Find in Files not working in VS 2010

Question

Hi all,

Find in Files does not work anymore for me in Visual Studio 2010. When I enter search criteria in the Find in Files window the only thing that shows up in the Find Results window is a message similar to this one:

  Find all "whatever", Subfolders, Find Results 1, "Entire Solution".

  Matching lines: 60  Matching files: 5   Total files searched: 151

but no actual list of files shows up. The Find Results window only shows the summary, but not the actual results.

Any idea how to fix this??

Lucien.

 

Answer 1

Hi Lucien,

Try resetting your Visual Studio settings (Tools --> Import and Export Settings --> Reset all settings).

---

Best regards,
Ferry Meidianto | My Blog

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 2

Thanks, Ferry.

Just tried that, but no luck. Still the same. Any other suggestions?

Lucien.

 

Answer 3

Thanks, Ferry.

Just tried that, but no luck. Still the same. Any other suggestions?

Lucien.

 

Open the project folder using Windows Explorer, then locate .suo file.

Delete it and then open the Solution file. See if that works.

---

Best regards,
Ferry Meidianto | My Blog

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 4

Hello, Lucien

Does this issue happen when working with another project? Could you tell me whether “Display files names only” is checked?

Actually the find and replace options is in “Tools-options”, expand “Environment”-“Find and Replace”. Check these options please.

Thanks
Chao

Answer 5

Hi Ferry,

Unfortunately, deleting the .suo file made no difference either.

Neither did disabling or uninstalling any add-ins or extensions.

Lucien.

 

 

Answer 6

Hi Chao,

Thanks for trying to help.

I still have to verify whether this happens with other projects as well, but I did check the find options. Checking or unchecking "Display file names only" makes no difference.

I just did rolled my PC back to a backup of 2 months ago, but the problem occurred then as well, which only tells me that it is unrelated to a recent update, add-in or extension.

Any other suggestions?

Lucien.

Answer 7

Hello, Lucien

I am sorry for the delay.

Please try the following method. Open your regedit, and open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\. Then delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Find key. Then restart visual studio.

Please let me know whether this works.

Thanks

Chao

Answer 8

Hi Chao,

Before I got your message I spent about 16 hours trying the "repair" VS2010 to see if that would solve the problem - also because I could not get the Extension Manager to connect to the Gallery anymore either.

Something must have been wrong with the registry, because the repair threw up numerous error messages 1402 ("Setup cannot open the registry key: UNKNOWN\Components\...") which I fixed one by one by changing the permissions and ownership for the offending keys. Since I had to restart (and reboot) the lengthy install after every failure, this took forever.

At last it succeeded, but after starting VS it still complained about a few components. Got past those as well and was able to connect the Extension Manager.

Since Find in Files was still not working, I tried your suggestion to delete the Find key from the registry and - lo and behold! - that fixed the Find problem - thanks so much for that!

Still baffled about all the 1402 messages, though, and also wished it was possible to restart a repair or install at different points, so I can skip the steps that it already succeeded in repairing or installing... sigh.

But - we have progress. Thanks for your help!

Lucien.

Answer 9

Hello, Lucien

I am sorry for the delay.

Please try the following method. Open your regedit, and open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\. Then delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Find key. Then restart visual studio.

Please let me know whether this works.

Thanks

Chao

The Find doesn't work in my VS 2010 Trail installation either. It stopped working a while ago. I googled (oops sorry, I Binged) and found a magic command-line tool (in the vs tools folder) that got it working. A couple of days ago, it stopped working again, but this time I don't seem to be able to find command-line instructions on the net. I followed your suggestion and removed the find key from the specified location... it is NOT working.

 

:(

n.o.

 

Okay use the cmd prompt from the Visual Studio 2010 tools menu (via the start menu) and type in the following:

 

> devenv /resetsettings

 

that should fix it.

 

:)

n.o.

Answer 10

Hello, NassOss

Thanks for your reply, please note Ferry Meidianto's reply. Using devenv /resetsettings is the same with resetsetting in IDE as what Ferry said. Unfortunately, it does not help.

Thanks

Chao

---

Please unmark it if it does not help, and mark it if it helps.

Answer 11

Abandon hope all ye who screw with registry.

Before you waste days cursing your VS BS please try the following:

hit ctrl+break or ctrl+scroll.

in my case i was frozen and building and i really just wanted to overlay a folder as my site was hosed anyway and i was rolling back.

i could not close VS but then it told me build is in progress you must cancel build before... blah blah so I hit ctrl+break.

anyway then the find in files got flaky as all pie crust and i found this site. when i saw some guy was reinstalling and registry spehlunkin' just to fix this i knew at a gut level he was caught in MSFT support hell:

so just one more google had me find the ctrl+break solution above and now i can go back to my ever freezing vs 2010. ever freezing even though i program on a dell poweredge t605 server with a dozen gigs of ram and 2 3ghz chips. 

here is link: happy spehlunkin' punkin'

http://www.dev102.com/2008/09/04/how-to-solve-no-files-were-found-to-look-in-find-was-stopped-in-progress/

Cary Abramoff, MCSD.NET

 

 

 

 

Answer 12

Kraftyman is correct. I can't believe it but this was the second time I've been inflicted with this bug and I completely forgot about the Ctrl-Scroll Lock fix. Also try Ctrl-Num Lock if Ctrl-Scroll Lock doesn't fix it.

Answer 13

Thanks Ferry Meidianto that did it for me. Prior to that all Find files was a no go. I didn't even get the find dialog.  After this settings change it now works.

---

Software Engineer