_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1556-05_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1558-45_Snapshot.txt
                            C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1610-06_Snapshot.txt

xcopy

setup takes a couple extra steps.

An exclude.txt text file must be created which contains the keywords to exclude in the search.
To prevent a cyclical copy error message, a temporary drive letter must be created or another drive must be used as the target directory.
Then specify the starting directory C:\ and the target file name *File.txt

exclude.txt

\Windows\
\Program Files\
\Program Files (x86)\

Commands

subst Z: %Temp%
xcopy C:\*File.txt Z:\ /S /L /EXCLUDE:exclude.txt
subst Z: \d

Output

C:\Users\Username\Desktop>xcopy C:\*Snapshot.txt Z:\ /S /L /EXCLUDE:exclude.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1408-31_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1523-47_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1534-17_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1535-55_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-13-1537-44_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1552-44_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1553-21_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1556-05_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1558-45_Snapshot.txt
C:\Temp\2013-02-18-1610-06_Snapshot.txt
10 File(s)

Notes

The target is needed only to use the commands (%Temp%), nothing is actually copied due to /L

Both command took under a couple seconds to run with the listed exclusions.

Best Answer

Adding wildcard exceptions to Windows Search

Related Solutions

Windows – How to exclude an Outlook folder form Windows Search Index in Windows 7

Windows – How to exclude specific directories from a Windows search

Robocopy

xcopy

Notes

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