Turn On Natural Language Search?

This used to be an option in Windows 7. So lets say you're in a folder, the feature allowed you to type something like "author coldplay" in the search box to bring up all your MP3 files that have "coldplay" as the author, rather than "author: coldplay". You could also use it to search by tag, file size, whatever...just made things a bit quicker.

It used to be under file > folder options > search, but now when I got there the option is simply gone. I was wondering if there was another way to enable it again?

Ummm, yeah thanks...I know that already...my question was concerning the natural language search feature that allowed me to simply type "author X" rather than "author: X"....it seems to be gone in Windows 10.

I am not sure if you already discovered this, but the ability to issue natural language search queries was removed from Windows starting with Windows 8; therefore, the option is not in Windows 10. I was delightfully surprised when it was introduced in Windows Vista.

It is a great shame that it was removed because it, as you stated, made certain queries faster (for example, instead of typing datecreated:today to find all items created on the relative date today, one could type created today). It enabled a new "about" determiner that searched names, tags, contents, and subjects of files simultaneously. It also enabled advanced natural language queries.

Examples of queries include:

• Email received last year from Microsoft about Windows Vista
• Documents by Ian about werewolves
• Pictures taken October 2006
• Songs by Artist rating *****

It was intelligent enough to allow users to use different search terms interchangeably. To find pictures, for example, users could type images, photos, or pictures. For music tracks, audio, music, and songs.

dalchina said:

Reading articles like this
Master Windows 10's secret, powerful natural language search tools | PCWorld
might raise one's hopes- they are very quickly dashed!

I do not regard the examples there—and thus the functionality in Windows 10—as natural. Surely one would not think to, for instance, speak or write "Show me" to begin a query when searching for documents created last week.